HH 16th Karmapa – Karmapa Center 16

Save the Dates

On Friday, July 24th — the 10th day of the 6th month of the Fire Horse Year, an auspicious day in the Tibetan calendar celebrating the birth of Guru Padmasambhava — Karmapa Center 16 will hold a special consecration ceremony of the Guru Rinpoche statue, followed by a teaching the next day.

His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, regularly teaches about the importance of living and acting in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way. His Holiness the 16th Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, was well-known for his great love for animals, especially birds of all kinds. We are therefore deeply grateful that the groundwork was successfully completed with the intention of making a meaningful contribution to the protection of the environment. The existing pond was expanded and deepened, and will continue to offer a resting place for migrating birds such as the Canada Goose and Heron, while also providing water to help prevent fire in case of emergencies.

At the center of the pond now stands the beautifully crafted bronze statue of Guru Rinpoche, which was specially commissioned and made by an artisan in Nepal.

We are deeply honored that Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche will lead the consecration ceremony on Friday, July 24, followed by a profound teaching on Saturday, July 25.

We warmly invite everyone to join us — onsite or online — to mark this significant next step in the development of Karmapa Center 16, as we continue our work to build the temple that will be the home of the 16th Karmapa’s Parinirvana Stupa, Retreat Houses, and more.

July 24 Consecration Ceremony of Guru Rinpoche Statue

July 25 Teaching by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

Registration info to come soon…stay tuned!

43rd Parinirvana Anniversary of His Holiness the 16th Karmapa

Karmapa Center 16 commemorates His Holiness the 16th Karmapa’s parinirvāṇa every year on November 5th, the day of his passing at the clinic which is now called City of Hope Cancer Treatment Center, in Zion, Illinois. Under the guidance of our resident teacher, Acharya Lhakpa Tshering, and Lama Tashi Gawa, we will be hosting a full day of pujas and practice in Tibetan. Please register below to receive the Zoom link. If you’d like to join onsite, please make sure you indicate this on the registration form.

We are also deeply honored that our friends in Taiwan will be hosting a 16th Karmapa Guru Yoga Teaching Retreat with a special teaching by His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, as well as practices and teachings by our advisor, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, and our president, Dilyak Drupon Rinpoche, from November 1 to 3, and November 5. You can join online (via Zoom) or onsite. Teachings will be in English or Tibetan with translation into English and Chinese. Recordings will be made available to all registrants.

In addition to the teachings, this special retreat includes a traditional lung (oral transmission) of His Holiness the 16th Karmapa’s Guru Yoga Sadhana (from Dilyak Drupon Rinpoche), and practicing this Guru Yoga together in the presence of sacred relics of His Holiness.

Please find a tentative schedule below. Registration includes access to both the Guru Yoga Teaching Retreat and the Parinirvana commemoration. When you register, we will share the Zoom links, how to access recordings, and other practical information. For more information and registration in Chinese, please visit KC16 Taiwan’s Facebook Page.

May we always honor the radiant compassion and enlightened activities of His Holiness.

Schedule

Registration

Schedule

Tuesday, November 5, 2024 (at Karmapa Center 16 and online)

All times are shown in the local time zone, Central Standard Time (Chicago). Please note: Daylight Saving Time ends on November 3, 2024.

time (US Central Time, UTC-6)	puja
7:00–8:00a	Tara
9:00–10:30a	Guru Yoga (composed by Tai Situ Rinpoche)
11:00a–12:30p	Guru Yoga (composed by Tai Situ Rinpoche)
2:00–3:30p	Guru Yoga (composed by Tai Situ Rinpoche)
4:00–5:30p	Mahakala

Schedule for KC16 pujas onsite in Wadsworth, IL, USA on November 5, 2024
Click here to see the start time in your local time zone.

Please click to see the tentative schedule for His Holiness the 16th Karmapa’s Guru Yoga Teaching Retreat (Taiwan).

Registration

After making an offering (of any amount) below, a resource page with Zoom links and participation information for the Taiwan and KC16 Wadsworth events will be automatically emailed.

Please see the detailed schedule of pujas prior to the 43rd Parinirvāṇa Anniversary program. The Zoom link will be delivered in a confirmation email. Thank you for being part of this year’s Parinirvāṇa Activities and kind support.

Meditation for All – Every Sunday, Online and Onsite

Since October of last year, our resident teacher, Acharya Lhakpa Tshering, has offered guided meditation and short dharma teachings every Sunday at Karmapa Center 16, and friends in the area have been able to join us onsite.

As everyone is welcome, and no prior experience is needed, Acharya calls the Sunday sessions Meditation for All.

We are delighted to announce that beginning January 14, 2024, Acharya’s teaching and the opportunity to practice together, will be offered online, so that Meditation for All will, indeed, be available to all!

