Buddhist temple thrives in the heart of Montrose

[Ensapa]

I'm just kinda wondering what kind of lineage do they practice, but I guess,  they could...plant imprints and generate causes for people in that area to practice Buddhism. All the best for them!

Buddhist temple thrives in the heart of Montrose


You'd be forgiven if, driving past Dawn Mountain, you thought it was a creatively named architecture firm. Though it's housed in a neat brick building on busy Richmond Avenue near South Shepherd, it's a Tibetan Buddhist temple and community center.

Founded in 1996, Dawn Mountain is the creation of Anne Klein, a professor of religious studies at Rice University, and her husband, Harvey Aronson, a therapist, and it is the outcome of an unlikely life journey for a girl from Albany, N.Y., and a boy from Brooklyn.

If you are sitting and sipping tea with the pair, surrounded by brightly colored paintings and statues and wall hangings, it's impossible not to think: These are two of the most serene people you'll ever meet.

For Klein, the story began in college on a semester abroad in France, when she had a sudden, inexplicable desire to travel to India. "I knew nothing about Buddhism or graduate school," she says, but decided a Ph.D. program in Buddhism at the University of Wisconsin was her best ticket to India.

There she met Aronson, who was also in the doctoral program. And she discovered the intricacies of Buddhism. "I was astounded at how sophisticated it was," she says.

The pair traveled to India, "and I just fell in love with the whole thing - the great open-hearted and mystery-oriented nature of it," Klein says.

One of Aronson's earliest influences was Richard Alpert, later known as Baba Ram Dass. "Going all the way back, Richard Alpert said we are all mired in repetitive behavior that obstructs our spiritual nature," he says. Becoming aware of those patterns, through practice and guidance, begins the process of becoming free of them and allows love, peace, joy and kindness to emerge. "There really is a kind of deeper possibility for human nature," he says.

Americans are plagued with self-hatred, but one of the teachings of Buddhism is that a person should have "a good dollop of compassion for myself and others," Aronson says.

Central to their teachings is the concept of mindfulness, or being absolutely in touch with the present moment. If you are mindful, you can recognize negative thoughts as just what they are: thoughts.

The process isn't easy, and it requires a commitment to a lifetime of learning. (Both Klein and Aronson still have teachers they rely on. So does the Dalai Lama.) Klein likens it to digging for gold in the ground. The gold is there, even if you can't see it, even if you have to get dirty and do a lot of digging to find it. Everyone has a perfect space within.

Houston is a tough place to be a Buddhist. "It's a very success-oriented city, where more money means more satisfaction," Aronson says. Except that, in the end, it doesn't.

He acknowledges that some of this introspection can sound a bit like therapy. "Buddhism is very, very early cognitive therapy," he says, but with a vision that is vast and deep, and with a spiritual dimension therapy can't touch.

The pair are open about their belief in reincarnation, which Buddhism shares with Hinduism. But they are perhaps a bit more reticent about discussing what they may know about their own past lives. It's a personal question, after all. These are not flighty movie stars who think they were once Nefertiti.

Also central to their practice is meditation. (Guided meditation is offered 11 a.m. to noon Sundays, and "Teaching Tuesdays" are 7 to 9 p.m. the first and third Tuesdays of the month. There's a welcome event at 10 a.m. Oct. 7.)

Meditation may seem like a difficult skill to develop, but the key is to start to try, even if you're very bad at it at first and your thoughts fly all over the place. "You don't sit down at a piano and play Mozart right off," Klein says.

The name of the temple, Dawn Mountain, was chosen with great care. First, they decided they wanted an American name. "Dawn" is a key word in Buddhism, and "mountain" seemed to balance it out nicely. It was also the name of the daughter of their friend Dr. Gail Gross, who had died the first year the couple was in Houston. "We wanted a sense of balance, groundedness, spaciousness," Klein says. "And light," says Aronson, finishing her sentence in the great tradition of married couples everywhere.

But most of all, they want to convey the overriding sense of joy and hope that are central to Buddhism. "The Buddhist nature has an intrinsic quality of joy," Klein says. "The pain you have is not all you are."

