Ancient Wisdom, Modern Health

Tibetan Sound Healing by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche 

This book is an invaluable gift from the Tibetan masters to the modern world. Master Tenzing Wangyal Rinpoche has immaculately explained the ancient Tibetan wisdom of sound healing through this book and the CD attached to it. Modern science has taught us to be rational and to believe in the things that we could see and touch. Cause of disease or sickness are always attributed to external factors. Medicine, pills and injection are prescribed as an antidote to the disease. Modern science has greatly helped the humanity in providing the required medicine in healing our disease. But this healing has been limited to physical only. In the good old days, people lived healthily without the benefit of modern science and its gadgets. Our forefathers looked inside to maintain proper mental and physical health. Emphasis is laid on the internal spiritual health. This book is about healing and maintaining our health through the application of sacred sound along with the rTsa rLung [Channel and wind] exercise. The six sacred warrior syllables are:  Aa, Om, Hung, Ram, dZa.

These six sacred sounds are called warrior because like a warrior they can eliminate and destroy the blocks and negativities within ourselves. The practice involves meditation, and application of specific sound at the Chakras to clear the blocks and make space for positive energy. We all wish for good things and wants happiness, but we fail to make space inside for the good and happy things to come and settle. Each warrior syllables act on the specific chakra on the channel to bring positive vibration and energy. White Aa syllable at the crown chakra is associated with space; the analogy is clear desert sky. Red Om syllable at the throat chakra discovers the awareness within that space. Blue Hung syllable at the heart chakra is the union of space and awareness. Red Ram syllable represent the ripening of the positive quality. Green dZa syllable is the place of manifestation. In a nutshell, these five chakras represent: space, awareness, energy, growth and attainment.

With this practice of six warrior sound syllables along with meditation, we are assured of good internal as well as external health. With the six warrior syllables as main, the book also enumerates the five important rTsa rLung exercises to cleanse ourselves of negative emotions and replace it with positive emotion and good health. These exercises are rTsa rLung exercise of: Upward movement, life-force, fire-like, pervasive and downward movement. These exercises and meditation can also be seen as important path and method toward effective understanding and practice of dZogchen teaching.  This is a simple but very valuable book to discover the space within ourselves to live healthily and positively.      

Tibetan language in the West: A personal observation

ནུབ་ཕྱོགས་རྒྱལ་ཁབ་ནང་བོད་ཀྱི་སྐད་ཡིག་གི་གནས་སྟངས། སྒེར་གྱི་སྣང་ཚུལ།

西洋諸国でチベット語の状況～個人観察

San Francisco bay area is a good place to live in: good sunshine, pleasant hills, summer beaches, good driving, old free books, good wines and good weekend parties with good people. Tibetan community there is very vibrant and active. Most of the people are very community-driven and with great Lhaksam. Tibetan Association of Northern California (TANC) is one of the most active associations in the West. But the paradox of the fact is that while Tibetan population is strong and growing, the Tibetan language is dying. Our people are passing through a crucial time there, and I want to share what I have observed about the Tibetan language, its situation and how despite the people, the language is dying. Most importantly how and what needs to be done to make it a living language in the West.

My long but short sojourn in California coincided with the time when the economy in the States was on a long diet; no wonder the jobs were not readily available. I took to freelance translation, the first job that I got was one proof reading from a European country; it was a marriage certificate issued to a Tibetan couple by a certain Tibetan Association in Nepal. It was translated very well in terms of meaning, but from the way it was translated, I could see that the translator is a foreigner. That was my first earning in the United States. I felt like I earned a million dollar, it was a real homecoming feeling! I realized the importance of Tibetan language. As a Tibetan, I got this work of proof reading. And the translator, who is a foreigner, got this assignment because he/she has studied the Tibetan language. Had this marriage certificate been not issued in the Tibetan language in the first place, the foreign translator could not have acquired this assignment and I, the proof reader, could not have earned this work. It is the economic dynamics of the Tibetan language.

We all talk about the preservation of Tibetan language and culture. If Tibetan language is to live and survive, it has to live and play active role in the socio-economic lives of all Tibetan speaking people in and outside Tibet. In the translation world, Tibetan translation assignments come from the U.S. Canada, India, European countries etc. All these work of Tibetan translations and proof readings are possible because the principle client involved has or wants a document in Tibetan language. But the volume of Tibetan translation work is not enough to provide any translators a decent earning to live. So, the profession is dying, some does it as a part time or as a hobby. We need to create enough demand (Tibetan language) to increase the supply (use) of the language. It is in consonance with the economic law of demand and supply.

