Short teachings

Wandering gÇodpa

Central Tibet in the 1930s

This wandering Nyingma Ngakpa Lama is typical of the many itinerant gÇodpas who traveled throughout Tibet practising gÇod in charnel …

A rare lineage photograph

From the Sang-ngak-chö-dzong archives

LEFT: Lama Tharchin Tsédrüp Rinpoche (bLa ma tshe sGrub thar phyin / བླ་མ་ཚེ་སྒྲུབ་ཐར་ཕྱིན་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་)
MIDDLE: Dzongsar Khyentsé Rinpoche (rDzong gsar mKhyen brTse …

Ngakpa Lama from Labrang Tashi ‘khyil in Northern Amdo

This is a rare photograph from an out-of-print German book entitled ‘Arro ! Arro ! So sah ich Tibet’ by …

Zha-nak (zhwa nag / ཞྭ་ནག་)

Black Hat Gar’cham — Vajra Dance

This symbolic enactment through movement is to dispel the negativity and obstacles (bar chad / བར་ཆད་). After some years of …

The 8 Manifestations of Guru Rinpoche

The Buddha of our Time.

❶ Pema Gyalpo (gu ru pad ma rGyal po / གུ་རུ་པདྨ་རྒྱལ་པོ་ / Guru Padmaraja) the Lotus Prince of Uddiyana – …

The Chörten enshrining the physical traces of the Mahasiddha Karma Raja

Kyabjé Künzang Dorje Rinpoche

Kyabjé Künzang Dorje Rinpoche was the Tsa-wa’i Lama of Ngak’chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen.
The Chörten is situated in the …

gTértön Aro Yeshé

The son and vajra-heir of the Nyingma female gTértön, Khyungchen Aro Lingma

The son and vajra-heir of the Nyingma female gTértön, Khyungchen Aro Lingma (khyung chen A ro gLing ma / ཁྱངངནཆེན་ཨ་རོ་གླིང་མ་ …

Lama’i Naljor of Khyungchen Aro Lingma

Lama’i Naljor of Khyungchen Aro Lingma (khyung chen A ro gLing ma / ཁྱུང་ཆེན་ཨ་རོ་གླིང་མ་ / 1886-1923) in u’mèd Tibetan script, …

Drukpa Künlegs quotations

as revealed by Kyabjé Künzang Dorje Rinpoche

Drukpa Künlegs quotations as revealed by Kyabjé Künzang Dorje Rinpoche and presented by Ngak’chang Rinpoche in ‘Wisdom Eccentrics’ a series …

gTértön Rang-rig Togden

gTértön Rang-rig Togden (gTer sTon rang rig rTogs lDan / གྟེར་སྟོན་རང་རིག་རྟོགས་ལྡན་) was treasure revealer of the late 19th Century.
Rang-rig Togden …

Mahasiddha Manibhadra - part 2

The Perfect Housewife

Manibhadra agreed to Mahasiddha Kukkuraja’s proposal; deciding that she could borrow a servant’s clothes. She prepared to leave home when …

Mahasiddha Manibhadra - part 1

The Perfect Housewife

Manibhadra was born in Kamarupa. She was the daughter of a wealthy merchant and a marriage had been arranged with …

Ling Gesar (gLing ge sar / གཉལིང་གེ་སར་) and Natural Heroism

Ngak’chang Rinpoche wrote: ‘We all suffer from cowardice, even if only fractionally. We all have to learn to recognise its …

Ngak'chang Rinpoche and Thubten Dadak

Ngak’chang Rinpoche (sNgags ‘chang chos dByings rGya mTsho / སྔགས་འཆང་ཆོས་དབྱིངས་རྒྱ་མཚོ་) in December 1975 at the conclusion of one of a …

A small collection of Aro gTér Lineage thangkas

Below is a small collection of Aro gTér (A ro gTer / ཨ་རོ་གྟེར་) Lineage thangkas. These are thangkas of the …

A salvaged photograph from the archives

This was an almost unusable monochrome photograph of Ngak’chang Rinpoche from 1969 which has been salvaged with PhotoShop. The figures …

Authentic Teachers

From a teaching on the Vajra Master given at Drala Jong in 2023

Ngak’chang Rinpoche said: “In answer to your question, there are many people teaching Himalayan Vajrayana at this point in time …

Aro gTér Lineage Invocation

Composed by Lopön Ögyen Ten’dzin Rinpoche

Lopön Ögyen Ten’dzin Rinpoche is a Nyingma Ngak’phang Lama in the Düd‘jom gTér lineage.
༄I, Lopön Ögyen Ten’dzin, in the palace …

Ngak'chang Rinpoche in Newquay, Cornwall, age 17

Ngak’chang Rinpoche (sNgags ‘chang rin po che / སྔགས་འཆང་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་) at the age of 17 in the Summer of 1969 with …

Are you enlightened?

A member of the public on an Open Teaching Retreat asked Ngak’chang Rinpoche if he was enlightened. He replied “No, …

Raising the Victory Banner of Merit

Verses written by Ngak’chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen

In Tibetan, ‘Victory Banner of Merit’ is Sônam Gyaltsen (bSod nams rGyal mTshan / བསོད་ནམས་རྒྱལ་མཚན་)
The Victory Banner of Merit …

Mahasiddha Dobhipa

The Realised Ornithological Launderer

༄The Mahasiddha Dobhipa (dho bi’ pa) — known in Tibetan as Shal-bé Drüpthob (bShal bas grub thob / བཤལ་བས་གྲུབ་ཐོབ་) the …

Herd behaviour – one has to root it out of oneself!

Excerpt From ‘Warp and Weft of Wonderment’ Volume I by Ngakma Mé-tsal. The hagiographies of the 84 Mahasiddhas as recounted …

Year of Female Wood Snake (sBrul / སྦྲུལ་)

Lo-gSar Tashi Delegs

In the Snake Year, dragons of the old year must begin by shedding the useless skin of self-image. If this …

Dispelling obstacles

The Thugdrüp Barchèd Künsèl (thugs sgrub bar chad kun sel / ཐུགས་སྒྲུབ་བར་ཆད་ཀུན་སེལ་) is a joint gTérma of the two gTértöns …

An Extract from Volume V of ‘Goodbye Forever’ by Ngak’chang Rinpoche

Miscellaneous Memoirs of an English Lama

Published by Aro Books worldwide. Edited by 'ö-Dzin Tridral and Nor'dzin Pamo.
Kyabjé Künzang Dorje Rinpoche looked at me intently. “You …

Skull Drum — töd-nga

thod nga / ཐོད་ང་ / kapala damaru

Full-sized early 19th Century Tibetan human-cranium Tantric damaru. This is one of the treasures of the Aro gTér Tradition in …

Meeting Kyabjé Künzang Dorje Rinpoche

Kyabjé Künzang Dorje Rinpoche (sKyabs rJe kun bZang rDo rJe rin po che / སྐྱབས་རྗེ་ཀུན་བཟང་རྡོ་རྗེ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་). Here follows an extract from …

an extract from Ngak’chang Rinpoche’s book ‘Goodbye for Ever - the Memoirs of an English Lama

A teaching from Kyabjé Düd’jom Rinpoche Jig’drèl Yeshé Dorje

Ngak’chang Rinpoche Kyabjé Düd’jom Rinpoche began:
“gÇèrdröl, shardröl, and rangdröl. These are methods within the drol-lug-zhi: the four modes of liberation. First mode …

Vajrayana is not essentially different from everyday life

Ngak’chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen wrote: ‘Vajrayana is not essentially different from everyday life. This could be a misleading statement …