Reflections on Summer 2009 from Vajra Dakini Nunnery

As the Peace Village begins to settle for the fall and winter, we look back on the Vajra Dakini Nunnery’s activities there.

We opened the Peace Village for the summer by hanging the long prayer flag in the center of the peace village, that Ani Tsultrim makes every year. One of her special Dharma commitments is to make these large hanging prayer flags for the Peace Village and Ven. Dhyani’s home.

A joyous animal blessing at the Sunray Peace Stupa followed. The whole community attended with their dogs, cats, chickens and horses! We all circumambulated the stupa and liberated worms into the Peace Village gardens (saving their lives from being sold as bait).

This has been a year of planning and preparation. One important legal aspect for our future Vajra Dakini Temple and Library at the Peace Village is our zoning status. The Vermont Act 250 and Lincoln zoning permits that we received at 2007 are time limited. We needed to begin construction this year or loose our zoning entirely! At the same time an exquisite statue of White Tara was donated to the nunnery. We proposed to the state that we build a Tara Temple on the Nunnery Peace Village site as a start on our future Temple/Library project. They approved our zoning for another five years. (Zoning can be one of the most difficult aspects of building a public building in Vermont).

Auspiciously we found a glass tea house suitable for a temple the White Tara. With great gratitude we are finished in our fundraising efforts to install the statue at the Peace Village. Currently we are rolling the thousands of mantras to fill the statue for it’s consecration next year. Please joins us for “Mantra Rolling Parties” during the winter.

This museum quality statue, Tara and her beautiful temple will enhance the Peace Village as a significant pilgrimage site. After consecration the statue is considered to be inseparable from White Tara herself, the Buddha of Long Life and Healing. She is especially appropriate, as we are a community of many healers, and our annual Healing Ceremony at Elders is the culmination of our ceremonial year.

As the summer ended, Lama Gape conducted a Mountain Purification Ceremony by Water for the entire Valley. He blessed water by capturing the reflections of all the nunnery’s statues and thangkas in a mirror and then pouring water on the mirror, thus blessing the water. This water was then carried to the Peace Village where Lama Gape recited a text as he reflected the mountains in all the directions. He then purified them by washing the reflection with the blessed water.

We closed our summer season by adding landscaping to the stupa. An entry hedge has been created with cypress, juniper and holly. The planting design reflects the “One Taste” of our practice. Juniper and cypress are used in smoke offerings of both lineages, while the holly is considered a Vajrayogini plant. The shrubs are gathered in groups of three reflecting the Three Flames and the Three Jewels; the four punctuating plants remind us of the Four Posts of the Medicine Cabin and the Four Immeasurables.

It is lovely to witness the growing beauty of our community practice as Ven. Dhyani Ywahoo’s vision manifests.

 

Khenmo Drolma

Abbess

Vajra Dakini Nunnery

 

********* Please visit the Vajra Dakini Nunnery website to learn how you can support the nuns and participate in their activities. 

Sunray Meditation Society is connected with 3 wisdom streams

Sunray Meditation Society: Our mission is to preserve and share teachings of the Peacemaker from the Cherokee tradition and methods of peacemaking of the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual tradition.


Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo, also recognized as Pema Sangzin Khandro, is founder and Spiritual Director of Sunray Meditation Society and Principle Chief of the Green Mountain Ani Yun Wiwa Band of the Tsalagi or Cherokee People. Sunray is recognized as the home fire of the Green Mountain Ani Yun Wiwa Cherokee.

Sunray offers three wisdom streams.

• Ywahoo Lineage of the Cherokee People
• Nyingma Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism
• Drikung Kagyu Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism

Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo was trained by her grandparents. She is the 27th generation to carry the ancestral wisdom of the Ywahoo lineage, committed to rekindle the fire of clear mind and right relationship in these changing times.

In 1983, Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo was recognized by His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche of the Nyingma lineage as Pema Sangzin Khandro. In 1986, Sunray was recognized by His Holiness Chetsang Rinpoche as a Drikung Kagyu Dharma Center.

For more information, visit the Sunray Meditation Society website. 

New Moon and Autumnal Equinox Sacred Fire -- September 20th at the Peace Village

Ceremony will begin at 7:30 am in the Sacred Arbor to celebrate the September New Moon (September 18) and the Autumnal Equinox (September 22) at the Peace Village in Lincoln, Vermont.


Stick dancers, drummers, singers to meet at 7:30, followed by lighting of the sacred Fire.

PLEASE COME JOIN US!  All are welcome. 

"It is very beneficial to all of us that these ceremonial Fires are being kindled as it is the Fire is the spark of our pure nature, recalling us to enlightened action. This fire of clear mind is in everyone, and to remove any obscuration of its clarity is the duty of all people in this time, that each one may remember and find our way again to the source of our being." Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo in Voices of Our Ancestors.

Dreaming the Heart of the Peace Village

This year our family is celebrating 21 consecutive years of engaging with activities at the Sunray Peace Village in Lincoln, Vermont. There is nowhere else, up to this point in our lives, with which to compare the impact of our experiences from this sacred ground which have inspired such a unique and beneficial evolution of consciousness in community. First to express gratitude to the ancestors of Ywahoo lineage, whose foresight to create such a sanctuary was remarkable and to the living lineage holder, Chief, and Spiritual Director, Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo, who has persevered tirelessly, with the help of many hands, to manifest and develop this prophetic vision. In the following words are shared a few anecdotes from the countless collection of memories from our direct experience. Simply, there is such good fortune for all who are able to find their way here.

To finish reading this personal account, please click here to visit the Sunray Peace Village blog.

Sunray United Nations Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Update

The International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples was celebrated Monday, August 10, 2009 at United Nations Headquarters in New York. There were messages from the Secretary General, President of the General Assembly, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs and Chairperson of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. There was a cultural presentation by the Crimean Tatar Dance Ensemble then a panel discussion on Indigenous Peoples and HIV/AIDS.

CRIMEAN TATAR DANCE ENSEMBLE

KENT LEBSOCK, Owe-Aku-Bring Back the Way – a traditional Lakota (Sioux) Cultural Preservation organization.

OLIVIA SLOAN, (Navajo/Tohono O’Odham) Special Liasion, Partnerships, Programs and Policy, Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

TONYA GONELLA FRISCHER (Onondaga Nation, Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy Haudenosaunee - United States) Member the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and Chris Archibald, Director, Surveillance and Risk Assessment Division of the Public Health Agency of Canada.








For more information: www.un.org/esa/ocdev/unpfii . Look for International Day, you can also view a video of the event.

Sandy Sheridan, Sunray UN/NGO Representative
9/1/09