WELCOME TO THE GARCHEN BUDDHIST INSTITUTE
A Sanctuary of Peace
The Garchen Buddhist Institute was founded by His Eminence Garchen Rinpoche in Chino Valley, Arizona. It is rooted in the Drikung Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Garchen Rinpoche created the Institute to establish the Buddha Dharma in the West, and to offer practitioners of all levels the opportunity to receive teachings, and participate in short or extended meditation practices.
TEMPORARILY CLOSED
Dear Worldwide Community,
We find ourselves in unprecedented times, with much uncertainty of how and when we can all safely resume traveling and gathering together. As a result, the Institute will unfortunately remain closed for the summer. This decision is rooted in the utmost concern for everyone’s safety, protection and well-being. We are never truly separate, and have a very full online events schedule of precious Dharma to keep us connected in prayer, practice and love.
Sending heartfelt prayers and love for everyone’s well being.
ONLINE OFFERINGS:
Events, Practices, Classes & Services
SAGA DAWA DUCHEN ONLINE EVENT
May 23 – June 6, 2020
Saga Dawa Duchen is considered one of the most holy times in Tibetan Buddhism, marking the birth, enlightenment and parinirvana (death) of the Buddha Shakyamuni. H.E. Garchen Rinpoche and the Garchen Institute Lamas will perform special Dharma activities during this very auspicious time.
* Chenrezig Empowerment
* Eight Mahayana Precepts and Commentary
* Chenrezig Sadhana Practice and Commentary
* Q & A
* Nyung Ne Retreat
It is said that during this time, the karma of all positive and negative actions is multiplied 100 million times. Thus, it is a tremendously auspicious time to engage in virtuous practice, and perform acts of kindness and generosity. Because of this multiplying effect, this is a golden opportunity to accomplish vast merit and virtue in a short amount of time.
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Details & Schedule of Events
To read complete details on the event, including instructions, daily schedule and more,
CLICK HERE
To view schedule of events only on your device
CLICK HERE
To download a printable schedule
CLICK HERE
Join Us Online
To participate via livestream,
CLICK HERE
Translation services
For links to translations in Chinese, Vietnamese & Russian
CLICK HERE
Texts For This Event
To view or to download the practice texts and commentaries that will be used during this event,
CLICK HERE
PUJA SERVICES
The Garchen Buddhist Institute is pleased to introduce a new program of Sponsored Puja Services. Pujas are prayer rituals which involve visualization, mantra recitation and offerings to enlightened beings (Buddhas & Bodhisattvas). They are performed to receive the blessings of these enlightened beings, to accumulate merit, and to dispel obstacles and negative circumstances for oneself and others. Pujas can be sponsored to benefit oneself or another, for the living or for the dead.
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Request a Puja
To request/sponsor a puja,
CLICK HERE
PARNASHAVARI PRACTICE
Every Wednesday, 3:30 – 5:00 pm
His Holiness Chetsang Rinpoche has instructed everyone to do the the practice of Parnashavari. She is is the 20th of the 21 Taras (connected with the wisdom of Amoghasiddhi). She is attired in the green leaves of medicinal plants, and is the one who protects us from contagious diseases. Every Wednesday from 3:30 to 5:00 pm Arizona Time (Pacific Standard this time of year) the Garchen institute Lamas practice her sadhana for the benefit of all beings, and we livestream the practice for all to participate.
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Join Us Online
To participate via livestream,
CLICK HERE
SUNDAY PRACTICES
10:30 am – 4:00 pm
Garchen Buddhist Institute’s Sunday practices, dharma talks, and classes have been our offering for many years — a way for the local community of practitioners and seekers to come together in love and learning, and a way for the world-wide sangha to feel connected to Rinpoche, the Lamas and the Institute via livestream.
We are happy to be able to contiune these offerings online, during this time of diffiuclity.
- Dharma Talks with Venerable Khenpo Tenzin 10:30am – 12pm
- Meditation class with Venerable Khenpo Tenzin 1pm – 2pm
- White Tara Practice with H.E.Garchen Rinpoche and Garchen Institute Lamas: 2pm – 3:30pm
Some Sundays, Rinpoche will also perform a Jangchok Burning Away Afflictions puja, which will extend the end time to 4:00pm. The Jangchok will be announced a few days beforehand. Please participate in the day’s events as your schedule allows!
