KALACAKRA NEWSLETTER To promote the study and practice of Kalacakra "All beings arise in time, Time continually consumes them all, Time is the Lord who possesses the vajra, Whose nature is that of day and night"

New Group Meetings Study Schedule

Below are the details of the next six months of the new programme for the 2001 Session:

February 10: This weekend we will be doing a full Protection Wheel Practice. Could everyone attending remember to bring their copies of the practice with them.

March 10: Andy Wistreich will talk about transforming death and rebirth in the generation process. Following on from discussions with Geshe Wangchen recently at Drepung in India, Andy would like to use this opportunity to discuss the Gelugpa practice of visualising all the signs of dissolution at the time of death during the dissolution section in the sadhana. He will use that section in the Detri Rinpoche Mind Mandala Sadhana, Detri Rinpoche's commentary on this (through Alex Berzin's notes on the commentary), a commentary by Lama Zopa, and a section out of 'Transcending Time' by Gen Lamrimpa as sources for this. Also, he will check Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche's commentary notes.

It seems from Andy's discussion with Geshe Wangchen that the approach whereby one does not visualise the signs, but cuts straight to emptiness and basic mind at this point in the sadhana is from Dzogchen. Where this practice has been adopted by Kagyu practitioners, this would appear to be due to the influence of Dzogchen practice on later Kagyupas. It is suggested that the practitioners following Tsongkhapa follow earlier Kagyupas in visualising all the signs of death during the generation process practices. Since, in our group, we respect both traditions, the discussion will enable us to see some differences in method, within the understanding that practitioners need to choose the most suitable and effective method for themselves.

April 7: We are planning and one day retreat at Jamyang to perform the full Mind Mandala Practice with the full Protection Wheel Practice. There are no Jamyang staff available on this day so we will need to make our own arrangements in respect of food etc. Please try and remember to bring your copies of the Mind Mandala sadhana along.

May 12: Roy will offer a third in the series of 'Notes from the Void' sessions. Details to be circulated nearer the time.

June 9: Ed Henning should be able to give a session on some of the basic physical exercises that accompany the practice of the six yogas.

July 14: Andy Wistreich will present an introduction to the Vimalaprabha.

Further details of the 2001 study programme will be announced in future editions of the newsletter as they as they become available. We really would still like to see a wider range of people from both within and outside the group making a contribution. We would also like to keep a greater proportion of sessions either practising together or dealing with issues arising out of our own practice and experience.

Could anyone who would like to take the opportunity to lead a session or to present something to the group contact our programme co-ordinator, Sara, on 020 8 881 8500.

We are a trans-sectarian group dedicated to Kalacakra practice. We are open to anyone who has taken the Kalacakra initiation from a qualified lama and seriously wishes to practise accordingly. We use ‘The Jewelled Heart’ - A Sadhana focusing on Glorious Kalacakra by Buton Rinchen Druppa (1290-1364) for group practice at these meetings

If any further changes occur we will let you know as soon as we can.

Unless otherwise stated, our meetings, all usually on the second Saturday of each month, start at 2.00pm and finish at around 5.00pm.

When the group meets at Jamyang Buddhist Centre the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) guidelines attached to FPMT centres should be respected regarding guest teachers and practice materials.

Although teachings, study and practice meetings are free and those without funds should not feel that they are expected to pay, for those that are able to afford it the standard donation is £4 or £2 for a concessionary rate.

This money covers the rent we pay to Jamyang and any surplus goes into the KPG funds. We have a designated bank account for the purpose.

We have also been collecting donations for regular production and mailing of the newsletter. Currently, there is a suggested donation of £5 per year. Many of your donations are coming up for renewal. Would you please contact Martin if you wish to make a further donation.

Ringu Tulku June teaching at Rigpa

Cait Collins has recently received the confirmed schedule for Ringu Tulku this Summer. He will be teaching at Rigpa on the weekend of Friday June 22 to Monday June 25.

Cait is going to ask him if he will talk to KPG members on the Saturday evening in the shrine room at Rigpa. If he and Rigpa are agreeable, we would like to restrict the evening to our usual people plus those who particularly ask to come and who have received the empowerment.

This should really give us the opportunity to have an in-depth session with Rinpoche. When he taught before, at Jamyang in May 1998, he mentioned the Kalacakra completion stage in terms of the elaborate - six yogas - and unelaborate - mahamudra -and talked a bit about where it all might be going in terms of the natural, uncontrived state, the Buddha nature.

