Monday

Wrathful Gesar

Gesar Trakpo (Wrathful Gesar)

By Walker Blaine

His Eminence Namkha Drimed Rinpoche will bestow the empowerment of Gesar Trakpo, Wrathful Gesar, on the Shambhala and Ripa vajrayana sanghas during two-day program on November 7th and 8th in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The Gesar Trakpo practice is new to our community; this is the first time the empowerment will be bestowed in Shambhala. Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche requested His Eminence to grant this empowerment from His Eminence’s own terma collection. Gesar Trakpo is the wrathful manifestation of warriorship, the embodiment of the wisdom that engages the deepest aspects of ego and materialism through fearless compassion.

Generally speaking, Gesar is known to us as a historical figure, as an ancestral sovereign providing inspiration to the Shambhala lineage and as the central figure in bardic folk songs of Tibetan culture. The bardic tradition of Gesar is important both because of its function as heroic inspiration and as a means to publically transmit the practice and culture of Dzogchen in much the same way that the Milarepa songs and stories publically share the Mahamudra tradition. Gesar’s appearance as a warrior king during a time of great negativity and cultural degradation in Tibetan history is a parallel to the emergence of Shambhala in these times of speed and materialism. Continue…