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Join Us Online
To participate via livestream,
CLICK HERE
For links to translations in Chinese, Vietnamese & Russian
CLICK HERE
MESSAGES AND TEACHINGS
FROM H.E. GARCHEN RINPOCHE
MOST RECENT MESSAGE
May 3, 2020
This is an excellent opportunity to practice the Dharma. In your homes, practice your own yidam deities, such as Vajrakilaya, Yamantaka, Chenrezig, or Tara. Use this time to pray for things to get better again. And I am not only talking about Buddhist prayers. All prayers of all religions will be very beneficial. If you wish to recite a Buddhist prayer, I have requested disciples to recite four lines from Shantideva’s dedication:
“May every being ailing with disease
be freed at once from every malady.
May all the sickness that afflicts the living
be instantly and permanently healed.”
When you recite this prayer, the buddhas of the three times pray together with you. All Buddhists in the world join within the words of this prayer, and thereby our minds will merge. In this way, we accumulate great merit together, which will help move the world into a better direction. Of course, if you don’t pray, there won’t be any merit. It is very important to pray at this time. So, aside from meeting in our minds, we will also continue to meet on live-stream. I will join the White Tara practice every Sunday and it will be live-streamed. During the week I will be in retreat and I will be praying and meditating day and night. If you pray and meditate too, we will always be together.
Chino Valley, AZ, USA on May 3, 2020.
Translated by Ina Bieler
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Birthday Message, April 15 2020
Many disciples around the world expressed their wish to hold prayer services for my birthday. But what’s more important than praying on my birthday is to think about the great difficulties everyone is experiencing in the world due to the pandemic. This is something that we should all pray for.
So all the Buddhists in the world should recite one particular prayer together. Four lines from Shantideva’s Way of a Bodhisattva. They are very easy to recite. It’s a prayer wishing for all those who are sick to fully recover. So please on my birthday, it’s my wish for you to accumulate this 4 line prayer as much as you can, ideally 100 million times. That will help with the healing of this illness in this world and will also benefit my health and my long life. It’s also a great accumulation of merit.
As a gift to you on my birthday, I’m offering to you the Bodhisattva vows. Actually we always have to retake the Bodhisattva vows, throughout the 3 periods of the day and 3 periods of the night. But because many people want to receive the vow, I’m offering it on my birthday.
Regarding my own lineage of the Bodhisattva Vow, it is very precious and I have received it from several of the elder Lamas in Tibet but most importantly I received it twice from His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
I have just completed a month long retreat and actually this is what I’ve been accumulating in my retreat, these 4 lines. They are very powerful and easy to recite and accumulate. So everyone please recite these 4 lines, many times, as much as you can. And of course we will hold other practices on the birthday but these 4 lines are most important. So on an ongoing basis, in your day to day life, continue to accumulate these 4 lines like a mantra. It would be ideal if you can submit your numbers, via email to the center.
H.E. Garchen Rinpoche, April 15, 2020, Chino Valley, AZ, USA.
Translated by Ina Bieler
4 LINE PRAYER TO RECITE – (in the blue prayer book, page 64, verse 21)
May every being ailing with disease
Be freed at once from every malady.
May all the sickness that afflicts the living
Be instantly and permanently healed.
Message Before Entering Retreat
Even though I will be in retreat for a month, people can still listen to my teachings. Since I will be meditating in retreat, my mind merges into one with anyone else who is meditating too. The meditative state is the state of all the buddhas’ mind—they are always resting in the natural condition of the mind. When you meditate, you become one with my mind and the mind of all the buddhas—you become one with the space-like nature of mind that transcends birth and death. So don’t think that because I’m in retreat that I’m gone. Whenever you meditate we are together.
Whatever virtue you practice, there are many dedication prayers to dedicate these virtues. Often people request lamas to preform dedication prayers on their behalf. Actually, there is no need to ask for this because you should recite these dedication prayers yourself.