In the course of my job hunting, I finally made into the Employment and Human Service Department of Contra Costa County of California, where I worked for sometimes. It was a great experience. The United States is a great country, it respect and accommodate all the languages used by the immigrants: Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Nepali etc. even the regional languages like Tamil, Panjabi, Hmong etc. All these languages are in the list of languages endorsed by the States for communication and translation provision. But the Tibetan language is not there. I asked my supervisors and colleagues why Tibetan language is not there, and fervently informed that the Tibetan language is one of the major languages in Asia, and that there are more than 12 million people using this language and that there are substantial number of Tibetans in California alone.

I was informed that this is a computer's decision. They said, "If the Tibetan language is not there, your people may not have asked for it!!" Whenever the immigrants or the citizens correspond with or seek social benefits from the counties, there is a form "Gen 22" which is mandatory to fill. This form asks the client if he/she is comfortable with English language or not? Whether the clients prefer any other language of communication? The reason why the Tibetan language is not appearing as one the immigrants' languages is that most of the Tibetans have ticked "comfortable with English", and have not requested communication in Tibetan language. This information is fed into the computer. So, the robotic machine has no means to report the need of the Tibetan language to the County.

If Tibetan people want the Tibetan language to live as one of the immigrants' languages, they should use the language and fill the form accordingly. This, I think is same with other countries too, especially Canada and Australia. Chinese government is bent on destroying our language and replacing it with the Chinese. We condemn and fiercely protest against Chinese government for destroying Tibetan language in Tibet, but what are we doing in free countries to preserve and maintain it?

Tibetan people are generally very patriotic, culturally strong and they frequently talks about the importance of Tibetan language. Tibetans in foreign countries do their best to send their children to community Sunday school where the language is taught. But the irony is that while they insist their children to learn the native language, they themselves are not that fervent. Therefore, the children are confused as to why they need to learn the language which has no relevancy with the environment around, and for which there is no incentive also. This fact is evident from an incident during the visit of Ven Lhakdor la, Director of Library of Tibetan Work & Archive, to the Tibetan Sunday School in San Francisco. During the question and answer session, a young girl asked, "Why do we need to learn the Tibetan language?" This question from a young girl, although a simple innocent question, it reveals the grave situation the Tibetan language is in the West.

If we really want to preserve and let the Tibetan language live in the West, we should practice and respect the language ourselves first. If we don't want it, nobody will want it. We need to strive to have the Tibetan language get its rightful place among other languages. One important way of gaining recognition for the language is to achieve University accreditation so that our children or anyone studying the language could earn credit in the High school or in the college. San Francisco Tibetan Sunday School is already working on this. This will let the language live in academic curriculum and give the students incentive to learn the language.

If the Tibetan speaking people all round the world want to stop the language from dying, we all need to let the language have its social, economic and literary utility and relevancy in our daily lives. Two things that must be initiated are: to have the Tibetan language among other immigrant languages in the region by filling the form accordingly, secondly to have the language achieve and get recognized in the academic worlds. This will greatly boost demand for the Tibetan language. It is only the Tibetan people who can propel this law of demand and supply of the Tibetan language. No matter how brutal and insidious the Chinese government's policy, it can never eliminate the Tibetan language. If there is anyone who can do this, it is the Tibetans.

Finally, I would like to share this stanza of Gedhun Chophel, one of the Tibet's greatest scholars.

ཀུན་དང་མཐུན་པ་བྱེད་པ་ལེགས་མོས་ཀྱང་།
ཐམས་ཅད་ལད་མོ་བྱེད་ན་ཀླད་མེད་ཡིན།
ཕྱི་རྒྱལ་སྐད་ཡིག་ཤེས་པ་ལེགས་མོས་ཀྱང་།
རང་གི་ཕ་སྐད་བརྗེད་ན་ངོ་ཚ་ཡིན།

It is good to get along and be comparable with all the people,
But imitating everything would mean you are without your own mind
It is good to know many foreign languages
But if you forget your father tongue, it’s a shame

Tibetan Tsa-lung Yoga Exercise for a Healthly Mind and Body

Awakening the Sacred Body
by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
Berkeley, San Francisco
 

 

