Visit to Rabten Choeling Center for Higher Tibetan
Studies in Mont-Pelerin, Switzerland
The Venerable Gonsar Rinpoche, Director of Rabten Choeling
Center, poses for a photo with David and Lisa during their visit in September,
2007.
[Photo
Gallery]
Logbook
10/1/07--We
arrived back in Lagos,
Portugal, over the weekend after a relaxing and memorable one-week "retreat"
in Switzerland.We stayed at the
Rabten-Choeling
Tibetan Center
which is perched on a hillside 820 meters above
Lake Geneva
with a gorgeous view of the Alps.As
David
recalls now, the thought form for making this particular trip arose last spring
while we were still in the
Caribbean
and planning the next steps of our voyage aboard Gyatso.
For many reasons, he began to search the internet for the current locations
of some of the Tibetans that he had studied with in India and Nepal
years ago.Having lost touch with
them for over 30 years, he found out that Geshe Rabten, the principal informant
for his Ph.D. dissertation research, passed away in Switzerland in 1986.At the request of His
Holiness the Dalai Lama, Geshe Rabten had gone to Switzerland
in 1974 to serve as Abbot of a monastery in Rikon.He ended up pioneering the teaching of Tibetan Buddhism in Western Europe.He set-up a series of Tibetan Centers in
Europe, beginning in Mont-Pelerin, Switzerland, and gave numerous teachings and seminars in
Europe, the United States and Asia.He developed a strong following of
disciples among Tibetans and westerners alike.It turns out that David
was among his first western students.
Gonsar Rinpoche, who was Geshe Rabten’s closest disciple and also his
interpreter for more than 30 years, is now the Abbot and Director of the Rabten Tibetan
Centers.
David
knew Gonsar Rinpoche after working with him closely for three months when he
was in Dharamsala,
India, in 1973.As is the custom in
Tibetan Buddhism,
David
printed a photo of Gonsar Rinpoche, his friend and teacher, and mounted it on the
bulkhead of Gyatso shortly before crossing the Atlantic.Those of you who followed our
Atlantic crossing can appreciate that
David
spoke to this photo many times, praying for a safe passage.
After arriving in Portugal and before making contact with the Rabten
Center,
David
decided that he wanted to prepare a document of the teachings he had received
from Geshe Rabten.This summer, we
spent six weeks scanning, editing and preparing the document which has to do
with a sacred Tibetan text and ceremony known as the Lama Chöpa.To
David
’s surprise and amazement, he also found that Tibetan fonts are now available
for use in word processing programs, and so for the first time, he was able to
include Tibetan script, the English translation and the oral commentary by Geshe
Rabten in the same document.Furthermore,
the document was now in digital format.This
was
David
’s way of preparing to reconnect again with the Tibetans whom he has admired
and respected for so long.
As we neared completion of this project,
David
checked the schedule of the Center and found that Gonsar Rinpoche would be
giving regular teachings during the week of September 24th.We booked our trip for that week.
Lisa was surprised to learn that the monks and students
were very interested in our sailing adventures.Since the concept of a vast ocean is used as a metaphor to illustrate
certain Buddhist concepts, they wanted to know our impressions about how vast
the ocean really is. Of course, they were also delighted to learn the name
of our boat which means “ocean” in Tibetan.Lisa told them that one of the typical responses among the yachting
community when we explained the meaning of our boat’s name was, “What do Tibetans know about oceans?”They
thought that it was very funny that we would be questioned about the obvious:
there are no oceans in Tibet, and Tibetans are not known for their sailing accomplishments. However,
they do know a lot about another kind of ocean. The Dalai Lama himself is
known among Tibetans as Gyatso Rinpoche, loosely translated, "the great
ocean of wisdom and compassion."They
are also fascinated with a story about Atisha, one of the great masters of Tibetan Buddhism,
who undertook a voyage from
India
to
Sumatra
,
Indonesia
in search of his guru in the 10th Century.
We are looking forward to future visits to attend the
teachings at this very impressive center.
