5th Annual Drukpa Council from Aug 29-Sept 5, 2013

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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia -- The 5th Annual Drukpa Council has been scheduled for 29 Aug to 5 Sept 2013, at the Hemis Monastery, Ladakh, India. This is likely to be the last time that Ladakh will play host to the world's largest assembly of Drukpa Masters.

The Annual Drukpa Council (ADC) is a yearly event for the masters and followers of the Drukpa Lineage to come together, exchange views and spiritual knowledge. Both the experienced and young Rinpoches of the Drukpa Lineage would be requested to give teachings and share their wisdom and experience during the ADC.

A brainchild of His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa, the spiritual head of the Drukpa Lineage, ADC aims to provide a platform for building and nourishing inter-group relationships within the Drukpa Lineage as well as to introduce and share the richness of its spiritual legacy with others. It also provides an annual gathering for the masters and the followers of the Drukpa Lineage to meet once a year, thus providing opportunity to receive teaching, empowerment, oral transmission, from accomplished Dragon masters of Tibet, Bhutan, India and Nepal.

ADC includes not only traditional rituals and practices, but also open discussions and exchange of views regarding the practical use of spirituality to resolve today's difficulties. It also functions as a forum to increase our ability to work more productively together in a harmonious way.

One of the key driving forces of the ADC is to promote Live to Love which is the practical aspect of inculcating loving-kindness and compassion in the world today.

About The Drukpa Lineage

The Drukpa Lineage or Lineage of the Dragons has the legacy of guiding countless beings on the path of Dharma and ultimate enlightenment for more than 800 years.

Yet with the passage of time, several important teachings and traditions of the lineage, such as the Yogini tradition within the Drukpa Lineage have been lost.

The teachings of the three mad yogis: i.e. Tsangnyon Heruka (1452-1507), Druknyon Kunga Legpa (also known as Drukpa Kunleg, 1455-1529) and Unyon Kunga Sangpo (1458-1532) are almost disappearing.

Many Drukpa followers neither know much about the Three Divine Madmen nor about other enlightened masters of the Drukpa Lineage such as Gyalwa Yangonpa (1213-1258) and Gyalwa Lorepa (1187-1250), even many of the monks and nuns do not know their biographies.

Those who are interested in attending the ADC, please email to contact@drukpa-hk.org for preliminary registration. Further details will be provided once available.

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Hemis Festival Celebrated by Drukpa Buddhists with Much Fanfare

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LEH, India -- The 2-day annual celebration by the Drukpa Buddhists - the Hemis festival began today at the Hemis Monastery, Ladakh with much fanfare.

The festival was blessed by the spiritual head, His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa, and was attended by over 25000 guests from across the world. The courtyard of Hemis Gompa-the biggest Buddhist monastery in Ladakh is the permanent venue for the famous festival which commemorates the birth anniversary of Guru Padmasambhava, the 8th century Indian guru revered for spreading Tantrayana Buddhism throughout the entire Himalayas.

Drukpa Buddhists celebrate the legendary Hemis Festival with great enthusiasm annually. The colourful two-day pageant falls on the 10th day (Tse-Chu) of the Tibetan lunar month. The festival duration is marked as a local holiday, and involves the entire city. Locals dress up in their finest traditional garb for the occasion and throng the festival venue.

On the first day, People from a cross section of societies and countries jostled with each other to watch Lamas called 'chhams' perform splendid masked dances and sacred plays to the accompaniment of cymbals, drums and long horns. Sacred plays accompanied by cymbals, long horns and drums were also performed. The highlight of the Hemis Festival is the Masked Dance, performed by the monks, demonstrating good prevailing over evil.

The performers wear elaborate and colourful costumes and brightly painted masks. These masks are the most vital part of the dance. The dance movements are slow, and the expressions grotesque. The music is characteristically punctuated with sounds of cymbals, drums, and unwieldy trumpets. The monks with trumpets, Rgyaling i.e. pipe drums, cymbals, rounded shaped bells enthralled the gathering.  The entire festival arena smelled heavenly because of incense sticks and other sweet smelling herbs.  The first dance was setting limit or 13 black hat dancers, followed by sixteen dancers wearing copper gilded masks. Then there was the eight different forms of Padmasambhava followed by Guru Padma Vadjra .

On the second day, the monks will continue their traditional performances on various instruments, put on exhibition the thanka-painting of silk patwork of great Gyelsey Rimpoche. The monks afterwards assembled in hall & started the worship of Maharaja Pehara, a protector of Buddhist teaching. At 11 am the eleven Acharyas came out in the retinue of Maharaja Pehara.

About Drukpa Buddhists

The Drukpa Buddhists follow the Mahayana Buddhist tradition in philosophy, i.e. the philosophy of "getting enlightened for the benefit of others" and the methods are based on the Tantrayana teachings passed down from the great Indian saint Naropa, who was born in 1016 in West Bengal royal family. "Druk" in Tibetan means "Dragon" and it also refers to the sound of thunder. In 1206, more than 800 years ago, the first Gyalwang Drukpa Tsangpa Gyare Yeshe Dorje saw nine dragons fly up into the sky from the ground of Namdruk, and he named his lineage "Drukpa" or "lineage of the Dragons" after this auspicious event.

For more details, please visit: http://www.drukpa.org or http://www.drukpa-hemis.org

Some of the pictures for the same may be accessed at
https://www.yousendit.com/download/QlVqbUpmcGtUME5vZE1UQw

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