The un-official Treasury of Wisdom Blog

Rigpa Three Year Retreat News Report

2011-04-21T06:20:00.001-07:00

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Rigpa Three Year Retreat News Report

Compassion Versus Competition: An Essential Teaching on the Buddhist Practice of Lojong

2010-10-26T00:39:00.001-07:00

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Khandro Rinpoche - Lerab Ling, 1 October 2010

The Joy of Living - Calming the Mind

2010-10-26T00:38:00.001-07:00

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Mingyur Rinpoche - 11 September 2010, Lerab Ling

Dilgo Khyentse Yangsi Rinpoche visits Lerab Ling - Compilation

2010-08-14T00:16:00.001-07:00

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On the 17th of July 2010, the Rigpa Sangha welcomed Dilgo Khyentse Yangsi Rinpoche to Lerab Ling in France. Khyentse Yangsi Rinpoche was making his first visit to the West, to mark the centenary of the birth of his previous incarnation, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. After a visit to La Sonnerie in the Dordogne region of France he traveled south to Sogyal Rinpoche's retreat centre near Montpellier where he was greeted by thousands of dharma students from all over the world.

Lerab Ling - A Temple for Tibet and the World

2010-08-07T11:57:00.001-07:00

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A short film about Lerab Ling, a retreat centre founded by the Tibetan Buddhist master Sogyal Rinpoche.

The Lineage of Good Heart, Dilgo Khyentse Yangsi Rinpoche, 19 July 2010, Lerab Ling, France

2010-08-07T11:56:00.001-07:00

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Dilgo Khyentse Yangsi Rinpoche teaches at Lerab Ling, Rigpa's main retreat centre, to Rabjam Rinpoche, Sogyal Rinpoche & 1000's of students.
Khyentse Yangsi Rinpoche visited Lerab Ling for 5 days as part of his first world tour, coinciding with the centenary celebrations of Kyabjé Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

The Treasury of Wisdom Servers are now in Lerab Ling

2010-05-01T01:36:00.000-07:00

The move of the Treasury of Wisdom servers to Lerab Ling has been successful. In total, we moved more than 2 tons of equipment including more than 200 hard disks. None of the hard disks failed after transport, and once everything was linked up properly again, it is all working. Our dspace webinterface is accessible again on https://tow.rigpa.org or (https://tow.rigpa.org:8443 if you are inside the Lerab Ling network)

The Treasury of Wisdom is on the move

2010-04-29T11:01:00.000-07:00

Exciting times these days: the Treasury of Wisdom servers are moving to Lerab Ling which amounts to quite an enormous data transfer speed (you can do the math: 111 000 GB in 48 hours...). Of course the data transfer occurs by vehicle not via internet.

Infrastructure in the Server Room is done

2010-04-16T07:21:00.000-07:00

The infrastructure in the new server room is done, we have electricity and cooling. The mark the special occasion, Sangye and Robert installed a first network switch. It still needs to be connected to the network, but it is a start. And of course we still need to clean the room from the leftover of all the building work.

Electricity is coming into the new Server room

2010-04-14T02:52:00.000-07:00

The dirty building room in the new server room is finished, and the electricty is being installed at this moment. The air-conditioning is coming tomorrow, so the move of the ToW servers to LL is moving closer. The network connections to the server room were already done yesterday.

9-Ringu Tulku Rinpoche@Rigpa Shedra East 2010

2010-04-09T03:53:00.001-07:00

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Ringu Tulku Rinpoche answers a Rigpa Shedra East student's question about how to deal with desire.

8-Ringu Tulku Rinpoche@Rigpa Shedra East 2010

2010-04-09T03:52:00.001-07:00

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Ringu Tulku Rinpoche answers a Rigpa Shedra East student's question about prayers.

7-Ringu Tulku Rinpoche@Rigpa Shedra East 2010

2010-04-09T03:50:00.003-07:00

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Ringu Tulku Rinpoche a Rigpa Shedra East student's question about the accumulation of merit and wisdom.

6-Ringu Tulku Rinpoche@Rigpa Shedra East 2010

2010-04-09T03:50:00.001-07:00

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Ringu Tulku Rinpoche a Rigpa Shedra East student's question about how to deal with desire.

5-Ringu Tulku Rinpoche@Rigpa Shedra East 2010

2010-04-09T03:49:00.001-07:00

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Ringu Tulku Rinpoche a Rigpa Shedra East student's question about the clear and cognizant quality of the mind.

4-Ringu Tulku Rinpoche@Rigpa Shedra East 2010

2010-04-09T03:48:00.001-07:00

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Ringu Tulku Rinpoche answers a Rigpa Shedra East student's question about reincarnation.

1-Ringu Tulku Rinpoche@Rigpa Shedra East 2010

2010-04-09T03:47:00.001-07:00

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Ringu Tulku Rinpoche answers a Rigpa Shedra East student's question about how to meditate on the meaning of the Umajugpa (Madhyamakavatara).

3-Ringu Tulku Rinpoche@Rigpa Shedra East 2010

2010-04-09T03:46:00.003-07:00

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Ringu Tulku Rinpoche answers a Rigpa Shedra East student's question about the Two Truths.

2-Ringu Tulku Rinpoche@Rigpa Shedra East 2010

2010-04-09T03:46:00.001-07:00

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Ringu Tulku Rinpoche answers a Rigpa Shedra East student's question about emptiness and compassion.

The Server Room is taking shape

2010-03-19T02:45:00.000-07:00

The building company has finished their work of putting up the main wall the creates the server room space. Next week, our own people will create the inside of the server room. It is all coming together slowly. We are still hoping to move the Treasury of Wisdom servers to Lerab Ling in the middle of April.

The Making of the Home Retreat

2010-03-16T07:37:00.001-07:00

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Rigpa has been running a unique study programme for years. This short film documents all the work that has gone into this ambitious project.

The wall is going up

2010-03-12T05:06:00.000-08:00

The server room is slowly starting to take shape. The wall is being created, and the site team has already cleared the space. It is pretty dark in there, so please excuse the quality of the picture.

