Dalai Lama: live online (webcast)

Mara Schaeffer, Wisdom Quarterly

Live webcasts: 18 Great Stages of the Path (Lam Rim) Commentaries

  

Kalmyk president with the Dalai Lama

Want to attend live Dharma talks in India with the 14th Dalai Lama? Here's how without flying to Dharamsala, his home in exile. Catch his talks evenings at: dalailama.com/live-english

Recently while listening to the end of the first session, I found myself surprised by his refreshing honesty and practicality. He was very specific about the details of practice: "Do this. Don't do that."

He spoke more profoundly than he usually does for his public talks while addressing both monastics and lay people. These talks are topic-centered, with quotes, citing specific page numbers, and covering a number of texts.

Many of the texts being commented on are available free online: jangchuplamrim.org/jangchup-lamrim/text-translations/text-translations-english

Teachings in Mundgod, India: Days 8-9 of 14, Dec. 7-8, 2012 (View)

 
Live webcasts of teachings on the 18 Great Stages of the Path Commentaries in Tibetan with simultaneous translations into English, Chinese, Russian, and Mongolian available. View

• Nov. 30-Dec. 13, 2012
• Morning Session: 7:30 am-9:30 am PST 
• Afternoon Session: 11:30 am-1:30 pm PST

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So much news, moving to Kalmykia (video)

Amber Dorrian, Wisdom Quarterly

  

Kalmyk flag, white lotus on blue and gold

(RD100) Elista, the only indigenously Buddhist capital in Europe, is also the Chess Capital of the World. It is the Kalmyk Republic's main city, a multiethnic metropolis with an industrious Eurasian population.
 

Kalmyk president, Dalai Lama (phayul.com)

The Kalmyks are descendants of the Oirats and other Mongol tribes from the time of Genghis Khan. They settled near Southern Volga along the Caspian Sea and fell afoul of Stalin during the Russian revolution.
 
During the time of imperial Russia, Kalmyks joined the Russian Army with the Cossacks. Lenin was part Kalmyk but an atheist rather than a Buddhist. The maniacal dictator Stalin did not take kindly to this minority ethnic group. 
 
So while everyone else around here heads for the Himalayas, I'm aiming for Europe. All I need is a Buddhist temple, a yoga mat, and a chess board. I can take it up with a little help from the friendly space-faring devas the former president of Kalmykia traveled with.

News overload

• Dark side to Mayan rumors
• The Buddha's advice on dealing with doubt 
• Ultimate Author Bootcamp, LA (FREE with RSVP)
• Killing for rare earth minerals (for electronics) in the Congo
• UN recognizes State of Palestine even as US, Israel balk
• VIDEO: Jesus (St. Issa) visions and visitations

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Europe's Buddhist Kalmykia to get Bodhi tree

Kalmykia.eu; Amber Dorrian, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Russia Today

(Kalmykia Tour) Gold Temple of the Buddha Shakyamuni. Хурул Золотой храм в городе Элиста. Калмыкия Европа. Буддийский храм "Золотая обитель Будды Шакьямуни".

 

The Golden Temple, Kalmyk capital, Elista

Kalmykia is an indigenously European Buddhist region in southwestern Russia. It practices Vajrayana Buddhism, an esoteric form of the Dharma blended with Siberian shamanism, establishing a long but little known history of the Dharma on the Continent.. Mongolian and Himalayan Buddhist kingdoms have apparently had a heavy influence its style of practice.

The Buddhist Dead Sea, Europe (kalmykia.eu)

HISTORY: The Kalmyks originate from Central Asia. Their ancestors -- the Oirats -- belonged to the western branch of Mongolian peoples. They represented a very powerful alliance of tribes, formations of the early feudal state under the dominion Mongolia found itself in during the first half of XV сentury. Consequently inter-regional conflicts and a number of military misfortunes caused the reduction of the Oirat Empire. More

Golden Buddha in Gold Temple abode

BODHI TREE: (Sandji Buvaev) On Nov. 27, 2012 the former president of the Republic of Kalmykia, billionaire Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, reported that he met with a Buddhist delegation from Sri Lanka.
 
It was agreed during that in the spring of 2013, a seed or cutting will be brought from the direct descendant of the world's oldest documented tree (the sacred fig or Ficus religiosa), under which the historical Buddha attained enlightenment. It will be planted in the European  Buddhist Republic of Kalmykia, according to KalmykiaNews. Recall that in 2011, the former Kalmyk president... More

• Buddhism in Europe: Girls of Kalmykia (kalmykia.eu)
• American actor Steven Seagal visits Kalmykia
• Non-Jonesian Indology and Alexander (RanajitPal.com)

Buddhism traveled West out of India (TSO)

Life in Siberia
The coldest place on Earth is not Himalayan Ladakh, Nepal, Tibet, or distant Bhutan, some of the highest inhabited places. It is the Russian republic of Yakutia, which makes up a fifth of Russia's land.

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