In the second session of Rinpoche's teaching on Five Tsa-lung exercise on October 29, Rinpoche  introduced the first two tsa-lung practices. The practice is important to keep the five sacred chakras in our body clear and healthy in order to have the wind [prana] flow unobstructed. The five chakras are: crown, throat, heart, navel and secret chakra. The first Tsa-lung exercise is “Upward moving wind”; connecting the throat chakra with the crown chakra, i.e. throat to brain. The exercise is good to develop clarity and to enhance memory. Sit in a meditation posture, breath in and store it at the throat; turn or rotate your head right to left five times and left to right five times, coming back to the original position, breath out instantly from nostril. Mental aspect of this exercise is clearing the pain-speech. Here the visualization could be done on pain-speech. The concept of pain-speech is the negative stains due to bad speech: complaining, back biting, abusive speech, lying etc. Be aware or conscious of any pain-speech and do the exercise; when let out the breath from the nostril at the end, imagine all the negativities of the paid speech clearing out from the crown like a chimney smoking out.

Note the five chakras

The next Tsa-lung exercise is Inner tsa-lung. This activates and keeps the life force wind healthy and vibrant. Life force wind in Tibetan is sog-lung. It holds the life-force, and empowers our mind. Sitting a meditational posture with your hands on the hip, and breath in deeply and store it at the heart. Holding the breath raise your right hand and circle it over your head five times, and do it same by the left hand. Coming back to the same position, twist your right shoulder five times and your left shoulder five times; then breath out in one go from your nostril imagining all the obstacles and obscuration smoke out from the crown. [See the video]. Mental aspect of this exercise is clearing the pain-mind. All kind of crazy thought you have gets cleared. Positive result of this exercise is physically it keeps our heart healthy. Mentally, it enhances our confidence, mindfulness and energy. If the life-force is weak or gone, we become sick and we die. Drawing clear open attention to our heart is important. The exercise connects our heart chakra with the crown chakra; connecting heart and mind.

In the next two sessions in the month of November and December, Rinpoche will teach on the three Tsa-lung to awaken our mind and body.

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and Geshe Dangsong teaching tsa-lung practice

Note: this is a student’s note. Error and omission cannot be ruled out. Serious students are advised to study the book “Awakening the Sacred Body” by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche    

 

Tibetan Healing Yoga Exercises

Awakening the Sacred Body
By Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

Sacred Stream, a spiritual community has organized a series of teaching based on the Rinpoche’s book “Awakening the Sacred Body” in Berkeley, San Francisco. The scheduled teachings are on: September 26, October 29, November 13 and December 11. It is a Tibetan Bon teaching of meditational yoga exercise to awaken and heal our body and mind through the practice of tsa-lung, [channel and wind] and breathing exercise. The teaching is a part of Magyu, Mother Tantra of Tibetan Bonpo spiritual tradition.  

In the first session: September 26, Rinpoche taught on the nine purification breathing exercises to clear and purify the three scared channels within our body: the central blue channel, right white channel and left red channel. This yoga exercise is to clear our confused state of mind and create a sacred positive space within through the practice of tsa-lung. Sitting in a five-point meditational posture, visualize three channels in the center of our body from the crown to the four finger width point below the navel. In the center is the blue channel opening up at the crown, on the right is a thin white channel starting from the right nostril, and a similar red channel from the left nostril. These three channels meet at the point below the navel. [See illustration]

The breathing exercise is to clear and purify our mind of the all the negative stains of the three basic mental afflictions of attachment, anger and ignorance. Sitting in a meditational posture, raise your right hand and close the right nostril with the ring finger of the right hand; breath in slowly and deeply from the left nostril visualizing green light filling the red channel and let it go to the bottom of the  point below the navel. Now, release the right nostril and close the left nostril and let the green light in the red channel pass out through the right white channel in form of a light blue light. While breathing in, be conscious of your anger; while breathing out visualize that the anger is purified and passed out from the left nostril. Do this exercise for three times.

 

Repeat this exercise starting from the left hand and closing the left nostril with the ring finger of the left hand. Here while breathing in and breathing out, be conscious or be aware of your attachment and let it pass out through the left nostril in the form of light blue light. Do this three times.

Next, be conscious or aware of your ignorance or doubt about something. Breath in slowly and deeply from both the nostril visualizing pure green light entering the red and white channels; then breath out from the nostrils visualizing all the negativities and obstacles gushing out from the crown through the central blue channel. Repeat this three times.

