Geshe Dangsong Namgyal

I would like to share my story with you regarding how I entered the path of Pure Dzogchen. I began my studies at a very young age with my father, ritual master of the Karshod in the Kham region of Tibet; it’s in the hill area, very green with natural flowers in the summertime, but snowy and cold in the winter. Villagers would request my father to perform traditional Bön rituals and prayers for many of life’s occasions - birth, illness, prosperity, good crops, animals and property, health, marriage, emotional stability, or dying peacefully and provide guidance into the next life. I would accompany him everyday. In addition, my father and I would enter into retreat for tantric practices, sometimes with many people. There were also regional events and holy days for ceremony. Ceremonies were requested to rebalance and create harmony, peace with the natural elements and spirits. When people became sick, they would first seek a ritual master, as 99% of health problems were considered caused by spirit harm or loss of soul power.

I received the preliminary practice of Dzogchen, with nine hundred thousand round Ngondro practice, from Togden Sherab Phuntsog Rinpoche while still residing at my childhood home. One day, I left my home and went to the monastery. I became a resident monk at Lung Kar Monastery. I studied mind training where one searches for inner peace; it’s beyond materialism, beyond only surviving. I completed a three year ngondro retreat for Kalung Gyatso with the text “Treasure of Ocean” from SharZa Rinpoche (Ati ngondro) learned from Lobpon Tsultrim Namdag; also, Master Khanpo Nyima Lodo gave essential Dzogchen teachings, including Phowa, Rushen, and meditation. After some years at the monastery, these teachers encouraged me to further my studies of logic and philosophies. Many Dzogchen masters said that in order to achieve perfect Dzogchen realization, it would also be good to learn about other vehicles.

In order to acquire more extensive training, I left Tibet and walked to India. For five years at Menri Monastery, the seat of the Bön tradition, under the guidance of H.H. Menri Tridzin Rinpoche, I studied Bön culture, philosophy, meditation, and received multiple spiritual initiations.

In 1995, I went to Sera Je Monastic University of the Gelupa lineage, and studied with the great master H.E. Kyabje Choden Rinpoche, the previous Abbot H.E. Losang Tsering Rinpoche, and previous Abbot H.E. Khanzur Losang Delek. I was also fortunate to attend numerous teachings with H.H. the Dalai Lama. Here, the studies presented were Madhyamaka, Buddhist Logic, Buddhist psychology and Prajnaparamita, Buddhist science; Western academic methods and the relation between science and religion.

So I returned to my home lineage via Triten Norbutse Monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal. Topics of study included the nine ways of bon: cosmology, sutra philosophies, vinaya, tantra and bon Dzogchen, guided by H.E. Yongdzin Lopon Rinpoche. In 2011, I studied and trained in Bon and Indian Buddhism and was awarded a Geshe degree (Doctor of Philosophy). Simultaneously, I researched many parts of ancient bon history, culture, religion and was invited to conferences at Oxford University, England (11th IATS), in France, Japan, India and the United States.

In 2013, I was invited to be the resident teacher at the Ananda Dharma Center in San Jose, CA by the great Master H.E.Chodon Rinpoche. I taught Lamrim, Buddhist psychology and Prajnaparamita, Buddhist philosophy, and so on.

Finally, I realized I was more interested in the Pure Dzogchen. And in 2015, I concluded that Dzogchen teachings, unencumbered by sutra or tantra, would better serve Western students. So I founded Kunsang Gar and now teach Pure Dzogchen and the Kunsang Gar Wisdom Program.

No matter what one’s background—country, gender, age, race, beliefs or history of painful experiences and emotions, the Pure Dzogchen path can swiftly bring one to the transcendent recognition of the Nature of Mind. Meditation on the Nature of Mind is the most powerful way to purify the mind of even eons of negative karmic patterns. The ultimate fruition of Pure Dzogchen practice is the attainment of the Rainbow Body of Light, a manifestation of deep realization unique to the Dzogchen path.

I believe that by directly introducing the primordial Buddha Nature through the Pure Dzogchen teachings, those receiving these teachings can enter into that recognition and discover true peace, strength, and fearlessness in life; and confidence in an eventual, positive death, Bardo, and rebirth experience.

–Geshe Dangsong Namgyal

International seminars

Oct.2019 Science and Nonduality conference, San Jose, Ca USA

Oct.2018 Science and Nonduality conference, San Jose, Ca USA

Dec. 2012 • Triten Norbutse Monastery Kathmandu Nepal

Sept. 2012 • Kobe City University of Foreign Studies, Japan

2010 • Deemed University in Varanasi, India

2009 • Rabindranath Tagore University in Santiniketan, India

2008 • Shenten Dargye Ling, Blou, France

2008 • Namgyal Institute of Tibetology in Sikkim, India

2003 • Oxford University, United Kingdom

Publications:

2023 "Essence of Ultimate Bliss: Meditational Self-awareness with Twenty-one Dzogchen Nails"

2021 “Holy Women of Great Perfection in the Ancient Tibetan Tradition: Thirty Signs and Meanings of Ultimate Nature”

2021 Dzogchen Puro (Spanish translation)

2018 Pure Dzogchen: Zhang Zhung Tradition. (Published by Namkha Publicaitons, CA 2018

2022 Teachings given by H.E. Choden Rinpoche’s transcribed The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment.

2022 Dzogchen Puro (Portuguese translation)

In Tibetan:

2021 History of the Great Terton Guru Chowang Lineage. Ngag Labrang and Tsum country. [Nyingma lineage]

2020 H.E. Choden Rinpoche: Biography. Depi pemo gye pi nyin je. [Geluk lineage]

2013 A Garden of Yogis’ Delight : A note on Calm Abiding, Special Insight. (Published by Tibetan Culture, Bon and Buddhism publication Thindu City in China 2013)

2011 Tibetan grammar [kun tu bzang po’i mchod sprin], Education Department of Tseduk Monastery in Thindu City China 2011

2011 Dharma Philosophy [zhugs ‘bras dang mtshan nyid gsum], Published by Education Department of Tseduk Monastery in Thindu City China 2011.

2011 Traditional Tibetan poetry [gangs thigs], Published by Vajra Publications in Kathmandu Nepal

2005 For the Love of the Snow Mountain [gangs ri’i brtse dung], Published by Guptha publication in Mysore India

2005 Poetic compositions in verse and prose

1996 Tibetan poetry [gang ljong dran p’i glu dbyang], Published by Guptha publication in Mysore India 2005.

Unpublished books

Offerings to Mountain Spirits [bod kyi mdos glud la dpyad pa’I gtam skya reng gsar pa]

Edited Books

Edited books with ancient Tibetan script and transcripts of the oral teachings given by various Buddhist masters

(1) Khams brgyad gtan la phab pa’I rtsa-ba don rnam-par nges-pa; two volume on the ten perfections (2010)

(2) Rare Bonpo Text. Most of the following books are based on oral teachings given by various masters, which were subsequently transcribed and edited into a publishable format: gyi dpe dkon phyogs bsgrigs; a collection of rare Bonpo texts (2009)

(3) Teaching of Kyabje Choden Rinpoche 2nd book.

This book is containing teachings of Chos-ldan Rinpoche Published by Jamyang publication in India 2009.

(4) bsDus-rtags dang mtshan-nyi gsum gyi rnam-gzhag; exposition on logic. Published by Vajra Publications in Kathmandu Nepal 2007)

(5) transcribed and edited into a publishable format: this book is containing teachings of Chos-ldan Rinpoche (2005)