KSR on Kyere Monastery and Trungpa Rinpoche

In our annual newsletter, we published a story, "The Vidyadhara Meets Mahakala," from the following article. Here, we are pleased to present the entire article, which is based on an interview Walter Fordham had with Karma Senge Rinpoche in July 2005. Peter Roberts served as interpreter. Jessie Litven, who is now an apprentice with the Nalanda Translation Committee, transcribed and checked the translation, with assistance from Larry Mermelstein, who edited the interview into this article. We hope this is the first of many collaborations with The Chronicles of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Walter will be publishing the entire interview on the Chronicle Project website. We are grateful for Walter’s permission to use this story, and we encourage you to explore the Chronicles.

These days, Karma Senge Rinpoche is the main person responsible for Kyere Monastery. However, the founder of Kyere Monastery was Khyungdrak Dorje. He was one of the nine Nüden Dorje tertöns from among the various classes of important tertöns: the eight and sixteen Lingpas, the 108 tertöns, and so on. Some time ago Steven Seagal was recognized as a tülku of Khyungdrak Dorje. While Karma Senge Rinpoche was in the Bay area and Halifax this spring, they had their first meetings via video-conferencing. According to Jamgön Kongtrül the Great’s biography of the 108 tertöns, Khyungdrak Dorje was a contemporary of the tenth Karmapa, the first Mingyur Dorje, and the fifth Dalai Lama. Though it’s not entirely clear, Kyere Monastery was probably founded in the female Water Ox year of the eleventh sixty year cycle (1673). So the monastery has been around since then. But it went through a period of a decline.

Karme Senge Rinpoche Photo by Marvin Moore

The patron responsible for the revival and rebuilding of Kyere was the fiftieth king of Lha-thok, Sönam Gyurme. There were four kingdoms within Kham ( Eastern Tibet): Lha-thok, Dege, Ling, and Nangchen. These were independent kingdoms, neither under Tibet nor under China, and they all had equal status. Surmang was in the kingdom of Nangchen; Kyere was in Lha-thok, now part of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. So the king of Lha-thok revived Kyere Monastery for his lama, the tenth Trungpa Rinpoche, Chökyi Nyinche, and he offered him the monastery; thus it became part of the Surmang group of monasteries. The two of them revived Kyere Monastery together, which took place within the last century. They built a slightly larger temple than that of Khyungdrak Dorje, and they created a retreat center for the Surmang Hearing Lineage (Tib. nyengyü) tradition, a special Chakrasamvara teaching of Surmang, originally handed down by Tilopa.

There were a hundred families living near Kyere who were associated with the monastery. Everyone in Lha-thok had to paid tax to the king. So instead of paying the king, these families paid the monastery. Every year Kyere Monastery received a total of 100,000 yuan (US $12,500) from these families. This income supported the practices that were done there. Many important rituals were performed each year, including the drupchen (“great practice”) of Vajrakilaya according to Ratna Lingpa and Surmang Rölpe Dorje’s terma called Deshek Tobdü (“Concentrated Power of the Tathagathas”)—both of which took a month to complete; the Khandro Tsok Gar (“Ganachakra Dance of the Dakinis”), which took ten days; and the practice of the Four-Armed Mahakala. During the time of the Vidyadhara, the practice of Tsasum Gongdü (“Embodied Realization of the Three Roots”) was established.

Both the tenth and the eleventh Trungpas spent five to six months there each year, and since that time the Trungpa tülku was the main lama there. In particular, the tenth Trungpa did a hundred nyungne practices each year at Kyere. This is a special two-day fasting practice. The first day you don’t eat after noon, but you can drink. The second day, you don’t eat or drink at all, nor do you speak; you just practice all day. You also do ten circumambulations every day.

After the nyungnes, the tenth Trungpa would give everyone the nyungne empowerment, instructions, and teachings. Each day there would be 200-500 people practicing nyungne with the tenth Trunpga—never less than 200 people. This practice continues even now among many people there. One lama in particular has been practicing nyungne for about fifteen years without a break.

Karma Senge Rinpoche on Kyere Monastery and Trungpa Rinpoche...cont'd