Cait is going to ask him to go a little more into that kind of experiential, meditative presentation again this time and allow plenty of time for discussion.

She will keep us posted about progress on what promises to be a very valuable opportunity and we will let you know via the newsletter as soon as things have firmed up.

Ringu Tulku was born in Tibet in 1952 and now lives in Sikkim, India. He received traditional training, studying with lamas of all four Tibetan orders. His root lamas are HH The 16^th Karmapa and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. He also has an academic background and has done research on Jamgon Kongtrul the Great and the Rime (ris med) movement. Rinpoche has been teaching at Dharma centres in the west for the past ten years and is completely fluent in English. He is very approachable and has translated for HH The Dalai Lama during at least three Kalacakra empowerments in India. He has also made a study of Mipham Rinpoche's Kalacakra commentary.

A Review by Andy Wistreich (4.2.01)

This is the fourth dissertation which incorporates translation of part of the Kalacakratantra and Vimalaprabha, in this case, part of the Fifth Chapter. Unfortunately, Hartzell did not include his full translation of the chapter because the dissertation would have become too long. It is already 1453 pages! I am trying hard to contact Hartzell, who is said to be raising ayurvedic medicinal plants in South Africa, to ask him for the rest of the translation, but as yet have had no luck. If anyone reading this knows how to contact him, please let me know (andy.wistreich@btinternet.com).

I have met a fellow student of his from Columbia, who says that he was a remarkable student, accomplishing vast scholarship even at the undergraduate level. His dissertation is certainly extremely wide-ranging and interesting to read. Vesna Wallace wrote to me that this dissertation has been withdrawn from the UMI catalogue, which I hope is not the case, because it makes a valuable contribution to the literature.

The actual translation, probably because of the esoteric nature of the original, is for me the most difficult to follow of all the four translations so far published in dissertations (Chapter One – John Newman; Chapter Two – Vesna Wallace; Chapter three – Jensine Andresen; plus this one). Hartzell describes its subject matter as follows:

Because the translation is difficult, other non-scholarly readers, like me, may get more benefit from the commentary which takes up most of the dissertation. However, the translation is very inspiring, and gives one a sense of the depth and enormity of the whole Kalacakratantra.

The main body of the dissertation explores the Vedic roots of tantra, and compares and contrasts the Kalacakra with the Saivite practices. Hartzell, like many other Kalacakra translators has his own theory of the location of Shambhala – namely an area of Kashmir, and he suggests that both Kalacakra and Saivite tantras were practised in the same part of the world perhaps between the seventh and eleventh centuries CE, with some overlap and particularly with mutual awareness of the others’ existence. He explores the works of the Kalacakra scholar Abhayakaragupta and the Saivite scholar Abhinavagupta for much of his source materials, and then goes to their sources. He begins with a most interesting discussion of the Vedic worldview as a backdrop to both traditions.

Hartzell’s abstract sums up better than I could, the contents of the whole dissertation:

He then goes on to list the contents of all the chapters which I shall not do here, because it would be too long.

I cannot do an objective review of this thesis because I am not familiar with the material. All I can do is to recount how it has helped me as a practitioner to understand certain aspects and qualities of the Kalacakra and to further contextualise it within the society where it was practised in ancient times.

In the introduction quoted above, Hartzell refers to the ‘social position of the cults’. Piecing together his research together with some other recent work by Miranda Shaw (Passionate Enlightenment) Keith Dowman (Masters of Mahamudra) and others, one gets a picture of a culture in Eastern India (including present Bengal) and other areas such as Oddiana, of a widespread lay Tantric culture, with clandestine meetings in forests, lonely places, and special temples, on particular nights of the month, for tsogs, initiation ceremonies etc It seems that these meetings were often led by female practitioners, and involved explicit sexual and other taboo practices. Although attempts were made to maintain secrecy (c.f. some of the Tantric vows), nonetheless there were inevitably leaks and scandals, and at times the Tantric circles fell into disrepute. The implication in the dissertation is that it was within this type of culture that the Kalacakra was originally practised in both Shambhala and ancient India. Hartzell’s approach is scholarly and he is careful not to make any assertions without evidence. Rather he paints a general picture and leaves the reader to make the connections.

