I am very happy to help spread the news about Dilgo Khyentse Yangsi Rinpoche‘s first visit to the United States this August.  This trip will both serve as a commemoration of the life of Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (1910-1991) on the one-hundredth anniversary of his birth as well as a welcoming of his current incarnation, Khyentse Yangsi, to the United States.  May it be the first of many! Khyentse Yangsi Rinpoche is going to be in the the US from August 5th through 15th and there will be a series of events (empowerments, teachings, and celebrations) in New York City, Vermont, and Colorado. Please visit the Celebrating the Return! website for further details. I remember watching the previous Khyentse Rinpoche preside over the cremation ceremony of Chogyam Trungpa in 1987.  Even though I was very young at the time, I can still remember him vividly amidst what is otherwise a blur of that very sad day. My father’s nickname for Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche was “Mr. Universe” and I recall taking this a bit too literally and telling my friends at school that “my dad knows a man with the whole universe inside him.” They thought I was weird.  In the years that have followed, I’ve always noticed that even one glimpse of a picture of him lifts my mood and wakes me up a little.  Recently, as an adult working for Tricycle, I was very happy when we released his previously unpublished instruction “An Investigation of the Mind.” The first time I heard about young Khyentse Yangsi was a funny story that my father told during his days working for the Asia Society in the 90’s. The scientist turned monk Mathieu Ricard, a close student of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, had just finished presenting a slide lecture on “The Life and Legacy of Dilgo Khyentse” and Rabjam Rinpoche was present as well.  Sitting in my father’s office following the slide lecture, Rabjam was delighted to see two photos he had on his wall, one of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche during his first visit to the US in the late 70’s with the young Rabjam next to him playing with a GI JOE, and next to it a photo of the grown Rabjam Rinpoche holding the then 3 year old Yangsi tulku. Delighted to see those two photos side by side, separated by more than twenty years (and a death), he said “LOOK! In this one, he’s so big and I’m so little.  And here, I’m so big and he’s so little.” He then turned to my father with a broad smile and said “It’s my turn to take care of him now.” Some time later my father and one of my brothers attended Khyentse Yangsi Rinpoche’s enthronement in Nepal in 1996 and returned speaking very highly of the young lama.  I have wanted to meet him ever since and now it’s fourteen years later and looking like I’m going to finally get the chance. Here are some videos about Khyentse Yangsi Rinpoche that were provided to us via youtube by Sasha Dorje Meyerowitz, a student of Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche and friend of Tricycle.  More blogs and videos on Rinpoche and his visit to come… Glimpses of Dilgo Khyentse Yangsi Rinpoche Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche: The Significance of Khyentse Yangsi Rinpoche’s First Visit to the West

                                                        Images via khyentsevisit2010.org

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