These nine purification breathing yoga exercises help clear our mind and create positive space and attitude within us. Position is very important. Wind has role to play. The way the wind flows affects the movement of our consciousness. By sitting is the right position, wind can flow in the right direction, and our mind in pure awareness. Breath controls the mind more easily than mind controlling the mind. When we gaze or look at something, our energy also move there. Feel the breath, the wind, the prana. When you are feeling it, you become aware that it is more than a breath, air or wind; it is energy. After practicing this nine purification yogic exercise, you will feel that you have more space within you for positive things. This exercise is also a part of Tummo, inner fire practice.

In a nutshell, the exercise is about opening the central channel. The practice is trying to find a sacred space in us. Negative emotion blocks space and with this nine breathing exercise, we are clearing the blockage and creating space within us through tsa-lung. The wind cleans the channel, it acts like a vacuum cleaner and keep the channel clean to let the positive energy in. In the next session, Rinpoche will teach on five major tsa-lung exercises.

Note: this is a student’s note. Error and omission cannot be ruled out. Serious students are advised to study the book “Awakening the Sacred Body” by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche    

In the second session: October 29, Rinpoche began the teaching on five tsa-lung teaching, and introduced the first two tsa-lung practices.

NB: This article is revised on 8/04/2021. 

 

 

 

 

SPEAK IN PURE TIBETAN

བོད་སྐད་གཙང་མ་རྒྱོབ།

རྒྱུན་སྤྱོད་ཐ་སྙད་བོད་སྐད་གཙང་མིའི་ཐོག  དེ་ཡང་དང་པོ་དགེ་རྒན་དང་ཕ་མ་ནས།
Speak in pure Tibetan, this should start first from the teachers and the parents.

༢༠༡༣  ཟླ་  ༨  ཚེས་ ༢༥  རེ་གཟའ་ཉི་མ། སེན་ཕེ་རེན་སིས་ཀོ

ཨ་རི་བྱང་ཀལ་བོད་མིའི་ཉིན་སློབ་སློབ་གྲྭའི་ཚོགས་ཆུང་གི་ཚོགས་མི་གསར་རྙིང་དང་ངོ་སྤྲོད་སྐབས་སློབ་དགེ་ཞིག་གིས་བསམ་ཚུལ་བརྗོད་གསལ། དེ་རིང་འདིར་ངོ་ཚོ་ཚང་མས་བོད་ཡིག་གལ་ཆེ་ཡིན་ལུགས་དང་ཕྲུ་གུ་ཚོ་ལ་བོད་སྐད་གཙང་མ་རྒྱག་ཐབས་ཐོག་གྲོས་བསྡུར་དང་བགྲོ་གླེང་མང་པོ་གནང་ཡོད།  ཡིན་ནའང་ང་རང་ཚོ་རང་ནས་བོད་སྐད་ནང་དབྱིན་སྐད་དང་རྒྱ་སྐད་འདྲ་མིན་བསྲེས་ཏེ་རྒྱག་གི་འདུག  དེ་ང་ཚོས་དོ་སྣང་གནང་ཏེ་ཕྲུ་གུའི་མདུན་ལ་བོད་སྐད་ཀྱི་ཐ་སྙད་གཙང་མ་བེད་སྤྱོད་བྱེད་དགོས་གལ་མཐོང་གི་འདུག  དེ་རིང་གི་ཚོགས་འདུ་འདིའི་ཐོག་བོད་སྐད་མིན་པའི་ཐ་སྙད་མང་པོ་ཞིག་ཡོང་གི་འདུག