1500 Transcripts in DSpace

2010-03-11T01:01:00.000-08:00

Today, we finally crossed the 1500 mark!!! There are now 1502 transcripts in DSpace, available for Rigpa researchers to search online. I hope we can increase the number of available transcripts more and more!!!

The concrete is down

2010-03-11T00:46:00.000-08:00

The concrete floor in the Lerab Ling workshop is done, so the construction of the wall between workshop and server room can begin. The Lerab Ling site team is vacating the future server room area today. I do wonder though if we will ever see Spring here.

The Construction of the Server Room in Lerab Ling has started

2010-03-09T05:45:00.000-08:00

Last week the site crew in Lerab Ling emptied out the workshop room in the main house in Lerab Ling in order to prepare the costruction of the new server room which will occupy one end of the current workshop area.

Today, as the last snow in Lerab Ling is melting, the construction of the new floor has begun.

More updates to come soon. Stay tuned!

The Treasury of Wisdom is moving to Lerab Ling

2010-03-04T05:15:00.000-08:00

The Treasury of Wisdom is moving to Lerab Ling in April 2010. This move comes with a re-orientation of the work towards servicing the needs of Rigpa researchers, and many other changes.

Work for a new server room in Lerab Ling is starting in one week (A part of the existing wood workshop is remodelled into a server room which will host Treasury of Wisdom servers and Lerab Ling and Rigpa International IT infrastructure.

Check back often, we will keep posting updated info, drawings, photos and so on.

Mind and the Nature of Mind

2010-01-29T08:59:00.003-08:00

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Sogyal Rinpoche talks about the appearance and the essence of mind in an extract from 15 November 2009 in Vancouver

Who do buddhists pray to?

2010-01-29T08:59:00.001-08:00

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Rinpoche explains how prayers work from a buddhist point of view. An extract from a teaching given in Vancouver, 15 December 2009

Tsoknyi Rinpoche's advice to Rigpa Shedra students in Pharping, Nepal, 12 Jan 2010

2010-01-22T08:12:00.001-08:00

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When Tsoknyi Rinpoche, accompanied by Richard Gere, visited Khenchen Namdrol Rinpoche's monastery, the place where Rigpa Shedra East takes place every year, he gave a short teaching, answering questions of the shedra students. Richard Gere attended the class too!

111TB

2009-11-30T04:18:00.001-08:00

Today we have added more storage space to the Treasury of Wisdom main archive. We now have 111TB of storage for audio and video files. Needless to say, there is no such thing as too much storage, and we probably add more harddisk space within a few months.

In case you are worried about backup: all our data is backed up to harddisk arrays which are housed in a seperate building for fire protection.

1300 Transcripts in DSpace

2009-11-26T01:16:00.000-08:00

DSpace, the treasury of wisdom's online repository features now more than 1300 transcripts, available for Rigpa researchers for full online-text search. Many more transcripts will be coming in soon.

As the Three-Year Retreat has finished, transcribing will be relying much more heavily on the national teams and many of them will submit transcripts into DSpace directly. So, DSpace will become a much more integrated part of the work of the transcribers world-wide.

Transcripts form a major backbone of Rigpa's work. We thank all the transcribers and coordinators for their hard work. Without you, many many things would not be possible!!!

Three-Year Retreat in Lerab Ling has ended

2009-11-24T02:07:00.000-08:00

The Three-Retreat in Lerab Ling has ended with a very auspicious concluding ceremony on 21 November 2009. Almost 500 students followed teachings and practice for 3 Years, 3 Months, and 3 Days.

This Three-Year Retreat has broken all records for this kind of retreats. It is certainly the first retreat of this kind which is fully recorded digitally in 5 languages.

There have been more than 500 teaching sessions, not to mention the additional presentations of Rigpa's students

la retraite de méditation

2009-10-02T00:24:00.001-07:00

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Reportage réalisé par

Teachings for All Seasons still ALIVE

2009-09-29T00:38:00.000-07:00

The following one is for Rigpa Students only.

The "Teachings for All Seasons" podcast for the Rigpa Sangha is still alive. We have just updated all the different language versions. You access them by going to the Rigpa Sangha Portal. Please also consider making a donation to keep this service running. You can donate here.

Happiness is up to you

2009-09-25T04:38:00.001-07:00

We have posted a new short video extract of a teaching of Rinpoche from Killarney, 26 April 2009, Ireland.

Even though it is quite short, Rinpoche manages to communicate the starting point of the teachings of the Buddha.

You can get a DVD of the full teaching from the zamstore.

A Tribute to Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö

2009-06-27T23:26:00.001-07:00

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To mark the 50th anniversary of Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö's parinirvana, we have quickly assembled this short compilation from our ever-growing archive of film and photographs.

Although little known in the West, Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö was of the greatest importance for the spread of the Tibetan Buddhist teachings over the Western hemisphere. At that time in Tibet there was no other master that received the respect from followers of all traditions. Since he himself, following in the footsteps of his predecessor Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, had gathered, studied, practiced and taught all the different lineages of Tibetan Buddhism everyone claimed him as a great teacher of their very own tradition.

Please visit www.rememberingthemasters.org

Treasury of Wisdom is favoring Open Documents Standards

2009-05-06T06:16:00.001-07:00

Since 2008, the Treasury of Wisdom has been exploring different document standards for use in Rigpa (like Open-Office format ODT, Word format DOC, RTF format). We have talked to many people and for now we are seeing ODT as the clear winner in the fight over which format we should use in an archive.

ODT is an open standard, i.e. there is a clearly published description of how files in this format need to look like it (as opposed to the Microsoft Word standard which is controlled by Microsoft).

If you wish to try out ODT, you can download a free copy of open-office unless you own a PowerPC mac, then you would need to use NeoOffice.

Both these programmes exist now in version 3 which is far superior to version 2. There has been some weird behavior in version 2 of open-office when converting text files, which seems to have been fixed in version 3.

Remembering the Masters

2009-05-05T00:20:00.000-07:00

A team of dedicated Rigpa students has interviewed students of Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö. The results of their work is now being published here.

http://www.rememberingthemasters.org/

Buddhism is modern

2009-04-25T02:57:00.001-07:00

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In March 2009, Sogyal Rinpoche gave two days of teachings in Thimpu, Bhutan, which will be shown on Bhutanese Television. Here is a short extract of his teachings. Visit www.rigpa.org for more into.