Please join us onsite or online!

For online access, please register here for the Zoom link. The sessions begin at 10 am and finish at 11:30 am Central Standard Time. Please be sure to log onto Zoom a few minutes before we start. Below, you can find a few other guidelines that will help all of us practice together in the most beneficial way possible.

KC16’s resident teacher – Acharya Lhakpa Tshering. Photo Credit: Gloria Sherab Drolma

We aspire to follow in the footsteps of His Holiness the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa by offering Meditation for All to everyone and practicing together as he once expressed:

“I will always exert myself in dharmic recitation, proclamations, and readings. In mind, I will not flutter back and forth like a young bird on a branch. Not getting absorbed in discursive thoughts of good and bad, I will meditate, cultivating forbearance and relying on my own perceptions, not those of others. I will reflect on how best to benefit the teachings and beings.”

Karmapa Khyenno!

The 40th Anniversary of His Holiness Karmapa’s Parinirvana

On the 4oth anniversary of the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje’s parinirvana, the Karmapa Center 16 held a five-day commemoration joined by Tibetan Buddhist masters with a special connection to His Holiness, such as His Eminence Tai Situ Rinpoche, His Eminence Goshir Gyaltsap Rinpoche, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Khandro Rinpoche, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, Ayang Rinpoche and Dilyak Drupon Rinpoche.

These special events included two days of prayers to Medicine Buddha and three days of practice on the Karmapa Rangjung Rigpe Dorje Guru Yoga. Tai Situ Rinpoche and Goshir Gyaltsap Rinpoche each composed a Guru Yoga for Rangjung Rigpe Dorje. Both of these are practiced in alternation at the Karmapa Center 16, annually. This year’s 40th anniversary coincided with the turn of the Guru Yoga composed by Goshir Gyaltsap Rinpoche. The events were joined in person by 13 members of the sangha, several lay practitioners and many more followers over the internet.

The teachings and addresses offered by the various Buddhist masters centered, in general, on their experience with His Holiness the 16th Karmapa, and in particular, the teachings they received from him.

Karmapa Center 16 celebrated the extraordinary, enlightened activities of the 16th Karmapa on the occasion of his 40th parinirvana anniversary.

Eighteenth Story Update: The Joy of Birds

His Holiness the 16th Karmapa in Kaneohe, Oahu, Hawaii. November 1976. “Feeding peacocks in Valley of the Temples.” Photo courtesy of Kagyuoffice.org website.

Dear Friends of KC16,

During the rise of the coronavirus pandemic, adoptions and sales of pets have similarly soared around the world, bringing companionship, comfort and joy to many. His Holiness the 16th Karmapa understood that joy and extended his deep compassion and love to all animals, though most especially to birds.

The connection between the Karmapa lineage and birds is legendary. The 10th Karmapa created artwork around birds, while the 13th Karmapa was renowned for his ability to communicate with his feathered friends. According to many students and attendants, birds literally flocked to the 16th Karmapa. Observers remarked that the Karmapa treated his birds as disciples, and they often displayed signs of meditative accomplishment in his presence.

A longtime student of His Holiness, Mary Jane Bennett, recounts a story in The Miraculous 16th Karmapa, when the Karmapa once said to her, “I don’t have to buy birds, you know. I just have to look at them and be with them. Being with them is my best medicine.” Bennett writes that she “could see that was true. After any journey to visit animals of any kind, His Holiness would return with a rosy glow on his face. When His Holiness lay dying in a hospital near Chicago, one of his close disciples, a driver and bird procurer, Steve Roth, brought a rare purple breasted gouldian finch and left it in his room. The joyful sound of birdsong would accompany his passage to parinirvana.”

Years before, Roth had asked the Karmapa why he liked birds so much. His Holiness replied, “Just try to sense their joy!”

What birds are you seeing and hearing around you? Pause, look, listen, and just be with them, as His Holiness says. Can you sense that powerful, compassionate connection with birds – or other animals? Can you feel the joy?

We send you all our best wishes and thank you for your continued interest and support of KC16.

Seventeenth Story Update: Celebrating HHK16’s Parinirvana Day!

KC16 celebrates the day His Holiness the 16th Karmapa attained Parinirvana according to the Western calendar. Therefore, November 5 is the day!

Each year a long guru yoga puja is conducted in alternating years of a composition by Chamgon Tai Situ Rinpoche and one by Goshir Gyaltsab Rinpoche. This year KC16 will be performing the guru yoga by Chamgon Kenting Tai Situ Rinpoche.

Please join us in commemorating this auspicious day by dedicating your practice to His Holiness.

May all things be auspicious!

