10th Anniversary of Dzamling Gar

2013 – 2023
December 2 & 3, 2023

How does the youngest Gar in the International Dzogchen Community celebrate its 10 year anniversary?

It starts with a Sang practice on the morning of the Friday of the weekend of events to establish a sacred ground for the last minute preparations for the activities and for the activities themselves. The rest of the day of Friday was spent organizing spaces, bringing in grand pianos, hanging the last pieces in the art exhibit, rehearsals, preparing food for the Saturday evening festivities and much more.

On Friday afternoon a very important meeting occurred between the Mayor of Arcidosso, Italy, Mayor Jacopo Marini, where the first seat of the International Dzogchen Community was established and the Mayor of Adeje, José Miguel Rodríguez Fraga. This was the first visit by the Arcidosso Mayor to Dzamling Gar and the second time the two Mayors met, since the Mayor of Adeje, José Miguel Rodríguez Fraga, had visited Merigar West in 2016 as a guest of Merigar West for the inauguration of MACO, the museum in Arcidosso. The two cities are working towards establishing Sister City relationship, which would be a landmark event.

On the Saturday morning everything was geared to preparing for the arrival of many guests with food, logistics, and seating.The Gönpa looked very glamorous.

The evening itself was composed of introductions and presentations, skillfully managed by our Master of Ceremonies Hirton Fernando’s Junior, including speeches by Adeje Concejal de Cultura y Deporte Alfonso Alonso Ferrera, Arcidosso Mayor Jacopo Marini and Gloriana Brenes González, President of Dzamling Gar* [see speeches}. Mayor Jacopo Marini eloquently and generously presented Dzamling Gar with a wonderful replica of the Stupa of Merigar [West] indicating the deep impact that the prolific life of Chögyal Namkhai Norbu had on the Amiata region.

After these welcoming speeches, there was a world class concert in the beautiful Gönpa featuring Roberto Cacciapaglia from Italy, our wonderful Khaita dancers, and the fabulous Canarian Dance Troupe: Asociación Cultural Tajaraste de Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Also the attendees were looking elegant in their best anniversary attire.  At the end of the evening performances, the Asociación Cultural Tajaraste de Santa Cruz de Tenerife had everyone up and dancing together in a joyous expression of unity and friendship. What a glorious grand finale!

After all the performances there was a wickedly delicious offering of food and drink on the terrace prepared and served by the skillful chef Monica Patino and her team, as well as music DJ`d by our now renowned Timo Moss. 

The next day, Sunday, was an offering for the public of participatory presentations of Yantra Yoga, Kumar Kumari, Vajra Dance and Khaita, as well as the opening of the houses of Gar; each house presenting food of their related country or other activities of interest related to Tibetan culture and the Dzogchen Community. There were hotdogs with Mexican sauce seranaded by mariachi music as a collaboration of Tsegyalgar East and West, delicious pancakes from the Kunsangar House, Merigar House offered videos of the history of Merigar West and Merigar East had dadar and tsa tsa workshops, empanadas, arepas and historical videos at the Tashigar House, lungta making at the Dzamling Gar House and an immensely popular calligraphy workshop with Kunga at the IDC/ASIA House that could be the base for more calligraphy courses in the future in the Dzogchen Community, This entire event was beneficial on many levels, for intercultural experiences and presenting the richness of our international Dzogchen Community to the Community itself and to our many visitors and for just plain fun!

For the weekend approximately 500 people attended the celebrations and approximately 200 people were from the Dzogchen Community, so the public turn out was impressive.

We have to thank the 10 year anniversary committee primarily composed of a team of three dedicated organizers, Urara Taoka, Lourdes Velaochaga and Timo Moss {see interview} and, as well, all the efforts of the tireless team of karma yogis including Gisela Martinez, Monica Patino and Giorgio Minuzzo, the fabulous Webcast and Multi Media Team: Anastasia Domanova, Igor Tarnavsky and Raul Barratini and many others too numerous to mention.

Happy Ten Years to Dzamling Gar!

Naomi Zeitz for The Mirror

Speeches from the evening

Welcome Speech

Adeje Concejal de Cultura y Deporte, Alfonso Alonso Ferrera

Good afternoon to each and everyone. For the Adeje City Council, which I represent together with my colleague María Esther Rivero, the councilor for quality well-being and health and quality of life. It is a pleasure and an honor for the Adeje City Council for municipal cooperation that we have been invited to be here today.

It is a very important day, a tenth anniversary does not happen every day. I would like initially, in order not to go on too long, to excuse the absence of our mayor, José Miguel Rodríguez Fraga, but a health problem prevents him from being here today. The health problem is not serious, but obviously he has not been able to be here as he would have liked.

He has asked me, in his name and in the name of the municipal cooperation, to send you a warm and affectionate greeting on such an important day for you. I was listening to the words of the person who introduced these speeches and I corroborate everything he says. The Adeje City Council is a town hall of openness, openness and welcome, I told him before starting the event that in Adeje there are 120 nationalities that coexist harmoniously and peacefully. In a cordial way, we, the Adejeros who lived here before and the new Adejeros who have now come to live in our  Adeje community, have exchanged experiences in such a way that we have enriched each other.

Adeje is a rich municipality due to its multiculturalism and also the people who come also somehow integrate into our municipality with our customs. Therefore, I also told him that from the beginning this space (Dzamling Gar Conference Hall) has been open to the municipality. I remember recently celebrating Yoga for Life and International Yoga Day.

And we have also celebrated the closing ceremony of our Sports campaign. Yoga and Pilates have also been based in this space, therefore. We congratulate you and wish you the best now at the beginning of Christmas, which for us here means a lot of activities.