SR Bhutan 2007 Part 3

2009-04-21T02:09:00.001-07:00

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This is the 3rd part of the videos from Sogyal Rinpoche's teachings in Bhutan, March 2007. He talks about To tame this mind of ours.

SR Bhutan 2007 Part 2

2009-04-21T01:57:00.001-07:00

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This is the 2nd part of the videos from Sogyal Rinpoche's teachings in Bhutan, March 2007. He teaches here on Commit not a single unwholesome action, Cultivate a wealth of virtue

SR Bhutan 2007 Part 1

2009-04-21T01:55:00.001-07:00

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This is the first part of the videos from Sogyal Rinpoche's teachings in Bhutan, March 2007. He introduces his teachings here and talks about contentment.

The Visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Lerab Ling, August 2008

2009-04-21T01:52:00.001-07:00

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A short extract of the DVD video that is included in Rigpa's View Magazine number 2 showing the environment of the visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Lerab Ling in August 2008.

SR Bhutan 2007 Part 4

2009-04-21T01:49:00.001-07:00

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This is the 4th part of the videos from Sogyal Rinpoche's teachings in Bhutan, March 2007. He teaches here on Mind, Buddha Nature, and he introduces the direct and gradual approach to meditation.

Fundraising in Australia

2009-03-17T03:16:00.000-07:00

I wanted to thank all those generous students who donated money towards the Treasury of Wisdom in a recent fundraising auction in Australia.

The Treasury of Wisdom is in need of quite a bit of money to keep on going in order to provide all the materials necessary to produce the home retreat, the parallel programme, the Rigpalinks and so on.

If you wish to donate, even if it is just a few bucks, please visit our donation page.

Transcripts are slowly coming into the Treasury of Wisdom Database

2009-03-17T03:13:00.000-07:00

The Treasury of Wisdom taskforce only found one person this year to file transcripts into our database. so, the entire team is frentically trying to help out to get the full transcript archive into our online database. We have now 700 transcripts available online, and searchable online, but there is still loads to do.

And, by the way, the transcribing team desperately needs support. Please contact Petra Brinkhaus if you want to help.

The Dalai Lama's Historic Visit to Lerab Ling

2009-01-03T02:21:00.000-08:00

We have now posted in YouTube an excerpt of a video documenting His Holiness' Historic Visit to Lerab Ling in August 2009. The full video can be found on DVD which comes with the second edition of "View, the Rigpa Journal". You can purchase this amazing magazine with a full written report of the historic visit from the ZAM Shop .

We are still looking for help for January - April 2009

2008-12-19T00:46:00.000-08:00

The Treasury of Wisdom will for a second time this winter host a special taskforce in Lodeve near Lerab Ling in order to transform the Treasury of Wisdom database into a well-organized research and archive platform.

We are looking for 6 volunteers to help this project which will be crucial for Rinpoche's work of spreading the teachings in the West. The Treasury of Wisdom is the basis of almost all teaching-related projects in Rigpa like the Homeretreat, courses, Rigpalink.

We already created an extremely successful task force last year with members from France, Australia, and the USA. The participants of last year's task force found it an extremely joyful and valuable experience to come to Lodeve and focus on such an important task while intensifying their practice (Luckily, there are not many distractions in Lodeve.)

If you have some time this Winter and want to join our team in an exciting group effort to make the work of thousands of transcribers, teaching report writers, video and sound people available for research to Rigpa researchers, then please send an email to

ToW_admin@rigpashop.com.

Converting all recordings from 1994 into digital files

2008-12-02T03:23:00.001-08:00

Good news from the archive in Lodève: We just managed to successfully enter all the sessions from 1994 into the Treasury of Wisdom database. We now can start to submit the videos which are already completely digitized. Regarding the audios: The summer retreat is completely digitized, too and Alain just started doing the rest of the year.

10,000 entries on teaching events

2008-11-27T03:40:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, our number of database entries for events passed the threshold of 10,000 entries. These entries include information on
-Teaching Event
-Teaching Sessions
-Daily Session Reports
-Recorded Audios
-Recorded Videos
-Teaching Reports
-Transcripts
-and now, and that is NEW, the actual event blurbs.

You can see a screen shot of a blurb entry above.

The Taskforce 2009 wants you!

2008-11-24T07:50:00.000-08:00

The Treasury of Wisdom will for a second time this winter host a special taskforce in order to transform the Treasury of Wisdom database into a well-organized research and archive platform.

We are looking for 6 volunteers to help this project which will be crucial for Rinpoche's work of spreading the teachings in the West. The Treasury of Wisdom is the basis of almost all teaching-related projects in Rigpa like the Homeretreat, courses, Rigpalinks,

If you have some time this Winter and want to join our team in an exciting group effort to make the work of thousands of transcribers, teaching report writers, video and sound people available for research to Rigpa researchers, then please send an email to

ToW_admin@zamstore.com.

The Bodhichitta Mengak Studypack is coming

2008-11-15T01:21:00.000-08:00

FANTASTIC NEWS

The Mengak Studypack team has done it again!!!!

There is a new Mengak Studypack coming, this time the topic is Bodhichitta. Part 1 of this celebration of the teachings will be available at the beginning of December 2008 for Rigpa Mandala students.

The French and German Translators have already started on the oral and written translations.

The Mengak Studypack will also include a beautifully produced booklet of the Mengak for how to generate bodhichitta.

Teachings for All Seasons

2008-11-11T06:48:00.000-08:00

The "Teachings for All Seasons" project is still alive, delivering new, inspiring teaching on audio every month in English, French, German, and Spanish. Please have a look in the "Teachings for All Seasons" sections on the Rigpa Sangha Portal. You need to have an account in the Rigpa Care& Admin system to access this service.

Just to wet your appetite, here one of the inspiring, evocative teaching excerpts that is featured in this download service.

And, we would like to invite you to contribute financially to this service, which is being made available to Rigpa students at no cost. Please click here to get to the donation form (don't forget to specify that you wish to donate for Teachings for All Seasons).

