Over the past few years since his departure from Dhomang, Yangthang Tulku has received coundess letters from the people, monks and tulkus of Dhomang requesting him to return. He has finally agreed, hoping to build a study center and a retreat center.

Gyatrul Rinpoche has seized this opportunity to invite the Dhomang Terchen, one of the great masters of the older generation, to the U.S. to give his American students transmissions of unsurpassed purity and power in the lineages of Ratna Lingpa, Longchenpa, and Dorje Dechen Lingpa, as well as teachings on the nature of the mind.

In particular, it is planned that he will give the wangchen (great transmission) of Ratna Lingpa twice, once in Ashland, Oregon, and once in Washington, D.C. This comprises the initiation and oral transmissions for the complete opus of Terton Ratna Lingpa, whose terma are practised widely among the Nyingmapa. It was a transmission that was difficult to receive, even in Tibet. He will give the empowerments into the Nyingthig Ya Shi, a set of teaching and practices which encompass the entire Men-ngag-De (secret oral instructions) of Dzogchen, including the practices of Trekchod and Thodgal. The Nyingthig Ya Shi is the work of the great Longchenpa whose opus was the inspiration and source material for the Longchen Nyingthig tradition of Terton Jigme Lingpa, and is one of the most important single transmissions in the Nyingma lineage, and rarely given.

The complete schedule of Yangthang Tulku's tour is advertised in this issue of the Snow Lion Newsletter. During this tour, Gyatrul Rimpoche will accompany Yangthang Tulku, both to introduce his own students to him and to fill in with teachings as seems appropriate. It is Gyatrul Rinpoche's great hope that his own students and many other sincere practitioners of the Buddha's doctrine will come to receive these transmissions, and by making a connection by act of body, speech or mind with a lama of such pure qualities and realization, may ripen their own spiritual qualities.