At the end of the Sūtra of the Three Heaps there is a dedication prayer that is concise yet complete in meaning; it can easily be recited by anyone. I encourage you to recite this as a dedication prayer whenever you engage in practice:
Just as the previous Bhagavan buddhas
have perfectly dedicated, just as the
future Bhagavan buddhas will perfectly
dedicate, and just as the present
Bhagavan buddhas perfectly dedicate,
like that I too dedicate perfectly.
I confess each and every wrong-
doing and rejoice in all merit. I urge and
supplicate to all the buddhas: May I attain
the highest, most sublime primordial
wisdom! With my palms joined together I
wholeheartedly take refuge in all those
who possess qualities as vast as an
infinite ocean: to the buddhas, the best of
humans, who are living in the present,
those who have lived in the past, and
likewise, those who will come.
This is the supreme dedication and it also includes refuge. It is endowed with great blessings as it was spoken by the Buddha himself.
All the disciples—we are always together. Buddha is like a big tree. The tree knows that its branches and leaves belong to him. Some branches break and some dry out; these are the many sentient beings who experience suffering. Some branches know that they belong to one single tree; these are those beings who understand Buddha. These branches will not dry out. For as long as you believe, “I am a separate individual,” you will be controlled by karma and afflictive emotions and thus you become like dry or broken tree branch. Some of the branches of a tree dry out, while other branches blossom with flowers and leaves. When you realize the view of Mahāmudrā, you know, “We are all branches of the same Buddha tree. The basis of our mind is one and the same.” Saṃsāra and nirvāṇa have a single basis, which is like the trunk of a tree. This knowledge is referred to as “meditating in the state of Mahāmudrā.” Meditation means to look at the nature of your mind, and cultivating love and compassion, untainted by self-grasping, is the cause of becoming a Buddha. The Buddha said: “All sentient beings are actually buddhas.” When you understand this, you have understood the view of Mahāmudrā. Then you will understand that, as it is said in the Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva, “the way things appear is one’s own mind.”
Many Tashi Delek to everyone!
Garchen Rinpoche, March 16, 2020, Chino Valley, USA
Translated by Ina Bieler.
COVID-19 Messages & Instructions
CLICK HERE to go to our Coronavirus resource page. All of Rinpoche’s instructions and messages of hope regarding the pandemic are available here as video or written transcripts. This page also gathers, in one place, all the prayers and practices recommended by Garchen Rinpoche to help us through this trying time.
Rinpoche's Retirement in Arizona
To read about H.E. Garchen Rinpoche’s retirement in Arizona, USA, please CLICK HERE
The Garchen Teaching Archive
A treasure trove of profound teachings by H.E. Garchen Rinpoche. These beautiful teachings have been newly formatted in an easeful, unique manner which makes the viewing experience immediate, accessible, and deeply personal.
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Begin Watching Now
PRAYERS AND PRACTICES
H.E. Garchen Rinpoche’s Instructions
H.E. Garchen Rinpoche’s birthday wish is for everyone to accumulate two very important prayers.
Shantideva’s Four Lines for the relief of disease and sickness, especially during the pandemic.
For those who have received Bodhisattva vows, you must recite the Homage to Bodhicitta three times in the morning and three times in the evening.
Shantideva's Four Lines
126,042,939
Total Accumulations of Worldwide Sangha
To submit your accumulations CLICK HERE
The total will be updated once daily.
Text of Shantideva's Four Lines
Homage to Bodhicitta
Dispelling existences in the lower realms,
Showing the path to the higher realms,
Leading to the cessation of aging and death,
I pay homage to the precious Bodhicitta.
Taking Vows Online
H.E. Garchen Rinpoche has said that it is extremely beneficial to take vows online, as it really shows you have a strong aspiration to receive them! He has also said that the reason you are truly able to receive vows online, is because of the ultimate nature of the Three Jewels — the Buddha, the Dharma (teachings), and the Sangha (spiritual community). This ultimate nature is actually love, which is all-pervasive like space. So if you have the heart and intention of love, you receive the vows whether or not you are physically present for the ceremony.
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Take Vows
To take your Refuge, Bodhisattva, or other vows online,
CLICK HERE