A Short History of the Treasury of Wisdom

2008-10-28T10:29:00.000-07:00

Before 1997, each national Rigpa was responsible for archiving the recordings of their teaching events (which very often led to rather chaotic archives, all of which where organized according to different principles).

Rigpa International started the international archive in 1995 in London and Berlin with Heidi Lindstedt (texts), Janine (transcripts), and Jeannie (AV)). The project was funded privately until the end of 1996. In the Spring of 1997 the project moved to Lodeve. At that point, the employees were Heidi Lindstedt (for text files) and Andrea Philipp for the physical archive of audio tapes. Video tapes were added to the physical archive in 1998. The photo archive was taken care of by Pete Fry in his spare time.

Heidi has spend a big part of her time with sorting out the messy archive of text files from the first 20 years of Rigpa history (some 300,000 (!) files). Most of Andrea’s time was spent with fulfilling the demands of audio copies that where needed. At this point, there was no Rigpa IT department in existence, and non of the archive staff ever had sufficient time to specify the needs of an archive database, or to supervise its design. As a result, there was no database back then of all audio or video tapes.

The archive continued with a two-person-staff until around 2005. The archive staff always struggled between the different tasks of the library service and the actual building of a proper archive. Due to the pressure of the different clients of the archive, the library service had to be prioritised over building an archive. As a result, the Audio and Video archive never had a chance to be properly systematised. Also, apart from some isolated volunteer efforts, the archive never managed to start the proper digitising of old audio and video recordings.

Only in Spring 2005, when ZAM moved premises, the Treasury of Wisdom got a new half-time employee (Alain Bordes) who created a good set-up for audio and video digitising stations. Also, Andrea who had been on maternity leave and then on a 20% position was given a half-time position.

Also, in 2005, we started using our new archive database, DSpace. The first entries were done during the visit of Kyabjé Trulshik Rinpoche in November-December 2005.

Pete Fry found almost no time to work on the photo archive form 1997-2007, so in the summer of 2007 we employed Simon Day on a 60% position on as a photo archivist. He started to establish a procedure for the photo archive and started to create a functional network of Rigpa photographers. It is thanks to his efforts that we have a good photographic record of the visit of His Holiness in 2008.

In an attempt to finally start to deal with the 30-year backlog of AV recordings, the Treasury of Wisdom put a 4-month taskforce into place at the beginning of 2008 which managed to enter events, session information and daily session reports of the events from 2001-2008. Also, we hired a programmer to update DSpace and make it ready for more types of documents.

Finally, as part of the restructuring of Rigpa International, the Teaching Notes Archive Work has been put into the Treasury of Wisdom Department in 2007.

Just for fun, here is a photo of some of the Rigpa International staff from Losar 2003, including Heidi Lindstedt and Claudia Thurn from the Treasury of Wisdom staff back then.

Submitting related items in DSpace is easier now

2008-10-25T02:22:00.000-07:00

It is now easier to submit items in DSpace which are related to something like sessions or events (like the transcript of a session or a session of an event).

When you open the page which you want to link a new entry to, e.g. you wish to submit a transcript to a session, you can simply first open the base page (in this case the session), and then you can click on the link "Submit transcript" in the right-hand column. This brings you directly to the transcript submission process with the session already selected.

Many thanks to the transcribers for requesting this feature.

The Buidling of the Buddha Image in Lerab Ling

2008-10-02T23:47:00.000-07:00

On the occassion of the visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Lerab Ling in August 2008, the Treasury of Wisdom photo archive helped to produce a photo slideshow that documents the making of the golden Buddha image which is the center of the temple in Lerab Ling.

This slideshow will also be featured in a forthcoming special commemorative DVD edition celebrating the visit of His Holiness to Lerab Ling. We have already it on youtube now for you to enjoy:

Trouver la paix, la compassion et la sagesse dans un monde difficile

2008-09-19T10:01:00.001-07:00

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Cet enseignement donné lors de la récente visite de Sogyal Rinpoché en Australie rassemble de façon essentielle divers aspects des instructions sur la méditation. Rinpoché explique ici en profondeur comment la méditation nous permet de travailler directement avec les trois consciences, purifiant tous nos obscurcissements et nous conduisant de façon ultime à lEveil. Ce qui détermine le bonheur ou la souffrance est la perception que nous avons de nous-mêmes et du monde. Si nous pouvons ainsi dépasser notre esprit dualiste, nous ne serons plus victimes de linconstance de nos pensées et de nos émotions. Nous découvrirons alors un bonheur durable. Pour cela, il nous faut pratiquer la méditation, la compassion et par dessus tout, transformer notre esprit. La méditation ralentit notre tendance à saisir et à réagir face à ce que nous percevons. En apprenant progressivement à demeurer non-distraits dans laspect de pure connaissance de lesprit, nous dissolvons les concepts et purifions les émotions conflictuelles causées par notre saisie. Nous nous débarrassons ainsi de leur influence nocive et découvrons notre sagesse inhérente. La plupart dentre nous avons besoin dentreprendre cette pratique en commençant par calmer lesprit avec la méditation Shamata. En demeurant vigilants à cet état de présence et spacieux dans la non-distraction, nous nous libérons de nos concepts et regagnons notre nature ultime.

Finding Peace, Compassion and Wisdom in a Complex World

2008-09-18T00:31:00.001-07:00

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Given during Sogyal Rinpoches recent visit to Australia, this teaching brings together many aspects of Rinpoches instruction on meditation into one essential form. Rinpoche also explains to considerable depth how meditation allows us to work directly with the three mental consciousnesses, purify ourselves of all obscurations and, ultimately, attain enlightenment. What determines whether we are happy or suffering is our perception of ourselves and the world. Therefore, if we can overcome our dualistic mind, we will no longer be subject to the fickleness of momentary thoughts and moods, and find lasting happiness. We achieve this through practising meditation, compassion, and above all, by transforming our mind. Meditation slows down our tendency to grasp and react to what we perceive. By gradually learning to remain undistracted in the pure knowing quality of the mind, we dissolve the concepts and conflicting emotions that are caused by our grasping, purify ourselves of their distorting influence, and discover our inherent wisdom. Most of us need to begin this path of practice by calming our wild minds with shamatha meditation. By developing and staying vigilantly aware of our mindfulness and remaining spaciously in the state of non-distraction, we free ourselves of our concepts and return to the realization of our ultimate nature.

