Gesar Festival

King Gesar of Ling lived in a dark time: negative forces arose and the Dharma was almost lost. The teachings on Gesar, the wrathful Bodhisattva-king, show us how to cultivate the forces of sanity, unshakable confidence, and fearlessness and how to overcome obstacles and negative forces in difficult times – like our own.

Gesar teachings are meant to be transmitted orally - there is tremendous power in that. The more I understand about teachings, the more I understand how important it is to have direct transmission. You can read any book in the world, but nothing much will ever hap-pen unless you receive transmission.

The Vidyadhara, my father, proclaimed that we were from the family of Mukpo, the family of Gesar. This heritage was the essence of his heart’s blood. The mind expressed here is the young mind of the Vidyadhara as he came to the West. With Gesar teachings, we are getting the depth of that mind, rather than some other mind or some other tradition. This is the milk my father was raised on. This is the milk of our tradition - and it is very rare. We had it from the Vidyadhara, and now having it from His Eminence Namkha Drimed Rin-poche - who is another genuine source - is really wonderful. It is very precious that His Eminence is in good health, and is able to teach us at this point.

The source of this inspiration - we are really talking about - is Shambhala, enlightened so-ciety. There are a lot of ways to bring this about, but one of the best ways, obviously, is our own transformation. To transform ourselves at this time, we need the most powerful understanding and the most powerful practices. Within tantric lineages, these are among the the most powerful traditions.

I have a lot of confidence in our current situation, but also in our future, because our line-age is founded on an enlightened being - the Vidyadhara - and the fact that he came here. He was a true bodhisattva. He worked and tried to create sanity in the midst of very diffi-cult situations. That is essentially his story, and that is what our lineage does. We are in-heriting that blood and we are inheriting that courage, and I hope it wakes up all the Ling genes, so we become invigorated. This will affect our ability to actually be powerful, to be strong, and to extend out more - particularly at this time when the world needs us.
As everybody knows, there are lots of negative forces in the world; this is a time for that kind of activity. It is far too easy for us to become just yogis, and to retreat or recede from the world. That tendency is very much there. But we were not given that kind of command. Our command is to develop our warriorship and bodhicitta and to extend out.
We are the generation that has to manifest. That is quite a challenge.“

– Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche
Excerpts of closing remarks At the Kalapa Gathering/Festival in Halifax, NS. Aug. 2007