This year the motto of our Christmas is Christmas for Peace. It is important to reflect on that. And simply that, have a good day, and once again, thank you very much for having allowed us to participate in such an important day for the Dzamling Gar community.

Celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the Dzamling Gar Foundation

Speech of Jacopo Marini, Mayor of Arcidosso, Italy

Good evening and thank you all!

Let me first thank the Merigar Community and the Dynamic Space of Elements who organized this trip and gave me the opportunity to be here among you today at such an important time.

It is a great joy for me to celebrate with you today the 10th anniversary of the birth of Dzamling Gar, a reality that was strongly desired by Master Norbu. Today I am here as the mayor of Arcidosso where it all began; but I am also here as one of you.

I congratulate you, it is a very beautiful reality, this Gönpa is a wonderful structure and it certainly corresponds to the idea that the Master had and that he worked so hard on.

I thank Gloriana Brenes (Titi!) and the whole Gakyil for their hospitality and friendship.

A fond greeting goes to Rosa Namkhai who could not be here among us today and to whom my best wishes for a speedy recovery go.

I also want to thank the mayor of Adeje Jose Miguel Rodriguez Fraga (and I address a greeting to the representatives of the Adeje municipal council present here) for the meeting yesterday and for his willingness to start a path that may lead in the future to a twinning between our municipalities. A twinning that is intended to be based on concrete things and not to be exclusively a bureaucratic act. Of course, we are bound by the fact that we host the most important communities founded by Master Norbu: the first in Arcidosso and the last in Adeje. And it is no coincidence that they are communities that both begin with the letter A, so important in Dzogchen symbology.

But there may also be additional issues on which it will be possible to collaborate. I really liked Mayor Rodriguez Fraga’s proposal to promote an association of European municipalities in order to strengthen the idea of a Europe that is based not only on the economy and bureaucracy, but on the citizens and values of the many communities that make it up and are an example of how it is possible to live in Peace.

These are generally very difficult and ugly times in many parts of the world where bloody wars are being fought that result in deaths especially among the most defenseless, the elderly, women and children.

When instead the most beautiful thing is to live in friendship by collaborating because through collaboration we can do great things, both for ourselves and for others. That, I think, is one of the Master’s most important lessons. And you are here to demonstrate it.

And that’s what we’ve always tried to do in Arcidosso with the Merigar Community, and I’m sure that’s what the Dzamling Gar Community is doing here with the Adeje administration. And that’s what we would like to do between the municipalities of Arcidosso and Adeje. And I hope with all my heart that this project can succeed.

We all want a better world, but we have to start with ourselves. And so we also want to make our small contribution. Have more awareness and try to evolve. We have to engage ourselves by following the Master’s teaching. And I think this is the best way to keep his memory alive.

Thank you.

I would like to offer a small thought to the Dzamling Gar Community. If you can come here to the stage Titi. Thank you Migmar. This as you all know is the Stupa in Arcidosso where the body of our beloved Master now rests and so it seemed to me the best way to remember him.

Opening Remarks: Welcome to Dzamling Gar

By Gloriana Brenes González

Respected Mayor of Arcidosso, Councilor of Culture of Adeje, Councilor of Health, Quality of Life and Animal Welfare of Adeje, President of ATI Yoga Foundation, welcome to all who are present here and to those connected in various parts of the world. Thank you very much for being here on this very special occasion of Dzamling Gar’s 10th anniversary celebrations. 

First of all, we would like to express our deep gratitude to Professor Namkhai Norbu for dedicating his life to the development of the evolution of the Human Being and being the visionary behind the creation of Dzamling Gar.

The word Dzamling means world and the word Gar refers to a place where people can gather. 

These centers, called Gares, have been established in various parts of the world. The first one was founded in Italy in 1981 and since then centers have been created in different parts of the world, such as Romania, United States, Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, Argentina, Russia, Ukraine, Australia, China, and the most recent one here, in Playa Paraiso de Adeje. 

Dzamling Gar was created to be the Global Gar where people from all over the world could come to study, practice, and collaborate. Where representatives from all the Gars of the world would have a physical space here to meet and continue to collaborate. Each of the houses here at Dzamling Gar represents each of these centers around the world.

At the inauguration of Dzamling Gar in 2014, in his speech, Professor Namkhai Norbu explained the reasons why he chose the island of Tenerife to build Global Gar and it turns out, he discovered not only that it is a wonderful land, with rich culture and traditions, but also an open and receptive community. It is that openness that he found here that inspired him to found Gar Global and that is what we want to celebrate today.

We come from different parts of the world, with different cultures, but we are united by the intention to be better every day. We try to increase our capacity to listen, to collaborate and to open our minds for a better understanding, in order to reach peace in a more concrete way.

When, as individuals, we assume responsibility for our evolutionary process, we contribute to the evolution of countries and peace in the world.

For evolution starts from the individual, and this is crucial for our future and for future generations.

Yesterday was an important day. We had a meeting between the Mayor of Adeje and the Mayor of Arcidosso with the intention of starting a collaboration between both cities. A cultural exchange where both parties nourish and enrich each other. This achievement embodies in a concrete way the vision of Evolution, thus contributing a grain of sand and collaborating for Peace in the world.

We would like to thank all those who in the past worked and dedicated their time and energy to build Dzamling Gar. We would also like to thank those who today continue to lovingly care for this place so rich in culture and unique in the world. More and more children around the world are laughing and running through our beautiful gardens. They represent the future, as the Professor repeatedly mentioned: Dzamling Gar, the Gar of future generations.

Welcome everyone, this is your home, and now to enjoy this great party!

Thank you very much