News from Canberra

Sakya Losal Choe Dzong's activities have been as busy as ever. Lama Choedak Rinpoche has taught at SIBA Retreat Centre, Virupa Retreat Centre and Rongton Buddhist Training College (RBTC) as well as at centres in Napier (NZ), Sydney, Gosford, Townsville, Adelaide, South and Central NSW Coasts, Brisbane, Rockhampton, Hervey Bay, and for the first time at Sakya Trinley Ling in the Blue Mountains.

At Virupa Retreat Centre Rinpoche ran a White Tara weekend retreat, in early September and the 10th annual Hevajra retreat in mid-October. A 3-day Calm Abiding Retreat was also held. At VRC and RBTC, he gave talks on the topics "Sword of Wisdom to Overcome Destructive Emotions," "Living with Compassion and Wisdom," "Great Compassion and the Six-Syllable Mantra." As part of a revived Sunday dharma talk programme Rinpoche spoke on a new topic, "Symbolism of the Wheel of Dharma" and this will follow as a part of the next edition of Clear Mind.

Rinpoche will be running another Intensive Course in Tibetan Language in January 2012. One of RInpoche's students from the last course in July, Maria, who has since gone to IBA's (International Buddhist Academy, Kathmandu, Nepal) intensive translator's course to fast-track her language studies. Some other students continue their Tibetan studies in the slower-paced classes being held on Wednesday evenings at Evatt.

At Rongton Buddhist Training College, Evatt, the programme of Tuesday evening teachings continue to be well attended including Calm Abiding Meditation 8-week courses by Rinpoche. The Buddhist philosophy classes saw the completion of the detailed commentary on Shantideva's "Guide to a Bodhisattva's Way of Life" which took two years and 8 terms to complete - a record length for any subject since it's founding in 1997. The complete set was carefully recorded as audio and video by Kath and Paul and their dedication is very much appreciated. You can order these teachings and many others. Contact dharmaworks@sakya.com.au. Wednesday evening practice sessions at Evatt were replaced with a popular lecture series: "Buddhism for Beginners".

The three retreat huts at Virupa have been occupied for most of the year, two by long term retreatants, and the other by casual weekend retreatants, some regular. Also at VRC, Rachel continues to run a meditation course as well as facilitating the Sunday sessions at Evatt in between working and doing the books.

Sunday morning sessions at Evatt have been well attended thanks to Rachel, Greg, Robin, Lidija, Jaki, Brendon and others. The library continues to grow thanks to donations large and small, and was recently catalogued by an ex-resident, and housed in adequate shelving thanks to an ex-member. Thanks to all who have volunteered their time and skills, cash, stuff, brawn, or ideas, without which there would be nothing to report.

Three residents of Virupa, Greg, Rachel and Pam made the trip to Tibet. Lots of video footage has been recorded and will require quite an editing job. Let us know if you can help. A letter of thanks was sent out with blessing pills and high quality incense (all made at Nalendra) as a token of appreciation from the Society to all the wonderful donors.
We are now getting ready to start a new phase of fund-raising for this very special place, whose throne-holder was Rinpoche's teacher, the renowned H.E. Kyabje Chogye Trichen Rinpoche. Tins to collect change for this fund are now available - look for the label showing the new stupa for Rongton. Don't have one? - mail@sakya.com.au

Peter Morgan of the Marpa Centre in Tuncurry undertook the job of repairing the famous road at VRC. He drove down to supervise the works, but characteristically went a lot further than supervising. He moved so many rocks that we thought we may need to keep a few aside to bury him. Drainage was greatly improved including three new culverts, as well as filling and grading the road surface. The job was completed quickly. efficiently and very economically. Thank you Peter!

Early November we offered lunch at Virupa to Tagar, a member of the People's United Front in Tibet (the office for the PRC) and those accompanying him in Australia. This was his second visit. He and Rinpoche are helping us to purchase the newest Beijing edition of the Kangyur. The UF had given our party and the Abbott of Nalendra a banquet when we were in Lhasa.

SLCD committee meetings continue to take place regularly, either at RBTC or VRC. We have been considering and working on various matters. The ongoing pursuit of land and/or a building in Canberra through the government's community grant programme is proving very elusive despite Lidija's persistence. Meanwhile, we continue to rent the Evatt venue until something better comes to our attention.

In communications and IT our website continues to present many new possibilities for promoting our activities. We have fully embraced online bookings for retreats and classes saving alot of administration and we have adopted online newsletters to replace to old printed version. We are endeavouring to employ these tools to connect to our database recording. On a side note, the National Library has been given our permission to archive our website under their PANDORA programme.

Throughout the entire network of those associated with SLCD or directly with Rinpoche, are several people who have given and continue to give large tracts of their time behind the scenes to the immeasurably rewarding but painstaking task of transcribing and editing Rinpoche's teachings preparatory to publication as books or as articles in Clear Mind. Wherever they are, they are much needed. We never say no to more scribes, and hope that one day we might be able to keep up with Rinpoche's phenomenal output.