Wind Horse flags raised

KC16 raised “Lungta” prayer flags, or wind horse flags, and recited a long life smoke puja composed by His Holiness the 17th Karmapa on Friday, October 30, 2020.

Fifteenth Story Update: Tara and her connection to the Kagyu Lineage

White Tara by His Holiness the 17th Karmapa.

In a recent post, we learned that one of the main practices of the 16th Karmapa was Tara, but did you know that White Tara was His Holiness the 16th Karmapa’s’ yidam? We practice Tara for three main reasons: She is powerful, her blessings are fast, and she is immeasurably kind.

White Tara is practiced by all four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism and is the main deity of other Buddhist practitioners and scholars, including the great master Atisha. She played an important role helping Buddhism flourish once again in Tibet, following some great obstacles, when Atisha was invited to Tibet to reestablish the teachings. Wondering whether he should go or not, Atisha supplicated the White Tara statue in Bodhgaya. She appeared to him in a pure vision and said his journey would be a complete success, that it would benefit many sentient beings, but it would lessen the years of his life.

Due to his great bodhicitta, Atisha went ahead to Tibet and, as prophesied by Tara, accomplished the enormous task of revitalizing and reforming the teachings, and founding Kadampa Buddhism. With good reason, Tara has since been one of the four main yidams of the Kadampa lineage.

Tara is also an important deity in the Kagyu lineage that began when Milarepa’s student Gampopa integrated the Mahamudra teachings of Milarepa with the Kadampa teachings of Atisha, including the practice of Tara. Green Tara symbolizes the fearless and compassionate energy of our mind’s true nature and the resolve to dispel suffering and fear, while White Tara is associated with longevity and healing practice.

KC16 will join Nalandabodhi International for its fifth annual Tara Drupchen to be held online from September 24 to 27, 2020, offering prayers and smoke pujas in Tibetan.

As a precursor to the Tara Drupchen, please enjoy this special audio file of Tara practice in Tibetan recorded in the shrine room at KC16:

KC16_TaraPractice Download

We hope you will join us for the Drupchen! The event is free and everyone is welcome to participate by joining practices online, making prayer requests, aspirations, and offerings, and choosing to #gokind in thought, word, and deed. For information and registration please email: communications@nalandabodhi.org.

Fourteenth Story Update: Guru Rinpoche blessing statues formed from KC16 earth

(From right to left) Soil, mold for the statues, statues made of blessed earth, and finally statues painted in gold

Last week, soil samples from deep within the land at KC16 were taken as the next step for our engineers and architects to move forward with foundation plans. The contractors gave us the surplus soil, which Drupon Rinpoche and the Lamas on site have been using to construct small Guru Rinpoche statues from the blessed land. They say the soil is so good that nothing extra was needed to hold it together or be strong enough to create the statues. Due to the blessings of the land as the Parinirvana site of His Holiness the 16th Karmapa, and being blessed by the 17th Karmapa, this earth is saturated with blessings!

Reminder! KC16 is co-hosting Tara Drupchen with Nalandabodhi International/Nalandabodhi Seattle and Nalanda West from September 24-27. The Tara Drupchen will be especially dedicated to overcoming the current pandemic, to all beings suffering directly or indirectly from it, and to dispelling fear in our world. For registration information email: communications@nalandabodhi.org.

Twelfth Story Update: Joyful Chökhor Düchen Greetings

His Holiness the 16th Karmapa prostrating to statue of Shakyamuni Buddha.
Photo Courtesy of Shambhala Archives

A joyful Chökhor Düchen to each and every one of you from The Karmapa Center 16! This day marks the first time the Buddha Shakyamuni turned the wheel of Dharma. This holiday celebrates the day the Buddha taught on the Four Noble Truths in Deer Park in Sarnath, thus laying the ground for the entire Buddhist teachings and path. This important day falls on the fourth day of the sixth lunar month in the Tibetan calendar each year, or July 24, 2020 this year.

It is believed that positive actions done on the anniversary of this sacred day are multiplied 100 million times over.

Therefore, it is a wonderful time to come together in practice and uplifted celebration in honor of the Buddha individually and collectively – however that is safely possible. Perhaps at this time of continued COVID-19 seclusion invite a few Dharma friends to gather online and reflect on the Buddha and our good fortune in being able to walk in his footsteps through his teachings.

Practicing generosity is also excellent! Consider performing an act of kindness, such as offering food, helping a being in need, planting a tree, supporting family, friends, sangha, co-workers, strangers, the community around you and so forth.

We invite you to share your completed positive action with KC16’s bot via: m.me/KarmapaCenter16. #GoKind.

Finally, dedicate the merit of all your actions toward the enlightenment of all sentient beings.

Wishing you a day filled with great appreciation for the Buddha and his teachings in your life, and all the great and small moments of being together in community, with health, joy and prosperity!