བོད་སྐད་ཡོད་བཞིན་དུ་ཕྱི་སྐད་བེད་སྤྱོད་བྱེད་ན་ཕྲུ་གུར་མིག་དཔེ་ཡག་པོ་ཡོང་གི་མི་འདུག  དཔེར་ན།
མདུན་ཕྲག་དང་གཟའ་འཁོར་ལ།  ང་ཚོས་ཧབ་ཏ་ཞེས་བེད་སྤྱོད་བྱེད་ཀྱི་འདུག  སྤྱི་ཚེས་དང་ཕྱི་ཚེས། ཚེས་གྲངས་ལ་ཏ་རི།  ཁ་པར་ལ་ཕོན།  ལས་འཆར་ལ་སེ་ཀེ་ཇུལ།  དང་བླངས་ལ་ཝོ་ལིན་ཀྲི་ཡར།  དུས་ཐོག་ལ་ཨོན་ཀྲ་ཡིམ།  གླིང་ཁ་ལ་པརྐ།  བར་སེང་ལ་བེ་རེ་ཀི  ཞལ་ཏོག་དང་ཁ་ཟས་ལ་སེ་ནེ་ཀི་སི།
སློབ་ཁྲིད་འཆར་གཞི་ལ་ལེ་སེན་པེ་ལེན།  འདུས་ཚོགས་ལ་ཨེ་སེམ་བེ་ལི་ཞེས་བེད་སྤྱོད་བྱེད་ཀྱི་འདུག 
རྒྱུན་སྤྱོད་ཐ་སྙད་འདི་དག་ང་ཚོ་དགེ་རྒན་དང་ཕ་མ་ཚོ་ཚང་མས་བོད་སྐད་གཙང་མའི་ཐོག་རྒྱག་ཐུབ་ན་ཡག་པོ་འདུག་ཞེས་རྒན་ལགས་ཤིག་གིས་གསུངས་པ་ལ་ཚང་མས་མོས་མཐུན་རྒྱབ་སྐྱོར་ཞུས་སོང་བ་ཀུན་གྱི་དོ་སྣང་བྱེད་དགོས་པ་ཚིག་ཐོར་བཀོད་པ་ལགས།

Sikyong Lobsang Sangay in San Francisco Bay Area

སྲིད་སྐྱོང་བློ་བཟང་སེངྒེ་མཆོག་སེན་ཕེ་རན་སིས་ཀོ་ས་གནས་ལ་ཆིབས་བསྒྱུར།

Sikyong Lobsang Sangay in San Francisco bay area

August 22, 2013 Thursday

San Francisco: Sikyong Lobasang Sangay visited San Francisco bay area this evening and talked with the Tibetans in the region at Berkeley Adult School hall. Tibetans in great numbers welcomed the Sikyong and listened to his speech and update on Tibetan issue with admiration and rapt attention. Honorable Sikyong arrived San Francisco little behind the schedule around 8 PM, and drove straight to the Hall where he was greeted by the Tibetans with Tashi Sholpa dance and traditional Tibetan chemar.

Sikyong greeted the audience, and talked on importance of Tibetan culture and language, and commended the Association here for working hard in preserving and teaching the language to the young children in the area. He updated the Tibetans about the Tibetan administration in Dharamsala, and explained about the smooth and successful transition of political power from His Holiness the Dalai Lama to the democratically elected leader. He attributed this success to the cooperation and faith the public has given to him and his Kashag. He also talked about the Sino-Tibetan dialog, and explained about the essence of Middle path approach in resolving the Tibetan issue.

Later, question and answer session was conducted, and people actively asked many question, and Sikyong interacted with the public and gave patient hearing to all the questions. The public expressed support to his leadership through loud applause and ovation.  It was observed that this was one of the largest turn out of Tibetans and the hall was fully packed. This clearly indicated how the Tibetans loved and respected the Tibetan leader. Honorable Sikyong will leave for Portland tomorrow to continue his official visit to the West coast area, and he is scheduled to leave for India on August 29, 2013.

Lhamo Tso Support Event

Lhamo Tso Support Event
ལྷ་མོ་མཚོ་ལགས་སུ་རྒྱབ་སྐྱོར།
August 10, 2013 Saturday

San Francisco: Tibetan Association for North California (TANC) organized a benefit dinner gathering today, a solidarity event to show support to Lhamo Tso, the wife of Pawo Dhondup Wangchen. A good number of Tibetans in the area turned up to show their support and concern.  Dhondup Wangchen is the young man who in 2008 visited Tibet to record the feeling and opinion of Tibetans on Beijing Olympic. He was arrested by the Chinese authority and was imprisoned without any trail. But the video recording he has done was smuggled out before his arrest. The video recording shown under the title “Leaving the Fear Behind” disclosed the real feeling of the Tibetans inside Tibet about Chinese occupation and the Olympic. Lhamo Tso and her husband are living martyrs, symbol and icon of Tibetan struggle. The fund raised during the event was all donated to Lhamo Tso. In her speech the lady thanked everyone for their support and said that she speaks not only for her husband but for all the political prisoners in Tibet.

 Tibetan community should stand by her at this moment if Tibet wants more dedicated and sincere fighters like Pawo Dhondup Wangchen. Tibet will not die as long as we have a young dedicated couple like Dhondup Wangchen and Lhamo Tso.