News Archive

We are sad to share the news of Ginny Lipson’s passing on Wednesday, November 24, 2021. The Ri-mé Society society hosted a moving Sukhavati ceremony for her on Saturday with a hundred friends and family members gathered online. Ginny Lipson was the administrative anchor of the Konchok Foundation, handling most

A blessing and celebration took place at the new Surmang Kyelaka nunnery in September 2021. The occasion was the completion of the main shrine room to the point where it can now be used. (Some finishing details are still being worked on.) The classrooms and shrine rooms in the second

Both construction and dharma activities are at full throttle this spring at the new Surmang Kyelaka nunnery. Following up on groundbreaking in late 2019 and a remarkable construction campaign for the nunnery lhakang (shrine hall) in 2020, finish work on the building interior resumed in April 2021. Painters, carpenters, and

Astonishingly rapid progress has been made at Surmang Kyelaka nunnery. Surmang Dutsi Til monastery, the home monastery for the Trungpa lineage, received permission just over a year ago to reopen the nunnery that was close to the monastery, for the first time since 1959. At the time of the blessing

While still a young man in Tibet, the Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche was a prolific writer and revealer of terma, or visionary teachings. As he was fleeing Tibet, he left behind not only his teachers and students, his monastery and his family, but also his dharma compositions and the terma

The arrival at Surmang last summer of nearly one hundred nuns has had the shedra humming.  The shedra living quarters are now fully occupied, with the overflow in nearby houses, and a regular schedule of practice and teaching has been in place. This is the first time since before 1959 that a

Surmang Dutsi Til is reopening its nunnery for the first time since 1959.  Construction has now begun on a lhakang (shrine hall) for the nunnery.  The location is several miles south of the monastery grounds near Tsokyendo village in eastern Tibet. Nearly one hundred nuns are using the Surmang shedra

On June 14th, two days after Lady Könchok Palden entered samadhi, a magnificent rainbow appeared in the sky over the site of a new Dutsi Til nunnery now being constructed in the Surmang Valley. The rainbow came forth during the consecration of the new site near Tsokyendo village. The nunnery will be under

Hundreds of children and families in the Surmang region celebrated the end of the winter session of the Children’s Education Program in March 2019. The program is held annually at the Surmang Shedra and other satellite sites. Approximately 250 children participated this winter at the the Shedra at Dutsi Til

by Jon Ransohoff Our pilgrimage to Surmang Monastery in August 2018 was a challenging and enriching adventure. All of us felt blessed with an experience of intimacy with the place and people of Surmang even without the Shedra consecration. Guided by Conscious Journey, we fellow travelers collaborated in stirring pot