A Letter to Students from Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

Yearlong Sabbatical Planned for 2021

Photo by Brian HarrisTo All My Students,

I send you my heartfelt greetings. After much reflection, I am writing to share with you an important decision that I have made. As you know, I always encourage people to look deeply into and reflect on their lives. I, too, reflect on my life, family, and spiritual practice. As I turn 60, I find that I want to spend more time with my family and make space for personal retreat. So, starting on January 3, 2021, I will be taking a yearlong sabbatical. This will be a time for me to actively engage with stillness, silence, and spaciousness and explore them in a new way.

From now until the end of 2020, I will continue my usual teaching schedule globally and online. During this time, I encourage all of you to participate as actively as you can. In 2021 my only scheduled teaching activities will be summer retreats at Serenity Ridge in the US and Chamma Ling in Poland. In January 2022 I will resume my regular schedule. While I am away, I will not actively engage in social media. This means that I won’t have any scheduled Facebook Live events. When inspired I may occasionally share poems, thoughts, and reflections. I look forward to returning from my sabbatical and sharing its fruit with all of you.

Preserving and sharing this tradition is my life’s mission. My goal has always been to help my beloved teachers, spread the teachings, and assist Bön lamas and centers in any ways that I can. Every year the teachings spread, and more people are finding these beautiful practices. I see them bring so much goodness to people’s lives everywhere I go. Teaching, writing, connecting, and sharing is what energizes me. It is joyful, spontaneous, nourishing work, and it is indescribably rewarding. It is my calling.

As always, stay connected – now, and during my sabbatical – to the teachings, to one another, to me, and especially to yourselves. Ligmincha International, The 3 Doors, and CyberSangha.net offer so many ways to connect, practice, and grow. They exist to support you on your path. I hope that you will take full advantage of them.

With much love and many blessings, now and always,
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche