News Archive

Nineteen years after ground was broken for a shedra (monastic college) at Surmang Dutsi Til monastery in Tibet, and thirteen years after the shedra complex went into use for various purposes, including educating young monks and children, the main shrine room is now finished. The long process was due in

As has been the case for many years, several of the Surmang monastic institutions held a parinirvana commemoration of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche on April 4 this year. Dutsi Til monks and Kyelaka nuns participated this year at Dutsi Til monastery, led by Choseng Trungpa Rinpoche. Wenchen nuns and Kyere monks

The approximately one hundred nuns at the Surmang Kyelaka nunnery are living in a practice-oriented monastic environment. Before coming to the recently re-opened nunnery, they had participated in a shedra-style study program at the large Yachen monastic complex. Although that type of study continues for the nuns at Kyelaka, led

At Surmang Dutsi Til and its associated nunnery Kyelaka, the lunar new year is a bustling time for practice and education, ritual and celebration. Chakrasamvara and Lama Dances at Surmang The busiest time of year for the annual cycle of dharma practices at Surmang Dutsi Til monastery takes place shortly

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