Anne Klein

This Afternoon at Orgyen Dorje Den, Alameda, California

Today was the last day of a weekend retreat with Prof. Anne Klein we (Osel Thegchog Ling) organized here in the Bay Area.  Anne is quite close to our community.  She is a 38 year practitioner and scholar of Tibetan Buddhism.  Starting with a scholarly Gelugpa approach, Anne then became a student of Lama Gonpo Tsetan, the Nyingma Scholar Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche, and was the first western student (1996) of our lama A_Rinpoche.  She met Rinpoche at Samye Chimpuk in Tibet in 1996, and within a few years was instrumental in bringing him to America.  She remains his heart disciple, and right hand woman in America.

So, we have been asking her for years to come teach our community, and finally she did.  The topics were the Nine Yanas, coupled with some specific practices that Rinpoche asked her to promulgate.  The Nine Yana topic was initiated by HH the Dalai Lama.  When the Dharma center she and her husband Harvey Aronson started in Houston, Texas, Dawn Mountain, was invited to have an audience with him, he said that she should teach the nine yanas.  She has been exploring how to approach the topic in a heart-centered way, by coupling the framework with reference to our Longchen Nyingthig ngondro practice, and offering additional new practices to enhance our meditation.  I would say she mainly addressed the first three yanas, and how they can be experienced in light of Dzogchen this weekend.

Anne was unenthusiastic about having her picture in a blog, so I waited until Chimey went to say goodbye to her to take the above photo.  Chimey first met Anne about twenty-eight years ago when they were both students of Lama Gonpo's.  We have  four or five active members of our group that were students on Lama Gonpo, a Longchen Nyingthig dzogchen master who passed away a number of years ago.  In Tibet our lama has taken over the care of Lama Gonpo's nuns as well.

You can see the shrine room of Orgyen Dorje Den above, who were gracious enough to rent us their facility for the event.  Pictured behind Anne are three large statues of Shakyamuni Buddha, Longchenpa, and Guru Rinpoche.

Moon Over Stanford

Thubten Jinpa with HH Dalai Lama

Moon over Stanford

Osel Thegchog Ling invited Anne Klein (you know, of "Meeting the Great Bliss Queen" fame) to come from Houston to teach this weekend in Alameda.  She then arranged a double-header, speaking at Stanford University in Palo Alto on Thursday evening. The talks title was "Land and the elements in Tibet: A Story of Living Large."

I drove down to Palo Alto with a new member of our group.  Anne's talk was a discussion of the word bla (pronounced la) in Tibetan, and I wish I could remember her definition. Bla has been translated as soul, kind of an energy body that inhabits various parts of a human body at different times, that can can be predicted by Tibetan astrology.  But land has bla, too, that can be a palpable power.  I can't do justice to her presentation.  

Interestingly, we noted a Tibetan man walk in the room who looked like that guy who translates for the Dalai Lama.  You know, the intellectual in the suit who translates Tibetan into English that is almost incomprehensible to us non-scholars.  Then, when he spoke, with that sort of English accent I --and everyone in the room--realized that it really was his holiness' translator.  He's really friendly, actually, and I can attest that doesn't wear that suit all the time.  Not just a guy after all, he is a Geshe Lharampa and a Ph.D.  His name is Geshe Thubten Jinpa.

What was funny is that he was asking Anne her perception about whether people in Tibet now are loosing their sense or belief in bla.  He said he hadn't been there since he was one.  Then, I thought, actually that's not funny.  Because of his connection to HH Dalai Lama, I imagine it would be impossible to get in to China or the TAR.