The Heart Essence of the Teaching of the Buddha

2008-08-02T02:42:00.001-07:00

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Liberating your mind and emotions, and transforming your life and death through the buddhist wisdom of Tibet. A public talk given in Nottingham during the Dalai Lama's five days of teaching in Nottingham, 24-28 May 2008.

The Ultimate Goal of Meditation—Discovering Who We Really Are

2008-06-23T12:07:00.001-07:00

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What we really need to do is arrive at a fundamental acceptance of impermanence. Even though they are continually changing and unreliable, we believe that we are thoughts, emotions, and stories. However, the only thing that is constant, unchanging, and reliable, is the clarity of our mind stream. Whether we are happy or sad, the cognizant quality of pure consciousness is with us throughout our lives, and continues until enlightenment. In spite of the fact that the world is so decadent and difficult, and that our lives can be so complex, if we have discovered the inner freedom of the mind, we ourselves can be simple and uncomplicated, and maintain a carefree dignity.

Le but ultime de la meditation—Decouvrir notre vraie nature

2008-06-23T05:21:00.001-07:00

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Bien que toutes choses soient impermanentes et interdépendantes, nos espoirs nous impliquent dans une poursuite insatiable de ce qui, daprès nous, va faire notre bonheur. Par ailleurs, la peur de perdre ce que nous avons rend le changement terrifiant. Il nous faut parvenir à accepter fondamentalement limpermanence. Même si nos pensées changent constamment, si nous ne pouvons pas nous y fier, nous nous identifions à elles, à nos émotions et à nos histoires. Toutefois, la seule chose qui soit durable, immuable et fiable est la clarté de notre courant de conscience. Que nous soyons heureux ou triste, la qualité connaissante de la conscience pure demeure avec nous tout au long de notre vie et cela jusquà lÉveil. Bien que le monde soit décadent et difficile, et que notre vie soit complexe, si nous avons découvert la liberté intérieure de lesprit, nous pouvons rester simple, sans complications, et maintenir une dignité libre de tout souci. Nous serons à laise et détendu avec tout le monde et dans toutes situations. Nos pensées et nos émotions ne sont que les ombres et les reflets de nous-même. La pratique de la méditation dissout ces leurres et nous permet dêtre authentique. Nous nous ouvrons à la réalité de notre être et nous trouvons le repos dans la bonté fondamentale de la nature de lesprit. Si nous parvenons à faire confiance à cette connaissance claire, tout ce qui nous reste à faire est de prendre plaisir à notre vraie nature et de découvrir le véritable bonheur.

Das letztendliche Ziel der Meditation—Entdecken wer wir wirklich sind

2008-06-23T03:21:00.001-07:00

Click to Play

Obgleich alles vergänglich ist und in gegenseitiger Abhängigkeit existiert, treibt uns unsere Hoffnung dazu, unersättlich dem vermeintlichen Glück hinterher zu jagen, und aus Angst, das zu verlieren, was wir haben, fürchten wir uns vor jeglicher Veränderung. Was wir brauchen, ist eine grundlegende Akzeptanz der Vergänglichkeit. Auch wenn sie sich ständig verändern und unzuverlässig sind, identifizieren wir uns mit unseren Gedanken, Emotionen und Geschichten. Doch das einzig Beständige, Unveränderliche und Zuverlässige ist die Klarheit unseres Geistesstroms. Ob wir glücklich oder traurig sind, die erkenntnisfähige Qualität unseres reinen Bewusstseins begleitet uns in all unseren Leben und wird bis zur Erleuchtung fortbestehen. Selbst in einer dekadenten und schwierigen Welt, in der unser Leben so komplex sein kann, können wir, wenn wir die innere Freiheit unseres Geistes entdeckt haben, einfach und unkompliziert sein und eine sorglose Würde besitzen. Dann werden wir gelassen und entspannt mit jedem und in jeder Situation sein. Unsere Gedanken und Emotionen sind nur Schatten und Abbilder unserer selbst. Meditationspraxis löst diese Falschheit auf und gestattet uns, aufrichtig zu sein. Wir öffnen uns gegenüber dem, wer wir wirklich sind, und finden Ruhe in der grundlegenden Gutheit der Natur des Geistes. Wenn wir dieser klaren Erkenntisfähigkeit vertrauen können, bleibt uns nichts anderes zu tun, als uns unserer Natur zu erfreuen und auf authentische Weise glücklich zu sein.

Discovering who we really are

2008-06-12T06:05:00.000-07:00

Sogyal Rinpoche has asked us to make some of his best teachings available online, at no cost. The first teaching to be shared on google video is the Rigpalink "Discovering who we really are", which has been previously published as Rigpalink November 2002.

Above, you see a link to an extract of this teaching on YouTube. The full teaching will appear on Google Video shortly. Enjoy!

Dzongsar Ngari Tulku

2008-06-02T05:26:00.000-07:00

Dzongsar Ngari Tulku, one of Sogyal Rinpoche's closest childhood friends and an important tulku from Dzongsar Monastery, passed away on 18 May 2008 following a tragic accident in Germany.

Here is an extract from an interview Rigpa students conducted with him several years ago:

DSpace: The New Treasury of Wisdom Database

2008-05-23T09:07:00.000-07:00

As announced before, we have been very busy on working on a new interface to our archive database. Finally, we were able to switch to the new interface last night. At the same time, we have also changed the weblink to

http://tow.rigpa.org

If you are already a registered user of DSpace, have a walk around the new interface.

The new Treasury of Wisdom Interface

2008-05-03T01:16:00.000-07:00

The new interface of the Treasury of Wisdom Database is now close to being finished. This new version is based on DSpace 1.5 and has been greatly enhanced by our programmer. In the above screen-shot, you can see the overlay that becomes visible when you put the cursor over the reference to another entry. (In this case you can see the information related to a session from the event which the session belongs to).

Treasury of Wisdom Taskforce 2008 Report

2008-05-03T01:03:00.000-07:00

Creating a fully-functional research database is one of Rigpa's highest priorities. In order to reach this goal, from January to March 2008, a special task force has been created to transfer all data available on teachings of Sogyal Rinpoche from the years 1996-2005 into the Treasury of Wisdom Database, and to make this data easily available to researchers.