[bambi]

Interesting! They actually follow the Nyingma tradition but all the traditions are beautiful and the same. Below are the teachers that are in the centre. May the people there have the karma to receive the teachings and be blessed.



KHETSUN SANGPO RINPOCHE
Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche is among the most senior Lamas and Dzogchen masters in the Ancient (Nyingma) Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and perhaps the most eminent Nyingma historian alive today.
He was born in 1920 in central Tibet and came to India in 1959. Soon thereafter he was asked by His Holiness the Dalai Lama to represent Dudjom Rinpoche, head of the Nyingma school, in Japan. Khetsun Rinpoche spent ten years in this capacity from 1960-1970, teaching in Tokyo and Kyoto Universities and becoming fluent in Japanese.
In 1971 he returned to India and founded a school to educate Tibetan monks in his tradition. Over the last twenty five years he has accepted numerous invitations to teach in Japanese and U.S. universities and to teach students in retreats in Dordogne, France.
In Tibet, Khetsun Rinpoche received teachings on the Very Essence of the Great Expanse tradition from the famous Lady Master Jetsun Shugseb Rinpoche (d.1953) of Shugseb Nunnery, Tibet's main institution for women practitioners of Dzogchen. Other teachers include Dudjom Rinpoche, Kangyur Rinpoche, and Dilgo Khentse Rinpoche.
Khetsun Rinpoche's writings feature a 13 volume history of all the Tibetan Buddhist traditions. He is also the author of Tantric Practice in Nyingma, used by thousands of Western students as a guide to the foundational practices.



ADZOM RINPOCHE
Born in 1971 near Chamdo, Adzom Rinpoche was soon named a Tulku or incarnation of the great scholar Gyalse Pema Wangyal by the abbot of his monastery and is widely regarded as an incarnation of Jigmey Lingpa (see below)

Clearly an extraordinary prodigy Adzom Rinpoche began his studies at the age of 5 and undertook full time retreat at 11. At his teacher's request, Rinpoche began teaching Dzogchen in 1984 when he was 13. Today he teaches regularly at his monastery and seeks to better the lives of monks, nuns, and lay schoolchildren.

Students travel from far distances to hear him discourse on texts and practices from one of the major liturgical traditions within Nyingma, The Very Essence of the Great Expanse (kLong chen snying thig). This tradition was first codified by Jigmey Lingpa in the 18th century. Adzom Rinpoche is regarded as a Tulku of Jigmey Lingpa himself. (He is also said to be the 30th incarnation proceeding from Manjusri, Trisrong Deytsen, and Ngari Panchan).



ANI SHERAB RINPOCHE
Ani Rinpoche, also known as Jetsunma Sherab Cho Tso, is one of two women in Tibet with the status to give initiations. She is Adzom Paylo Rinpoche’s sister, as she was in their last life when they were the children of the great Adzom Drukpa (1842-1924). At that time she was known as Chimey Wangmo, a physician and accomplished yogini.
Recognized by many Lamas in Tibet as an incarnation of Samantabadri, Tara, Yeshey Tsogyal, Macig Lapdron and others, she left her home in eastern Tibet for a monastic college when she was 7. She began a rigorous study of Buddhism’s texts, an education rarely available to women in that area at that time. At 13, she took vows and officially became a nun. At 27, she has nearly attained the highly respected degree of Khenpo, and is deeply committed to making nun’s training available as widely as possible.
Since her early childhood, Ani Sherab Rinpoche has had visions of Green Tara, a Bodhisattva and important female representation of enlightenment and compassion in Tibetan Buddhism. “It does not change,” she has said. “It just gets stronger. It brings forth a lot of joy and a lot of bliss. The hope is that the student will have the same joy and the same bliss.”
In her three visists to the US so far, Ani Rinpoche has given Green Tara initiations, led many practice sessions in retreats, taught liturgies, given public concerts of sacred music and dance, and recorded her divine voice. Her CD “Songs from the Heart’s Expanse” is available on our store pages.
In Tibet, she is called upon to sing at important moments in monastic rituals and initiaions, when hundreds and often thousands of monks and nuns sit by in prayer. Those who have been graced by the sound of her voice never forget its radiant purity. Her presence shines in the same way, which is why everyone loves her.