01/19/2024
[From a teaching by Bardor Tulku Rinpoche given in Arizona in January 2010. Translated by Lama Yeshe Gyamtso. Transcribed by Liz Summers. Edited by Basia Coulter. All rights reserved.]
The Barom Kagyu is not well known in the West but this does not mean that it is not still widespread in Tibet. Traditionally, the Barom Kagyu has focused primarily on the intensive practice of meditation. In Eastern Tibet there have been nine three-year retreats for the Barom Kagyu teachings associated with the Kyodrak monastery alone. Five of them are for men and four for women. A tenth one—a new one for women—has just been opened. The new retreat for women focuses specifically on the White Khenchari (or White Vajrayogini) practice system. An eleventh retreat is also being created now in association with the Kyodrak monastery at the Kyodrak Peak (Kyodrak Utse). It is designed to be what we would call a postgraduate three-year retreat. To enter into that retreat the candidates must have done at least two or more three-year retreats and achieved the status of a retreat master. Thirteen such individuals will be selected and they will undertake this postgraduate retreat. The number is based upon the thirteen accomplished disciples of the dharma lord Sonam Zangpo who did retreat in the cave at Kyodrak Utse and for the sake of that auspicious connection, these thirteen postgraduate retreat masters will be in the eleventh retreat. All those retreats are connected with one monastery, the Kyodrak monastery. Also the original monastery of Lord Gampopa now has a Barom Kagyu three-year retreat, as does the original seat of the Barom Kagyu in northern Tibet. At both locations five sessions of the retreat have now been completed. Each of those three-year retreats has produced between forty and fifty graduates. There is also a growing connection between the Barom Kagyu practice system and the sacred site of the tower of Milarepa (the tower built by Milarepa for Marpa’s son, Tarma Dode). There is a practice facility for the Barom Kagyu at that site as well. In addition, there are thirty-five other branch monasteries, which are a part of the Barom Kagyu. Most of them also have a three-year retreat facility and all of them practice the Barom Kagyu tradition according to the visionary lineage of Terchen Barway Dorje. So if, as the Buddha said, we are supposed to achieve realization through practice, the Barom Kagyu is not doing too badly; we are not the worst of the Buddha’s followers.
But this obviously begs to question why nobody in the West has ever heard of the Barom Kagyu up to this point. And this is where I have to say that the buck stops here, because if you ask whose fault it is that nobody has ever heard of the Barom Kagyu, I would have to say that it is my fault. Why is it my fault? It is my fault, because I am the source of the Barom Kagyu, and therefore it is my responsibility. So it is my fault that nobody has heard of it.
https://www.kunzang.org/treasure-lineage/barway-dorje-barom-kagyu-ii/