The task force was formed by 5 volunteers from France, Australia, Germany and the USA. Each one of them worked for around 2 months, around 30 hours per week.

They accomplished the following:
• all data of Rigpa events between 1994 and 2008 has been entered (close to 1800 events)
• all data of Rigpa teaching sessions between 2001 and 2008 have been entered (more than 2800 sessions)
• all Daily Session Reports have been converted into Open-Office documents and PDFs and entered (the writing of Daily Session Reports started in 2001, more than 1400 reports in total)

In order to make the database more easily adaptable to our needs, the Software base of the Treasury of Wisdom database has been moved from an outdated older version to the current version of DSpace. While this move has been very work-intensive, it provides us now with a much better platform that allows us to easily update our software as newer versions of this library system become available. Also, the new systems allows us change the visual appearance of the web-interface, and to make the database more user friendly. The new version is currently in a test phase.

What still needs to be done

Changing to the new version of the Treasury of Wisdom Database
Testing of the new system has started, we expect to change over by the end of May 2008.

Entering all transcripts from 2001-2008
Currently only 200 transcripts have been entered. More than 7000 do exist, but they need to be spell-checked to comply with the current Rigpa spelling, and then converted to Open-Office data format to ensure that we still can read these transcripts in 10 years time. We are currently trying to find a retreat volunteer in Lerab Ling to submit around 2400 transcripts for teachings from 2001-2008. This will take around 400 hours, around 20 weeks of volunteer work.

Design of a good search interface
The Treasury of Wisdom Strategy Team is currently interviewing all key Rigpa researchers to find out what their requirement for a search interface are. This gathering phase will be finished by end of May 2008. We can then propose how the new search interface will look, and start implementing it. A new search interface should then be functional by end of August 2008.

Enter the remaining session information
We plan to put together another task-force for the next practice period (Jan-April 2009) to enter the remaining session information of the years 1994-2000.

The Data-Entry Taskforce has started their work

2008-03-04T08:26:00.000-08:00

During January 2008, a special taskforce which now comprises 5 students has started to enter the backlog of teaching information into the Treasury of Wisdom Database.

By now, they have successfully entered information on all Rigpa teaching events between 1994 and today, a total of 1776 events

Also, there are more than 1200 Daily Session Reports which document day-by-day what happened on these events (they cover teachings from 2000 up to now).

Now, the team has started to enter data on individual teachings of the years 2002-2004.

Losar Tashi Delek from the ZAM building in Lodeve

2008-02-11T02:19:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year-Losar Tashi Delek from the ZAM building in Lodeve. The ZAM building now houses teams from ZAM, Treasury of Wisdom, the Home Retreat Multimedia Production team as well as Spiritual Care. Here's a group photo of all the teams together, and there are still 3 people misssing...

The Treasury of Wisdom Taskforce has started

2008-02-11T02:15:00.000-08:00

On 15 January 2008, the Treasury of Wisdom taskforce has started to fill the Treasury of Wisdom database with information from various other databases and documents on teaching events from Rigpa's History.

The taskforce has completely entered all teaching events from 1994-2008. As a result, researchers in Rigpa now have a complete list of events available at their disposal.

The taskforce has now started to engage with Daily Session Reports which provide a more detailed look at what happened during any day of a Rigpa teaching event.

The Treasury of Dharma Project

2007-12-04T02:19:00.000-08:00

"You receive and study all these instructions and teachings.
They are important, they give you the background, the understanding, some knowledge that is the basic. But then I worry a little bit: is it not too much?
Do we need to simplify? How do you put it into practice? How to practise Bodhicitta essentially, how do you really do it? How to invoke refuge in an instant?
How to have a way of invoking, of making it happen for you, each day?" (Sogyal Rinpoche)

In order to act on Rinpoche’s concern, the RIGPA Treasury of Dharma (formerly known as Teaching Pharmacy) has – and is being – developed. This electronic system is designed to help us to put the teachings into practice, to find a support on all aspects of our spiritual path, and to help us in difficult situations in our life.

The Treasury of Dharma presently consists of two elements:
- the ‘Inspirational-Library’ which contains inspiring and transformative teachings on motivation, bodhichitta, the View, the nature of mind, meditation, devotion, invocation, Guru Yoga, lojong and integration
- the ‘Advice for Life’- Library, that houses short teachings which help us to transform difficult situations in our life regarding relationships, depression, sickness, death and so on.

This structure reflects Rinpoche’s observation that we need ‘different methods for different situations’ that can help us to progress on our spiritual path.

The aim of this project is that we find inspiration, courage and support for our spiritual path, both in our formal practice and in our every day life activities.

The Treasury of Dharma will take on many different forms in which it will be made available for individuals and centers.
For individuals:
— the current ZAM Rigpa- and Dzogchenlinks will continue in their current form and will cover themes that are complimentary to the Teaching Pharmacy
—any other ZAM products produced in 2008 will also function as part of the Teaching Library
— the RIGPA Wiki web page, accessible to all Home Retreatants, already hosts a selection of teachings concerning ‘Advice for Life’, and will be further developed in the future, making teachings available free of charge

To have a look at the "Advice for Life" page on the wiki, you need a valid login for Rigpa's home retreat portal (this login consists of the email that you use to log into the homretreat website and the password that you use to log in). Please use this link to the online part of the Treasury of Dharma system:

The visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Lerab Ling in September 2000

2007-09-13T04:16:00.000-07:00

For this year's all-mandala retreat in Lerab Ling, we revised, updated, and expanded the video on the History of Rigpa. As part of this work, we included a teaching excerpt of His Holiness the Dalai Lama from Lerab Ling, September 2000 into the history. We feel that this excerpt stands on its own, and we are very happy to share this with you.

Two Camera Recording in Rigpa

2007-09-11T04:22:00.001-07:00

As many of you have noticed from the last Sangha Day Videos, the Lerab Ling Video Team has started to record the teachings on 2 cameras on Rinpoche's request. Of course, working with 2 camera recordings is much more resource intensive, but we all believe that the result does justify this extra effort.

