The ornately-painted throne of the Vajrasattva statue, the central figure in the Statue Garden at Tashi Choling, flanked by rows of prayer wheels on the approaching walkway
In Venerable Gyatrul Rinpoche’s own words:
“I would like to say that, of all my projects that have come to the initial stages of fruition through the kindness of so many, the most important of all is the Mirror of Wisdom Archives [now called Vimala]… In my opinion, there is no greater way to serve the doctrine or sentient beings than through the Dharma of scripture and transmission. This is, in fact, the life of the Dharma. Mirror of Wisdom is the structure and support for this because it preserves all of the great teachings given to us by the greatest teachers of our time.
“This organization will bring benefit to countless future generations for as long as the Archives is updated and preserved as a vehicle through which the Dharma remains present in our world. All the teachings and translations, the videos and documentation, that it holds are the single most important aspect of my work in the West. The temples, statues, stupas, prayer wheels, and so forth are important, of course, but they cannot compare with the blessing and value of the actual direct words of the teachings. Therefore, all of the teachings that have been given must be carefully guarded and preserved. They must be made available to interested students without bias or discrimination. Everyone who offers to assist Mirror of Wisdom must continue in a spirit of oneness because it is the speech of the Buddha. This is our opportunity. It was the prayer of Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche himself that Yeshe Nyingpo [Mirror of Wisdom] serve all traditions and, in particular, all lineages of the Nyingmapa tradition, including Dorje Drag, Mindrol Ling, Palyul, Khatok, Dzogchen, and Shechen…. Serving the Dharma is the only possibility for permanent virtue, so we must always do our best with body, speech, and mind.
“Remember that, for me, the essence of all of this is Mirror of Wisdom Archives, for the reasons that I have mentioned. For example, we all know how wonderful it is to actually see the videos of the Karmapa and Dudjom Rinpoche. Just imagine what it would be like if we could see videos of Guru Rinpoche and the twenty-five disciples at Samye Monastery! For the future generations, what we record on video right now will mean that much to them. This is not for ourselves; this is for all beings who will follow us. We need to make sure that we have served our gurus well so that they would be proud of us, that our faith is always increasing, and that the two levels of merit are always being accumulated. The real representative of our gurus, the actual tulkus, are found within the Archives, because therein is contained the speech of Buddha without any alteration.”
~ Excerpted from Venerable Gyatrul Rinpoche’s article in the 2004 Mirror of Wisdom Newsletter ~
Vimala is honored to be the keeper of these precious materials. It is our great hope that we will be able to serve Rinpoche by fulfilling his aspirations and ensuring that present-day and future generations will be able to benefit from all the materials that Rinpoche has instructed us to gather and preserve. We feel privileged to have this opportunity to share Vimala’s many treasures with you!
Rinpoche with young Iridea Beamonte in Mexico in the
1980’s. Two decades later, it was Iridea who translated the beautiful prayer below.
A Prayer Revealed in a Dream
ཨེ་མ་ཧོ། སྐྱབས་གནས་ཀུན་འདུས་ཨོ་རྒྱན་རིན་པོ་ཆེ།།
EH MA HO KYAB NE KÜN DÜ OR GYEN RIN PO CHE
How Astonishing! The embodiment of all sources of refuge, Orgyen Rinpoche,
གསོལ་བ་འདེབས་སོ་བྱིན་གྱིས་བརླབ་ཏུ་གསོལ།།
SOL WA DEB SO CHIN GYI LAB TU SOL
I pray, bestow your blessings.
ཕྱི་ནང་གསང་བའི་བར་ཆད་ཞི་བ་དང་།།
CHI NANG SANG WAI BAR CHED ZHI WA DANG
Please remove all outer, inner, and secrets obstacles
བསམ་པ་ལྷུན་གྱིས་འགྲུབ་པར་བྱིན་གྱིས་རློབས།།
SAM PA LHÜN GYI DRUB PAR CHIN GYI LOB
and grant blessings to spontaneously accomplish all wishes.
རྡོ་རྗེ་དྲག་རྩལ་གླིང་པས་གསུངས་སོ།།
This was spoken by Dorje Dragtsal Lingpa (Tulku Natsog Rangdrol).
ཨོཾ་ཨཱ་ཧཱུྃ་བཛྲ་གུ་རུ་པདྨ་སིདྡྷི་ཧཱུྃ༔
OM AH HUNG BENZAR GURU PEDMA SIDDHI HUNG
Colophon: Gyatrul Rinpoche had a dream in which his root guru, Tulku Natsog Rangdrol, came to him and told him he should make this prayer. The next morning, he repeated the prayer and Lama Chonam, one of his attendants, wrote it down. Several days later, Rinpoche gave the prayer to his student, Iridea Beamonte, and told her to recite it. Iridea translated the prayer and offered it to the sangha on the occasion of a Vajrakilaya Drupchöd at Tashi Chöling in Ashland, Oregon, with the wish that all beings be free of suffering and that their journey on the paths and stages unfolds auspiciously and without obstacles.