Reports From The Mandala
Head Lama of TNMC
Over the past decade, the Nyingma Mandala of Organizations has expanded dramatically and in unexpected ways. Existing organizations have continued their activities on behalf of the Dharma and all sentient beings, typically intensifying their efforts. At the same time, at least nine new organizations have been formed, adding new dimensions to the founding Head Lama’s vision.
In the reports that follow, we lay out recent developments throughout the mandala and introduce the work of our new organizations. We start with the work of TNMC, where the Head Lama is most directly involved: Yeshe De, Odiyan, the Light Foundations, and the Sarnath Institute. From there we move on to describe the structure and mission of the Nyingma Association of Mandala Organizations (NAMO), founded in 2011.
We go on to lay out the recent work of the organizations that belong to NAMO. As a structure for presenting this wealth of developments, we start with the organizations located in Sonoma County, then turn to developments in Berkeley, and finally report on the expanding efforts of our international centers, under the direction of Nyingma Centers.
Mandala Organizations In Berkeley
Nyingma Mandala of Organizations had its beginning in Berkeley in 1969, when Rinpoche founded the Tibetan Nyingma Meditation Center. In 1971, TNMC moved into its new home, an old fraternity house that Rinpoche named Padma Ling, Land of the Lotus. Padma Ling remains a center of community activity as a residence and place of practice and the site of ongoing art projects and editorial work. Its ample gardens are tended as an offering to the Dharma, and its stalwart bear statue, left behind by the fraternity, has been adopted as a Dharma protector.
The next development came in 1972, when Rinpoche founded the Nyingma Institute in another old fraternity house on the other side of the University campus. Active briefly at Padma Ling, the Institute moved to its present location the next year. We start our reports on the Berkeley mandala organizations with the Institute, which has now flourished as a gateway to the Dharma for more than four decades.
In 2009, the mandala expanded into downtown Berkeley. We had been looking for over a year for a new home for the Tibetan Aid Project, which had occupied the same building as Dharma Publishing and the Yeshe De Project prior to their move to Ratna Ling. In 2008, the opportunity arose to purchase two adjoining buildings in the heart of Berkeley. Although far grander in scale than what we had been looking for, the new buildings offered remarkable opportunities to develop new petals of the mandala. Renovated in secret for nine months as a surprise for the larger community, the buildings witnessed opening celebrations in the summer of 2009.
Mangalam Centers, a 26,000 square foot building next to the main Berkeley post office, built in 1913 and a Berkeley landmark, became the home of the Mangalam Research Center for Buddhist Languages; it also houses a grand temple, office and residential space, and common facilities for dining, community events, and instruction. In addition, it serves as the headquarters for Light of Buddhadharma Foundation, the Center for Creative Inquiry, and NAMO. The smaller building next door became the home for the Tibetan Aid Project, the Dharma Publishing Bookstore, Nyingma Trust, a work space for the Prayer Flag Project, and (initially), the Guna Foundation. In 2010, another opportunity arose—this time to purchase the large building next to the Tibetan Aid Project Building. Known as Armstrong College (later, Armstrong University), it was over eighty years old, also a Berkeley landmark and built by the architect responsible for Mangalam Centers. Because it had been designed for use as a business college, it was perfectly suited for expanding the educational dimension of the mandala. Rinpoche named it Dharma College. After extensive renovation, Dharma College celebrated its opening in 2011. Soon after, it became the new home of the Guna Foundation, which moved from next door. It features a vast public space that Rinpoche lovingly prepared as temple capable of seating hundreds, as well dining facilities and a large lower level that is currently used mostly for storage.
Mandala Organizations In Berkeley
Center For Creative Inquiry
Early in 2000, the founder and director of the Center for Creative Inquiry (CCI) approached Tarthang Rinpoche to ask his approval for founding a center that would explore potential applications of the Time, Space, and Knowledge (TSK) Vision, presented by Rinpoche in the book of that name in 1977 and in five subsequent publications. The intention was to find ways to make the TSK vision more widely accessible, fulfilling its potential for “liberating the modern mind.” Rinpoche gave his approval, but counseled the director not to refer directly to the TSK vision. For the six years or so of CCI’s existence, it was guided by this directive, but in recent years the TSK vision has moved back into the fore- ground of CCI’s activity.
The TSK vision challenges our ordinary ways of knowing and being in the world, asking us to look at the unexamined limits we place on how we know, how we engage our world, and how we limit our ability to embody the dynamic of time. Based in part on the interests of CCI’s director and others active in developing the vision, CCI focused initially on two areas: organizational change, where the possibility of activating the dynamic of time held immediate promise, and consciousness studies, a newly emerging field of inquiry. Conferences and workshops for academics in these fields were held in the Boston area, at INSEAD School of Business in France, and (for six consecutive summers) at Ratna Ling. The CCI team also wrote articles in academic journals in both those fields.
Starting in 2006, CCI began offering an online program in TSK, centered on close reading of the TSK books and on summer intensives that develop the experiential aspect of TSK. These programs have been generally successful, drawing on average between 20–30 students. In 2013, a comprehensive two-year online program was initiated, shaped in part as a teacher-training program. The program was designed with the cooperation of Nyingma Centers, which wished to make sure that there were trained teachers at each center capable of presenting the TSK Vision. The first intensive associated with the training program was held in June of 2014. A separate retreat is scheduled for late August in England, and there are tentative plans for another retreat in Italy in 2015. CCI’s director will also be meeting with teacher-trainees in Europe in September, as well as giving public talks at both European Nyingma Centers.
In addition to its own website (www.creativeinquiry.org), CCI has recently launched a new website, www.tskvision.org. It will serve as the central location on the web for materials related to TSK, as well as linking to several blogs maintained by students of the vision.
This spring CCI offered a program on ‘Mind and Space’ meant to serve two different aims: as a pilot study to measure the effects of TSK, and as a trial presentation of an approach to the vision that would be more accessible to a general audience. We hope to turn this approach into a publication in the coming year.
We are also planning a new publication that collects several previously published articles by Rinpoche and others on the TSK vision. The articles have been chosen to serve as a ‘user friendly’ version of the TSK teachings, and the book may serve well for courses taught by graduates of the teacher-training program, starting in the fall of 2015. We are working with Nyingma Centers to establish the right way for teachers at each Center to serve as CCI’s representatives.
For those who come under its sway, the TSK vision is deeply inspiring and profoundly transformative. Our ongoing challenge and opportunity is to find ways to communicate this fundamental truth.