This Autumn 2021 DCC Newsletter Special Edition is lovingly created to honour the memory and celebrate in a small way what would have been the Venerable Namgyal Rinpoche's 90th birthday.
Several months ago Trudy was delighted to re-discover amongst old files, photographs taken by Gerry Kopelow of Namgyal Rinpoche's Memorial Service held at the Dharma Centre in November 2003: 'Seeing faces, once again after almost 18 years, so many of us. Our younger selves. Others now long gone. Our sadness and our joy. Our coming together to create beauty and pay homage to a being who had touched every person in that tent so very deeply. I felt strongly that these photos ought to be shared and sent a link to Marion and Marta knowing their connection to the DCC would make these photos a wonder to behold.'
After sharing the photos we thought about all the DCC visitors and practitioners who had never met “Sir.” We reflected how so many of the people who now study with our present-day teachers never met, yet are so strongly influenced by this extraordinary being. He was heard to have said: 'The Dharma Centre is my body', and here we are, serving him still. The idea came into being to dedicate this issue of the DCC Newsletter to Namgyal Rinpoche. Through the voices of this small number within the countless many who spent time and studied with Rinpoche, we present some memories and stories. We acknowledge that we have not asked enough people and we’ve missed some whom we probably ought to have asked. Yet each story herein has been gifted to this newsletter and each is so heart-warming and heart-felt that we hope everyone reading this newsletter will get some sense of the vastness of this Teacher’s loving and compassionate presence.
The newsletter also includes updates from our hard-working Board of Directors as well as retreat testimonials and news about upcoming retreats. Please read the article about the AGM — board nominations are welcome and needed for this year’s Dec 5 AGM.
If you have a story you’d like to share — please get in touch!
Stay safe. Stay well.
Marion & Trudy (Co-editors)
We respectfully acknowledge that the Dharma Centre of Canada is located in the traditional territory of the Michi Saagiig and Chippewa Nations, collectively known as the Williams Treaties First Nations. The Dharma Centre also acknowledges that the Williams Treaties First Nations are the stewards and caretakers of these lands and waters in perpetuity. We are all Treaty people. We also recognize the unique history, culture and traditions of Métis, Inuit, and other First People for their wisdom, contributions and teaching.
Summer and heat greeted us early on this year and now, while we email back and forth writing this, Marion is sitting in front of a burning wood stove at Hill House while Trudy is reminded of the summer the Dagoba was built and Rinpoche’s admonishments about being prepared for the world going to hell in a handbasket!
Trudy Gold & Marion Herlet
Read MoreAlthough I lived at the Dharma Centre most of the time from 1984 to 1989 I am not sure I can give you a definitive This Was The Dharma Centre report. Maybe instead I can tell you what has stayed with me thirty-five years on.
by Brian McLeod
Read MoreImagine that a decade in the making
Navigating the gravel road of Galway to the DCC
Cecilie was running a retreat
Sitting in the main house full of new friends,
by Karen Russell
Read MoreThese things take a while, but the "while" is interesting. Exactly 200 years after the first British expedition to Tibet (1774), the Gyalwa Karmapa visited the West, the first Tibetan high lama to do so.
by Rab Wilkie
Read MoreWith deep gratitude for our remarkable teachers present and past, for all they have offered, I am forever indebted to them for their encouragement, support and vast teachings.
by Mala Sikka
Read MoreTracy and I sat down for a Zoom chat in June to talk about her current role for the Dharma Centre. For years I’ve been aware that Tracy has been volunteering huge chunks of time to assist the Dharma Centre’s board and staff.
Tracy Sheridan in conversation with Trudy Gold
Read MoreAccording to Garchen Rinpoche: In prison in Tibet, the great Dzogchen Khenpo Munsel Rinpoche taught me this: “The extent of your realization will be known when you encounter difficult circumstances.
by Christine Wihak
Read MoreThis year the Monument Restoration Committee chose to focus on the restoration of the Tibetan Chorten. The Chorten is probably the first thing I noticed when I entered the Dharma Centre of Canada in late summer 2017.
by Marta Castiglioni
Read MoreThis certainly has been an unusual spring season. All our retreats had to be cancelled due to the extended lockdown in response to a third wave of COVID 19. Despite this, practitioners continued to gather online. Here are some testimonials from some of the folks who attended DCC-Zoom-sponsored retreats and classes during the pandemic.
Read MoreMerry spring one and all! We are writing this during an unusually warm period in Southern Ontario —trees and plants are budding weeks earlier than usual in this 'summer in spring' experience.
Marion & Trudy
Co-editors
In 1977, I was chair of the Yukon Dharma Society and Wesley was chair of the Karmapa Committee. We represented the group that brought Karmapa 16 (with His entourage of 10 Tulkus, Rinpoches and Lamas) to the Yukon to transmit His uniquely personal Chenresi Ritual of 'Displaying the Vajra Crown' also known as The Black Hat ceremony.
Angelica Knapp
Read MoreSitting in my sunroom, watching the rain fall, reflecting on the year past and the year to be. Spring is whispering its arrival through the senses. The sunroom is a well-built room, pleasing in design with its south-east exposure, opening up to a neighbourhood park that has a skating rink for fun in the winter, swings for the summer.
Jack Connelly
Read MoreOver Zoom, Trudy Gold (TG) met with Lisa Cowen (LC) and Karen Russell (KR), founders of the Virtual Dharma Temple. Here’s excerpts from the interview: TG: You two did something really cool this past year. Soon after Covid restrictions were in place, together you created a Virtual Dharma Temple. Tell us what you were thinking in March/April 2020.
Interview with Lisa Cowen & Karen Russell
Read MoreI am writing to you from my home in Toronto in the first weeks of spring. While the sun and flowers are doing their usual seasonal dance, this is no ordinary spring. For the third time in just over a year, we are another stay-at-home order here in Ontario.
Chris von Baeyer
Read MoreI write this brief article as the sun sets on the tropical jungle that surrounds me here in the foothills of the Andes in rural Colombia. It’s been an amazing spot to spend part of the pandemic, while working virtually with a poor internet connection on our Temple Project.
Travis Olsen
Read MoreAs we enter another year of unusually challenging times here at the DCC, together with the rest of the world, we are making efforts to cultivate and create positive initiatives to serve and involve our community. One such project has been the development of a store as a small pilot project to be launched during our upcoming spring season.
Read MoreThe Dharma Centre of Canada is asking members to submit nominations for potential Board Members. At the AGM on May 2, 2021, seven vacancies on our 9-member Board of Directors will become vacant.
Read MoreIt had been over a year since I had been in retreat… and a wild year at that. I was craving the dark and craving the quiet and curious about how I would experience my newly evolved/evolving self in the simplicity and depth of practice.
Ruth Levin
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