The Background and source of the dzogchen lineage

Love & Compassion + Awareness & Wisdom = Dzogchen.

In 591 BCE in central India, an enlightened human being named Shakyamuni became a Buddha, Vast Awakening. For the next 47 years Buddha taught Dzogchen Dharma, the path of enlightenment, to numerous students in this world. Since then, this unbroken Dzogchen Lineage has been passed down through generations of teachers and students in India and Tibet. Literally translated, Dzogchen means Great Inclusion. Dzogchen is vast and profound, including more than 84,000 sutras and 6,400,000 tantras. It is the most comprehensive teaching in history.

Through our teacher, Dzogchen Khenpo Choga Rinpoche, our specific lineage comes from Dzogchen Monastery and Dzogchen Shri Singha Five Sciences University .

Dzogchen Monastery is one of the oldest, largest, and most famous monasteries in Asia. It is located in Eastern Tibet. This mother monastery has established more than 700 branch and satellite monasteries and has preserved all nine lineages of the entire authentic Dzogchen tradition. At this grand monastery, for more than 200 days each year, over 100 holy lamas conduct enormous group practices with thousands of monks, nuns and participants from all over Asia. These practices contain hundreds of sutras and tantra mandalas. Many practitioners have attained the enlightened Rainbow Body at this holy monastery.

Dzogchen Shri Singha Five Sciences University is renowned as the second ancient Nalanda University. Over the last several centuries thousands of great scholars and holy lamas have graduated from this university. It preserves and perpetuates the authentic Buddhist curriculum of the five major sciences of Fine Arts, Medicine, Linguistics, Philosophy and the Inner Science of Buddhism, as well as the five minor Buddhist sciences of Poetics, Synonymy, Prosody, Drama and Astrology. This great institution remains a central force in the development of Buddhism throughout the world.

However, in the current world situation, Tibetan culture and language are declining. The traditional Buddhist educational system is in disarray. Many young lamas must leave the monastery, and those who remain do not have the same support as previous generations. This situation threatens the very survival of the entire Dzogchen monastic tradition. For this reason, since 1994 Dzogchen Khenpo Choga Rinpoche has been supporting hundreds of young lamas at Dzogchen Monastery in Tibet.

The establishment of the Dzogchen Retreat Center in the United States will preserve the authentic tradition of Dzogchen Monastery and Dzogchen Shri Singha Five Sciences University.

For the sake of world peace, we ask that everyone help to spread the sacred lineage of Dzogchen Monastery and Dzogchen Shri Singha Five Sciences University to the world.