Rinpoche’s Birthday at Dzamling Gar December 8, 2020

Chögyal Namkhai Norbu’s Birthday Celebration at Dzamling Gar
Co-Webcasted with Merigar West

December 8, 2020

Participants

The day of Rinpoche’s birthday, December 8, went smoothly and joyously in the Gönpa of Dzamling Gar with socially distanced and masked “live” participants and also by webcast from and to Merigar West.

At 8am the day began with a Mandarava Webcast led from Merigar West led by Dina Priymack. At 10 am there was a Tara practice led by Steven Landsberg and directly after a wonderful performance of new Khaita dances performed by our very elegant Khaita team. The Khaita dances and dancers, many were heard to say after, brought tears to people’s eyes as they were remembering and missing the Master who would have thoroughly enjoyed the performance.

Khaita Dancers

The Khaita performance was a graceful segue to a very successful auction managed by our now experienced and masterful auctioneer Tim Cabot, together with his charming assistants Elena Dumcheva (who is the main coordinator of the auctions) and Yulia Petrova, and the Gakyil and Gakyil assistants managing the international bids by Zoom and Webcast.

Steven Landsberg leading Tara practice.

During the auction we were musically serenaded by the Dzogchen Soundsystem, a newly formed duo comprised of Jan Blumenroth and Richard Stevens, and visually serenaded by the lovely panel of paintings based on the practice of the Six Lokas by Ans Swart that was offered by Ans as a birthday present for Rinpoche. And last but not least, Dzamling Gar is indebted to its tireless webcast and translation team, Sebastien Remy, Carles Jañez Brucet and Vince Li, without whom none of this could ever be pulled off.

Dzogchen Soundsystem and paintings by Ans Swart

Tim and Elena as auctioneers

After the auction arrived Khaita for everyone, with a Zoom-cast of Adriana Dal Borgo introducing and explaining the New Mekhor, a collection of Tibetan songs and dances by Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, which can be seen at https://khaita.com: the songs, dances, lyrics in Tibetan and Drajyor phonetics transcription and the translations of the lyrics. After singing some of these new songs, everyone was able to enjoy dancing Khaita together.

To end the day there was a Vajra Dance practice with costumes as the sun sank into the sea, spectacularly viewed from the perch of the beautiful Gönpa, ending a day filled with tradition, melancholia and happiness, as we celebrated the birth of our peerless Dzogchen Master who no longer walks the earth with us, but remains always near in our hearts, minds and our guruyoga.

Naomi Zeitz for The Mirror