During his week-long visit to Sukhavati care centre in the summer of 2018, Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche was requested to speak about the bardos (transitional states) which are a unique feature of the Tibetan Buddhist teachings. The explanation that he shared was interspersed with instructions on the practice of Sur (burnt offering), which is particularly directed towards bardo beings. The actual Sur practice that Rinpoche makes reference to is that of Jigme Lingpa’s ‘White Sur Offering that Pervades all the Buddhafields’, which appears in quotes. Within the talk, Rinpoche raised some particularly interesting points that we can all benefit from.

Seeing hundreds of westerners clapping their hands every day during the averting practice known as dokpa, while performing a Netik Phurba Drupchen in Lerab Ling, Rinpoche, always attentive that practices are accomplished properly, thought it could be useful to explain why dokpa practice involves hand clapping, and what we should meditate on at that time.

Despite the pandemic and all its restrictions, Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche and his monks were able to successfully hold a series of drupchens at the holy sites of India towards the end of 2021. Continuing this ‘winning streak’, Rinpoche then brought a large contingent of lamas and monks from Chokling Monastery to Sri Lanka, to hold a drupchen of Tukdrup Barche Kunsel at the sacred mountain of Sri Pada (Adams Peak). A number of foreign students were also able to travel to Sri Lanka to join the drupchen and for their benefit, Rinpoche shared these introductory words about the history of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, and about the special significance of Sri Pada for the different Buddhist traditions.

The Nyaluk Phurba is a treasure teaching revealed by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. Each year Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche practice the drupchen of this terma with his monks at his monastery, in Bir, India. During the drupchen, Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche paused to share with his monks an explanation of the Dzogchen instruction from Guru Rinpoche that appears in the Nyaluk Phurba terma—something he had never done before. Fortunately, this special happening was recorded and is shared with you here.

At the end of a Vajrakilaya drupchen at Tsering Jong, in Bir, in which the practitioners combined three Vajrakilaya practices as Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche explains in this teaching, Rinpoche gave the traditional talk before the Marmé Mönlam, the light offering aspiration that concludes a drupchen. In his speech Rinpoche reminds the attendance of the extraordinary power what they have just done, and inspire them to dedicate the merit by indicating aspirations to make at this point. Since the same principles apply at the end of every drupchen, before the Marmé Mönlam, Rinpoche wished that we share these few words.

This talk was given by Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche a few days in a Rangjung Pema Nyingtik drupchen that he was performing with his lamas and monks to celebrate the birth of Guru Rinpoche in July 2021.

In October 2020, at the end of the Nyaluk Phurba drupchen that he holds every year at Tsering Jong, his home in Bir, Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche thanked his monks and explained to them why he does so many drupchens. Anyone connected with this tradition would probably like to hear, or read, his explanations.

Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche strongly recommends this text for those who wish to deepen their understanding of sur practice. In the text, Patrul Rinpoche describes in precise and graphic detail all the different types of guest that we invite to a sur offering. These descriptions are far more extensive than usually found in sur liturgies, helping us to generate devotion to those we invite out of faith, and compassion to the beggars, outcasts, fallen monastics and malevolent spirits who are the main objects of our offering. Patrul Rinpoche includes a special section for the spirits that held sway in his home region in Tibet—as Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche wrote, “Kham was haunted in the past by many ghosts and evil spirits, and this was one of the reasons why Patrul Rinpoche used to explain the Bodhicharyavatara continually to his disciples. Before long, there were no more ghosts—or at least, no one came to any more harm. Such is the hidden power of Bodhichitta!”[1]Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. Enlightened Courage. Snow Lion, page 29. Patrul Rinpoche’s compassion is evident throughout the text, particularly in his description of beggars who are devoted two sections. For each type of guest, we are instructed in how we should make offerings and what we should request of them. The text is an invaluable guide for Vajrayana practitioners.

While teaching the Lamrim Yeshe Nyingpo, as he explained the section on the paramita of generosity, Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche felt it was important to relate it more closely to western people, and he gave this very useful instruction.

Recently, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche and Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche have asked as many practitioners as possible to offer sur practice to repay the karmic debts that are an important cause of the alarming spread of covid in India, and in other parts of the world. In 2010, Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche explained very simply how to do a sur offering, which is not a complicated practice. He based his teaching on the Chokling text of sur offering, which you can find here. He gave this teaching when he was visiting Dzogchen Beara to help with the building of the new protector shrine. During his visit, he advised to offer sur for all the people who died in the past in the region during the great famine. We have also included the video of Rinpoche demonstrating the mudras that he mentions.

After Sogyal Rinpoche’s passing, the Rigpa sangha gathered with Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche and his monks at Bodhgaya, the most important and powerful Buddhist sacred place, and brought the kudung of Sogyal Rinpoche. Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche felt it would be a good idea for people to gather and practise together Vajrasattva through a Minling Dorsem drupchen to purify our link with Sogyal Rinpoche. Some of Rigpa’s main people asked then Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche to compose a prayer for the swift rebirth of Sogyal Rinpoche. Once it had been translated, Eszter went to see Rinpoche twice to ask for the reading transmission of the prayer. Rinpoche responded that it would be better if he’d give it to everyone in the main temple the next day, together with an explanation of the meaning of the prayer he wrote.

Early one morning at his home in Bir, Rinpoche shared this short instruction with one of his friends; an instruction that sounded very much like his ‘heart advice’. Rinpoche explained how we tend to receive so many different teachings that, often, we don't know where we should start, or which practice we should focus on. This is especially the case, he said, for people such as ourselves who don’t know the Dharma very well, or who know it, but are too lazy to apply it. If you feel like you might be one of those people, then Rinpoche’s answer here, in his own words, ‘the fruit of 67 years of investigation’, may be just what you need.

Late one night, Rinpoche paused as he walked past the upper cave at Yangleshö, sat down at the entrance of the cave to say some prayers and then, to inspire modern pilgrims, spontaneously began to recount, in his inimitable manner, the history of ‘the Asura cave’.

During one of Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche’s visits to Antwerp, some of his Brussels-based friends asked Brussels Rigpa if they could use the centre for a day-long tsok practice. Naturally, the Brussels Sangha were delighted and immediately agreed. And, naturally, they were also determined to make the most of Rinpoche’s visit. So they asked him to teach them about The Essence of the Vajrayana.

During a Pema Khandro drupchen at Lerab Ling, having tirelessly illuminated more than fifteen annual drupchens with practice advice, Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche decided it was time to point out where western Vajrayana practitioners fall short.