World Peace through Inner Peace:  Gathering of the Yogis

The earliest school of Tibetan Buddhism is known as the Nyingma School.  All of the later schools of Tibetan Buddhism were born from and have their roots in the Nyingma tradition.  Later schools of Tibetan Buddhism grew rapidly from the foundation of the celibate monastic community rooted in rigorous intellectual study and development of Buddhist doctrine.  Only the Nyingma School also maintained and perpetuated the non-celibate community of “white robed” (or householder) practitioners, preserving the unique yogic disciplines and powers that characterized early disciples of Padmasambhava, the yogi and saint who brought Buddhism from India to Tibet in 747 AD.   

Extensive teachings on Tibetan Buddhism have migrated to the West since the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1949, but we have had significantly less exposure to the Tibetan Nyingma legacy, despite the extraordinary effort and dedication of many accomplished Nyingma teachers and yogic practitioners.  Many of the highly realized Nyingma Yogis in Tibet – some of whom are carriers of “mind treasures,” teachings that emanate from spontaneous realization of an individual yogi through intensive meditation and other esoteric practices – have never left their mountainside caves or villages, let alone their region of Tibet. These Yogis remain isolated from the “modern-day” world, and certainly from the West – in part due to geographic distance (many of them reside in the difficult to reach mountainous regions of northeastern Tibet) and in part by choice. Their yogic practices – and their extraordinary realizations and profound teachings – have remained largely inaccessible to Westerners, and even to other Easterners or Buddhists, all of whom would benefit from their teachings.

The Yogis of Tibet are rapidly vanishing, and their cultural, spiritual and esoteric knowledge is at risk of vanishing with them. 

The Venerable Lama Lhanang Rinpoche, who is based in Los Angeles, comes from the Nyingma yogic lineage of Eastern Tibet – and has been recognized as an emanation of one of the first 25 disciples of Padmasambhava.  Born in Golok, Tibet in 1967, Rinpoche studied with several of the great yogis in his region, apprenticing for several years with a powerful and amazing “Wandering Yogi” who is highly revered throughout Eastern Tibet, having maintained silence and practiced extreme renunciation for many years.  It has long been prophesied among the Yogis of Eastern Tibet that Rinpoche would come to the West to benefit beings – and that he would return many times to his homeland to help preserve his cultural and spiritual heritage.  It was also prophesied that Rinpoche would help gather the Yogis for an historic, first-ever conference among them, and that he would serve both to preserve the Yogis’ invaluable legacy and history, and to bridge access to their knowledge and wisdom for those outside of Tibet. After 13 years of living in Los Angeles, and establishing Nyingma Centers throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico, Rinpoche felt in his heart that the time was ripe to fulfill his commitments to his yogic heritage.