Ligmincha's Umdze Training for Practice Leaders

How the Program Evolved and Is Continuing to Change

Laurent Pennings of the Netherlands participates in an onlline umdze trainingIn the past, when Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche was invited to teach in a country, he encouraged the participants to practice together. During the past 30 years, practice groups were formed in many countries, and all these groups needed practice leaders. Until a few years ago, all the countries had to find out by themselves how to organize that.

In 2019 Ligmincha International launched an online training program for practice leaders (called umdzes) worldwide. The training course is available through Ligmincha Learning. Ton Bisscheroux interviewed people about the umdze training program: John Jackson, who helped the online program in dialogue with the Ligmincha International Practice and Teaching Committee; Rob Patzig, president of Ligmincha International; and Laurent Pennings, participant in the umdze training.

Ton: How does someone become an umdze?
John: In the past, Rinpoche asked the one who organized the retreat to lead a practice group. Those people became an umdze because Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche said, "You are an umdze now." In consultation with Rinpoche, the organizer would ask other participants to lead practice groups. In the beginning they had little experience, and there was no formal training for them.

Ton: When was the first training for umdzes?
John: In 2018 I was invited to give a program for all the umdzes in Poland. I had been teaching in their retreat center in Wilga, so they knew me. They have practice groups in 10 cities, and they wanted better communication, to share their expertise, and to share what worked and what didn't work. After I had done this in Poland, in 2018 I reached out to the French sangha and offered the training to the French-speaking umdzes of Ligmincha France & Suisse Romande, where umdzes from the French-speaking part of Switzerland also participated. In 2019, I went back to Poland for a second umdze retreat. Mexico had its own umdze program, developed by Wojciech Plucinski, who took his expertise from Poland to Mexico.

Ton: In 2019 Ligmincha International launched the online umdze program. Can you talk about it?
John: It was Rinpoche's wish to improve the preparation of the umdzes, standardize their level of training and develop a program for new umdzes. In the International Practice and Teaching Committee, we discussed the role of an umdze, and what they should know when they guide people. Starting in March 2020, to become an umdze you must be nominated by your national organization's leadership to go through the umdze training. Participants learn to guide certain practices, to perform a prostration, to create and maintain a shrine. There are two stages in the course. First, you have to finish all the steps on the website, and then you have to go to a senior teacher and be checked out. Existing umdzes are strongly encouraged to enroll in and complete the training program.

It is important that the online training program will be translated into different languages, because not everybody speaks English. We are still working on that, because we have a lack of translators. The course is offered free, and the national sangha pays for the certification of a senior teacher.

Ton: How many people have participated so far?
John: At this moment 65 people are enrolled. All the Polish umdzes are enrolled, and they have been working through it as a group. Eight participants from the Netherlands are enrolled. Further, there are participants from Costa Rica, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the United States.

Ton: Rob, how many people have finished the training?
Rob: About 8 to 12 people have gone through the full program. But our program was designed before Covid struck and was intended for in-person practice groups. There hasn't been a lot of incentive to move through the program because we have not been meeting in person for so long. However, some people have completed both phases of the program.

And now the Practice and Teaching Committee is revisiting and supplementing the program. We need to support people to guide both in person and online, and that takes some different skill sets. We also want the program to reach beyond just teaching the basics of guiding practice. Some of our goals for the revision are to focus less on the English language and to provide more opportunities to come together for practice. And, following Rinpoche's always inspiring and living example, we want to create a dialogue among our teachers and practice leaders about how the practice lives in us. How do we experience our own pain identities, how do we ensure that our guiding of practice isn't being led by our pain identities, and how do we see the fruit of our service and our practice?

Our committee did a beautiful job of defining the first steps, and all of us are grateful to John for his initiative and direction in putting forward the first phase of the program. We have a lot of work to do to fully express Rinpoche's vision for sacred community, and we are all excited to keep moving forward on this path.

Ton: How many umdzes are there now worldwide?
Rob: Because Ligmincha is not highly centralized, we don't have an exact count. But there are more than 90 people around the world guiding practices as taught by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. Some are more active than others.

Ton: Can you talk about the tsa lung certification program for umdzes?
Rob: We have recently launched a program on the Outer, Inner and Secret Tsa Lung for existing umdzes. This course is a deep dive into the channels and winds and these beautiful practices from the Ma Gyu, or Bon Mother Tantra. The students who graduate from it will not only have deepened their practice, but they are building a stronger sense of community by studying and practicing together. At the end they will have permission not just to guide these practices, which many already do, but to teach them within Ligmincha to new students, to offer workshops or short retreats on the practices. This is the first of many more resources we wish to give to our practice leaders around the world.

We are really excited about this program, and 80 practice leaders are enrolled in the course. It just launched at the beginning of July. I say practice leader because not every country uses the term umdze.

Ton: Laurent, Ligmincha Netherlands offered a program for sangha members to do the umdze training together. Can you talk about the umdze training in the Netherlands?
Laurent: Recently, we completed the first year of the training. Every month we met for three hours. A few times we met in person, and during the coronavirus lockdowns, we met online. Every meeting, we started by sharing about our personal life, did guru yoga and worked with the online program from Ligmincha International. We discussed several books from Rinpoche, did practices, and in the end had to complete an online quiz. You had to complete the quiz successfully to go to the next part of the course. The first year was focused on study, integration of the practices, and how to create and maintain a shrine. In the second year we will learn how to interact with a group of participants and how to guide practices. We started the first year with eight participants, and five will continue in the second year.

Ton: What was your motivation to participate in this training?
Laurent: I received an e-mail with an invitation. When you had been following Rinpoche for more than five years, and if you wanted to contribute to the community, you could participate. Reflecting on how my connection to Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and his meditations helped me out of a physical and emotional exhaustion, I wanted to do something for and with others. The meditations have been lifesaving for me. I was so stuck in life and felt so terrible. In the sangha I felt connected to others, and that helped me to clean up my mess.

In the first meeting where we talked about our motivation, I felt the warmth of the group and felt a bigger power that carried us. I experienced that it was so much more powerful to do the training together than if I had done it alone behind my computer screen. The meetings felt like healing and coming home.

Ton: What was challenging for you in the training?
Laurent: Reading the books. We had to read six books, and there is no book I have completed. I need time to reflect and digest the content, and for me there was not enough time to do so. And sometimes I found it hard to join every month. Sometimes I wanted to relax on the weekend, but I had made the commitment, so I went to the meeting.

Ton: What do you enjoy about the training?
Laurent: What I really enjoy is the feeling that as a group we are a family. I appreciate that people take responsibility for their own problems and don't blame others. I experience the richness of the practices. I have always enjoyed working with the Fivefold Teaching of Dawa Gyaltsen, and then I discovered there were even deeper layers when somebody else guided that practice.

Ton: Thanks for sharing your experiences. From my own experience I know that guiding practices also deepens the experience and understanding of the practices.

Read more about the components, commitments and requirements of the Umdze Training Program.