His Holiness Sakya Trizin in Lerab Ling, 2007

2007-08-08T09:04:00.000-07:00

As many you might have heard, His Holiness Sakya Trizin visited Lerab Ling in June 2007 . A video impression of this visit was produced for a Rigpa Sangha Day. The Treasury of Wisdom team together with Rigpa's Video Editing Department has refined this first edit now for future inclusion in the History of Rigpa Film. But we can already share with you now this 7 minute impression.

This short video also contains a brief teaching of His Holiness on the integration of practice into everyday life. He gave this teaching during a longer, private interview session.

2007-07-09T07:24:00.001-07:00

Main Activities of the Treasury of Wisdom in the Year 2006

Supporting Rigpa Teaching Events
In addition to the support of teaching events through the travelling Suitcase harddisk and the electronic Archive Video Edits Library, the year 2006 marked the advent of an entirely new support of teachings events: providing teaching content for events which Sogyal Rinpoche is not being able to attend.
This series of event started with the Clear Lake Retreat 2006, which Sogyal Rinpoche conducted remotely first through telephone, and then via an internet-based video conference. It then continued with a conference of Social Workers in Hong Kong, which received a specially recorded new teaching on video, and then with a teaching weekend in Taipei on Tendrel Nyesel, which was based on edits of teachings given before in Lerab Ling.

Support for Rigpa Publications
During the first half of 2006, a small and very dedicated team finished the book called "The Vision of Enlightenment", the teachings given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama during his visit to Lerab Ling in September 2000. The Treasury of Wisdom team provided this team with audio and video materials of this teachings wherever needed for their work.

Establishment and Support of the Home Retreat Transmission
In September 2006, Rigpa launched the Home Retreat, a programme to follow the Three-Year Retreat at home. This new programme is based on weekly video transmissions, which are available in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Chinese. The Treasury of Wisdom team was instrumental in the establishment of a workgroup, based in Lerab Ling, which prepares these transmission. All the know-how that the Treasury of Wisdom team holds in terms of recording the teachings, archiving the teachings, editing the teachings, and packaging the edited teachings for access through the internet were transmitted to the newly formed team in Lerab Ling.

Establishment of a Multimedia Archive in Lerab Ling
In view of the tremendous amount of work on the teachings that were about to start in Lerab Ling in August 2006, the Treasury of Wisdom team established a functional multimedia archive in Lerab Ling, in coordination with Lerab Ling's IT staff, which now is the backbone of the home retreat transmissions as well as the basis for the work on the teachings which is done to support teaching events with Rinpoche world-wide.
Also, the Treasury of Wisdom appointed a multimedia archivist in Lerab Ling who oversees the proper archiving of the Lerab Ling recordings and productions. This archivist also handles all requests to the Treasury of Wisdom from Lerab Ling.

Digitzing of old Audio and Video Recordings of Teachings of Sogyal Rinpoche and Other Masters
The year 2006 saw the biggest efforts yet to digitize the older teachings of Sogyal Rinpoche. The Treasury of Wisdom invested in three new video digitizing stations which increased the rate at which the older teachings get entered into the electronic archive enormously. the Treasury of Wisdom also employed another helper on a part-time basis to make sure that our newly acquired digitizing capacity was used to its full extent. As a result, within a period of a few weeks, the Treasury of Wisdom team finished digitizing all videos from the year 1994.
There is also progress on digitizing and sorting audio recordings from the past. The team has sorted the recordings from a landmark retreat of the Rigpa History: The Summer Retreat in Brunissard, August 1989, with Kyabjé Dodrupchen Rinpoche, Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche, Dzogchen Rinpoche, and Sogyal Rinpoche.

Updating the "History of Rigpa" Video
In anticipation of the visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, which was planned for July 2006 (and then postponed in June), the Treasury of Wisdom embarked on updating the aging "History of Rigpa" video which was produced on the occasion of the visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Lerab Ling in September 2000.
With the help of many volunteers, the Treasury of Wisdom team added an entire new section of the visit of Khenpo Jigphun to Lerab Ling from 1993, as well as footage from visits of Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche, Kyabjé Trulshik Rinpoche, Penor Rinpoche, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche, Kamtrul Rinpoche and many others.
Also, for the first time, a translation of the teaching extracts into English has been added to this historic documentary.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama in San Jose, 1989

2007-06-14T05:23:00.000-07:00

One of the major projects of the Treasury of Wisdom Team in the year 2006 was updating the aging "History of Rigpa" Film in anticipation of the visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Lerab Ling. Now, of course, we have received an extension of the deadline for this project.

Nevertheless, here is my favorite part of this documentary: Sogyal Rinpoche congratulating His Holiness the Dalai Lama on receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Stream of New Videos on YouTube Continues

2007-05-26T02:03:00.000-07:00

We are currently in the process of preparing a number of extracts of a classic teaching of Sogyal Rinpoche from Adelaide, 2 February 2004, for publication on YouTube. Here is the latest extract:

The entire teaching has been published before as a Rigpalink in April&May 2004 under the title "Finding Peace, Compassion and Wisdom in a Complex World". You can still purchase this teaching from the ZAM Webshop (have a look into the category "Finding Peace, Compassion and Wisdom in a Complex World).

A New Blog for Rigpa Students

2007-05-26T02:00:00.001-07:00

There is a new blog out there for all Rigpa students to get the latest information on Rigpa's and Sogyal Rinpoche's activities. It contain news, photos and video material and links to other websites, to help keep you informed of all the most important goings on in Lerab Ling and around the world.

Please visit the Rigpa News Blog

1001 Originals and Counting

2007-05-08T00:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we surpassed the magic number of 1000 entries in our Originals Collection in the Treasury of Wisdom Database. Each entry in this collection contains a complete set of audio or video recordings of a single teaching. Such a set may contain somewhere between 1 and 120 files. That means that we have filed the original recordings of more than 500 sessions from teachings as early as 1987 up to teachings from last month into our database. Files in this database are regularly checked for file corruption and they are of course being backed up.
The total size of all the files of these 1001 entries is 11.4 Tera Bytes.

