Incredibly excited to hear Khenchen Konchog Gyaltsen is teaching in Maryland in the spring

News just came out that His Eminence, Khenchen Konchog Gyaltsen, will be teaching around the United States early this year.  He will be out West and then teaching around the East coast in April and May.  I’m very excited.  He will be at the Tibetan Meditation Center in Frederick, Maryland from May 28th thru June 5th giving teachings.  I expect to be there for some of that time!

Khenchen is not my root lama, but he is practically at the same level.  I am very blessed and grateful to have a strong connection with this precious and sublimely wise master.  He is the one who pointed me back toward the school path – he said going to school was to be my spiritual path for a while (and he was absolutely right).  He is the one who prevented (suggested strongly) that I not run off to India for less-than-grounded-or-well-reasoned purposes (and that is how I finished my bachelor’s degree and probably prevented additional needless suffering).  He pointed me toward Psychology in school, and he assisted in directing me toward Nursing, which I am currently doing.  Also I first took refuge with Khenchen and took my first Bodhisattva vows with him.  He is definitely one of my heart Lamas.  And I guess technically (if any of this technical stuff matters) he is my refuge Lama.  What matters is that he is one of a handful of heart teachers for me.

I do desperately miss spending time with my root guru, Drupon Thinley Ningpo, but Florida is a long way away (15 hr drive each way or a complicated flight(s) to arrange).  Hopefully I will get to see Drupon Rinpoche this summer or early in the fall.  I have heard that your root lama is the person who can help to liberate your mind and who can point out the natural state – our innate nature of dynamic emptiness.  If this is true, then that is the most important connection you will ever have with a teacher.  Period.  Therefore I do not mean to speak higher of Khenchen than of Drupon.  Rather, it has been a number of years since I have seen Khenchen la, where as I fortunately get to see Drupon nearly every year.  Plus due to Khenchen’s having mastered English, he speaks more openly and compassionately to my heart (at least so far).  And from what I have seen so far, he can be more wrathful and direct in dealing with wayward practitioners.  And perhaps it is time he were wrathful with me.  We will see!  I am so very grateful for all of my blessings – I am just an ordinary afflicted human being who is attempting to put his precious human rebirth to good use.

Thanks for reading!