Pathgate News

A good friend of Lama Dondrup Dorje Rinpoche, Dr. Malkhaz Songulashvili, the former Archbishop of Georgia and the current Metropolitan Bishop of Tbilisi, was recently honoured in Germany by the House of One by becoming the first laureate of their newly launched House of One Peace Award. The House of One is the first religious house of worship in Berlin which contains a church, a mosque, and a synagogue at one location.

Metropolitan Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili, has been working for many years, beyond his native Georgia, to promote peaceful coexistence and interfaith unity between the religions of the entire Caucasus region. Inspired by what he has witnessed in Berlin, he has launched a peace project in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, by attaching to his main seat, the Peace Cathedral, with new construction which house a mosque and a synagogue. It also has a Centre for Interfaith Dialogue, for visitors to learn about the hopes and principles of all of the different faiths.

Upon his return to Georgia from Berlin, he was presented a gift of congratulation, painted by Bishop Rusudan Gotsiridze, the first female Baptist bishop in Georgia. Metropolitan Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili has also recently co-performed a liturgy with the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby who was visiting from the UK.

Lama Dondrup Dorje Rinpoche and Metropolitan Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili, have shared many interfaith dialogues over the course of many years. There is a special feature on Metropolitan Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili’s visit to the Pathgate Institute in 2009. Click here to read the special feature.

Manjushri nama samghiti (jampal tsenjö) - Chanting the Names of Manjusri - is a profoundly important text for all three vehicles of sutrayana, mahayana and vajrayana in Buddhism. Also referred to as the Net of Magical Manifestation of Manjushri or simply as The King of All Tantras, it is regarded in the Nyingma tradition as an Atiyoga text, for it contains the complete ground, path, and fruition of the Kalachakra Tantra (dükyi khorlo).

This sacred text was a direct transmission from Buddha Shakyamuni. The original text of over 100,000 chapters was translated into Tibetan by Rinchen Zangpo, but only 167 verses as collected by Manjushrimitra still exist today.

The thoroughly enlightened Manjushri, the embodiment of the primordial wisdom of all Buddhas, who appeared throughout the multiverse in countless emanations of bodhisattva since time without beginning, is revered as the regent prince of Dharma for his sacred oath to accomplish all beings of the animate and inanimate worlds.

Chanting the Names of Manjusri is described by Buddha Shakyamuni in the Buddhavacana (kangyur) - Word of the Buddha - as the most efficacious antidote, the most unsurpassed practice in the removing of defilements and negative karmic conditions as experienced across the three worlds. It is precisely for this reason that Chanting the Names of Manjusri is selected as the main practice by all four Tibetan traditions of Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya and Gelug during the Annual Prayer Festival for World Peace - Monlam Chenmo - at Bodhgaya.

Chanting the Manjushri Namasangiti, and meditating on the meaning of the verses, during kaliyuga (tsöpé dü), the age of degeneration, will certainly evoke the most positive conditions to transform the quality of energy in the world to restore some measure of harmony for all concerned.

The entire 167 verses of The Manjushri Nama Sangiti Tantra has recently been translated anew by Lama Dondrup Dorje Rinpoche with additional notes on the meaning of each verse to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee 60 year Anniversary of Namdroling Monastery and the 30 year Anniversary of Tsogyal Shedrub Dargyeling Nunnery.

The newly translated Manjushri Nama Sangiti Tantra can be found on page 202 of The Wish-Granting Tree of Enlightenment - the Prayer book of the Annual Prayer Assembly of Ngagyur Tradition, which is available online under Prayer Collections. Click here to visit Prayer Collections.

Shakyamuni Buddha has said that all diseases are caused by the three poisons of grasping, aversion, and delusion, which created the collective karma behind the arising of natural disasters, human calamities and incurable diseases during the degenerate age. For more than thirty years, many Pathgate students and their friends have been requesting prayers from Lama Dondrup Dorje Rinpoche whenever they are confronted by insufferable difficulties in their life.

On the evening of 12th June this year, a Pathgate student in Germany sent an urgent prayer request to Lama Dondrup Dorje Rinpoche for her brother’s girlfriend Aishah who had an abortion in Malaysia a few months earlier. Since then, her heart had stopped several times, and she had to spend a lot of time in hospital where her condition became so deteriorated that her breathing stopped completely that very day and required artificial life-support to sustain her vegetative state. The doctors considered the option to switch off her artificial life-support unless there was significant improvement within the next 48 hours. Lama Dondrup Dorje Rinpoche promptly replied that he will do what he can. By the following morning, the previously unconscious Aishah had woken up and her heart started functioning again, much to the relief of everyone. Heartfelt gratitudes from their families were immediately relayed to Lama Dondrup Dorje Rinpoche.

Several days later, the update of a baby named Alena who was born in Australia with a floppy larynx condition which made it difficult for her to breathe, to suck or to swallow, and had to be half fed by tube, was relayed to Lama Dondrup Dorje Rinpoche by her father who has previously requested help for himself when he was suffering from prostate cancer a few years earlier. Alena’s father was very grateful that her condition has since improved to the extent that she no longer requires feeding by tube, and now displays all the signs of a healthy baby.

These latest examples of the miraculous power of prayer were once again demonstrated by Lama Dondrup Dorje Rinpoche, who has revealed during past teachings that the effectiveness of prayer can only be amplified through the unifying of one’s compassionate wishes and one’s store of merits with the unswerving devotion of guru yoga to create the spontaneous connection between the nature of one’s mind with the enlightened essence of sameness in dharmata - the nature of all phenomena - that effectuate the positive changes for the benefit of others in their time of need.

Another notable example on the efficacy of prayer occurred during the Pathgate Summer Retreat in 2009 when students bore witness to the unfolding of miraculous events through the power of prayers offered by Lama Dondrup Dorje Rinpoche, when uncontrollable wildfires broke out all over Greece as detailed in the Pathgate News special feature ‘Puja of Compassion vs Wildfires in Greece’.  Click here to read the special feature.

After a conference on the annual accounts of Namdroling Monastery was concluded in early June, Khenpo Tsultrim Tentar, the newly appointed president of Ngagyur Nyingma Institute and a longtime working partner with Pathgate Institute, has made request to Lama Dondrup Dorje Rinpoche for a new round of sponsorship to cover the annual expenses of Ngagyur Nyingma Institute. To meet his request, Lama Dondrup Dorje Rinpoche has agreed to provide funding to cover the expenses on food for the entire teaching faculties of khenpos, lopens, research editors and all their supporting staffs for the year. This new round of sponsorship also included funding to meet the cost of twelve months internet charges at the Ngagyur Nyingma Institute. For the current academic year, Ngagyur Nyingma Institute has 1047 students and over 300 staffs.