Another video of Rinpoche teaching on YouTube

2007-05-06T08:11:00.000-07:00

We have now posted a second teaching extract of a teaching of Sogyal Rinpoche on YouTube:

This piece is taken from a public video called "Natural Great Peace" which was produced on the occasion of the visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Lerab Ling, September 2000. Most of "Natural Great Peace" shows Rinpoche reading out the "Natural Great Peace" text (available from the ZAM Store), but he also asked us to add in two extracts from previous teachings which he selected himself. This YouTube video is the first of these extracts. It is part of a teaching that Sogyal Rinpoche gave in Los Angeles on 9 June 1999. And it is one of my all-time favorites. Enjoy!

Sogyal Rinpoche on YouTube

2007-05-02T06:50:00.000-07:00

Today we have uploaded the first teaching of Sogyal Rinpoche onto YouTube.

This is a small extract of a teaching that Sogyal Rinpoche gave in Paris, 21 December 2005 (with a tiny insert from a teaching in Lerab Ling).

We hope that this will be the first in a long series of publicly available videos of Sogyal Rinpoche.

Sogyal Rinpoche in Haileybury, April 2007

2007-04-23T03:43:00.000-07:00

From 6 April to 15 April 2007, Sogyal Rinpoche conducted the Annual Rigpa Easter Retreat in Haileybury, Hertfordshire, England.

Rigpa UK organised a great team which took care of the data entry of teachings and presentations of the retreat into the Treasury of Wisdom Database. The team had all of the teaching sessions entered into the database by the time the retreat ended, and also the team has already filed all Daily Session Reports in the Database.

Also, the Treasury of Wisdom sponsored Dominique Lalonde, a one Three-Year Retreatant, to attend the retreat and to edit the teachings on video as soon as they were given. This quick turnaround allowed us to share these teachings already a few days later at the beginning of the Second Teaching Period of the Three-Year Retreat in Lerab Ling. Furthermore, these video edits form the basis for the Retreat MP3 Compilation which will be made available to students who participated in the Easter Retreat this year.

Sogyal Rinpoche taught on Bodhichitta mostly based on "The Words of my Perfect Teacher" and "A Guide to the Words of a Perfect Teacher" and Chökyi Drakpa's "A Torch to the Path of Omniscience" (contained in Rigpa's "A Guide to the Practice of Ngöndro.") One of the main teachings on Rigpa activity in Haileybury focused on care for Rigpa students.

I have included a picture of Rinpoche teaching in the Main Shrine Room from the last day of the retreat at the beginning of this entry.

Sogyal Rinpoche in Bhutan, March 2007

2007-04-10T07:48:00.000-07:00

At the end of March 2007, Sogyal Rinpoche visited the Kingdom of Bhutan. He gave a simple, in-depth introduction and thorough grounding in the teaching and practice of the Buddhadharma in a series of two public talks at the Royal Institute of Management, Thimphu, Bhutan.

Bhutan's public television station recorded his teachings and wants to present them within their English-speaking section of their TV programme. Sogyal Rinpoche asked the Treasury of Wisdom, together with Rigpa's Teaching Services department, to edit these teachings for transmission on TV.

This is actually the first time that we are editing teachings for a TV programme. A lot of care has gone into these edits, and the recorded teaching material has been enriched even further with photos and video footage from the Treasury of Wisdom archive.

We hope that we can make these precious materials available to Rigpa students as well. You can of course always quickly fly to Bhutan and enjoy these teachings on TV.

All Teachings from the Year 1994 Digitized

2007-03-29T03:25:00.000-07:00

Last week, our team finished digitizing all video recordings in the archive from the year 1994. This videos are now being preserved on error-protected RAID units in the Treasury of Wisdom archive, and they are being backed up onto another RAID in another building. And of course, we keep storing the original video tapes in a climate-controlled room.

The videos have been compressed into a high-quality format called H264. The year 1994 uses up 850GB in harddisk storage. So, you might wonder: how much does this cost? Well, the year 1994 takes up around 1,300€ worth of storage in the main archive, and around the same amount in the backup facility.

So, you can say that 2,600€ buy you a year of archived video footage. This of course doesn't include the labour, electricity, rent and so on to create these files and maintain the archive.

And, how much video is there? It seems that Rinpoche taught less in the year 1994 than the last couple of years. There are only around 250 hours of video from 1994, including many teachings on Bodhichitta and 'Turning Suffering and Happiness into Enlightenment', as well as the famous Salle Adyar teachings from the end of 1994. Sogyal Rinpoche gave these teachings during his personal retreat in Paris.

And, just to give a glimpse, there is a video still of Sogyal Rinpoche teaching in Berlin, 27 November 1994 at the beginning of this blog entry.

The View from the Kitchen Window

2007-03-21T08:47:00.000-07:00

As you might know, the Treasury of Wisdom is housed together with ZAM in a newly renovated building at the outskirts of Lodeve. The building doesn't look like much from the outside, so you won't see a photo of its appearance, but the view from the kitchen window is very inspiring as you can see.

NEW Edits in the Treasury of Wisdom Database

2007-03-13T06:34:00.000-07:00

The Treasury of Wisdom Database is now ready to gather information on edits of teachings of Sogyal Rinpoche. This is a very exciting development as it has been extremely difficult up to now to find information on edits in Rigpa. Of course, it will take a while until the list of edits filed in this database will fit no longer on a single page. So, all video editors in Rigpa: start filing your new edits as well as your old edits, and don't forget to stick to the filenaming standard.

Something from the Old Rigpa Programmes

2007-03-08T06:48:00.000-08:00

The Treasury of Wisdom is not just about geek stuff and electronic files.

This cartoon has been featured on the poster for the 1979 Rigpa Summer School.

One more Satabeast

2007-03-08T03:01:00.000-08:00

The Treasury of Wisdom uses Nexsan Satabeast Raid Units as their electronic backup systems. We have just installed our third Satabeast Unit (with 14 750GB disks) which brings our total backup capaity to 49 TB (that is 49 000 Gigabytes).

Welcome to the Treasury of Wisdom Blog

2007-03-08T02:42:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the new Treasury of Wisdom blog, your window to the exciting world of the Rigpa Treasury of Wisdom.