In particular, Hartzell’s dissertation is very interesting in its explication of the background to the Kalacakratantra’s emphasis on the practice of non-emission of semen. He compares the Kalacakra and Saivite sexual yoga practices and finds that this emphasis is one of the differentiating factors of the Kalacakratantra. Despite the difficulty at times in following the complexity and abstruse language of the originals by Manjushri Yasas and Pundarika, one builds a picture through reading this dissertation, of an authentic practice tradition in which pure practice of sexual yogas by lay people was taught and followed.

Now we have over half of the Vimalaprabha and its root text the brief Kalacakratantra, translated from Sanskrit into English. It is to be hoped that Vesna Wallace’s translation of Chapter Four will soon become available at least for practitioners, that the remainder of Chapter One will be translated by John Newman and Ed Henning, and that we can get hold of the remainder of chapter five from James Hartzell.

All of the translations will need continuous improvement. This literature was translated into Tibetan over and over and over again, because the Tibetans were always seeking to improve on previous translations.

However, for the Kalacakra to again become a living practice tradition, the translation into western languages, especially English, of these texts and later commentaries on them by Indians and Tibetans is essential.

New International Kalacakra Practice Groups

Andy Wistreich has recently had word of two new Kalacakra Practice Groups, one in Australia and one in Nova Scotia. If anyone wants contact with either of these two groups, they can get the e-mail addresses from Andy. We have also had further requests for the newsletter from individuals in America and Italy.

The International Kalacakra Website

The website has now been dormant for over a year. Ed did a great job in setting it up for us but no one has so far been able to devote time to get a good deal more useful material posted on it or act as a webmaster for the site. It could become a really useful interactive tool.

The newsletter is still not available on the site and we have still not put up the Kalacakra thangka image we have on the site.

It would be good if the website could become what we all wanted it to become - the home for an international network of Kalacakra Practice Groups.

Is there anyone reading this from the London group who could now take responsibility for that role and take the site forward? We urgently need some help with this.

Ed is still actively seeking for more ideas, help with design, practitioners to write materials, graphic materials etc. You can contact us with any offers of help, ideas or materials for the site.

More materials please!

Roy and Martin would really like to see more material for the newsletter coming in for future editions. Especially from those who have not yet put anything our way!

Kalacakra Empowerment in Spain

There is a forthcoming Kalacakra empowerment to be given in Spain by a Sakya master. A leaflet in Spanish has been sent out to Dharma centres but the date has yet to be confirmed. As soon as we have more details we will circulate them in a future edition of the newsletter.

Kalacakra Computations

On Friday January 19, Professor Leonard van der Kuijp from Harvard gave a dissertation at the School for Oriental and African Studies in London on Kalacakra Computations in Tibet.

It was a very interesting talk but it did not surprise us to find out that all Tibetan dates are unreliable because the calendar computations are corrupt! One day they will listen to Ed and put it right!

The talk was organised by the Circle of Tibetan and Himalayan studies. The aim of the Circle is to encourage the scholarly exploration of Tibetan culture by providing a forum for research, exhibitions and affiliated events pertaining to the civilisations of Tibet and the Himalayas in the greater London area

The administrative hub of the Circle consists of a sophisticated member database. This is designed to facilitate communication between scholars, galleries and aficionados of the Tibetan cultural heritage. Membership is free, e-mail: cths@soas.sc.uk

Request to HH The Dalai Lama for UK empowerment

We now have an approved letter of request to His Holiness to go forward with requests from other Buddhist groups which Steve Sinclair as one of the KPG representatives on the national steering group will be putting forward on our behalf.

Request to Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche for teachings

The joint Jamyang/KPG request should now be with Rinpoche. Beth Gilmore will keep us informed of progress.

Computer Archive for KPG study and practice materials

Steve Sinclair and Dave Benn have begun work on a computerised archive of the materials that we keep in hard copy at Jamyang. Further details about how members of the London KPG can access and use this archive will be forthcoming shortly.

Tsog Puja

Ed Henning is continuing to look for a suitable Kalacakra tsog puja for the group.

We could put together a version of our own from various sanskrit sources. Gelukpa practitioners can use a modified Lama Choepa as detailed in an earlier edition of this newsletter.

However, we really would like to find a suitable complete sanskrit tsog puja that everyone in the group can perform together regardless of the tradition they follow.

Previous Page | Home Page | ^Top of Page |

Webmaster: Rudy Harderwijk