Here is the amazing story of How Dewachen Study Group came to have the 84,000 teachings of the Buddha on the premises in Mackay.
Ven Namdag asked Lama Zopa Rinpoche when he was last teaching in Brisbane about obtaining these texts and Lama Zopa Rinpoche said to ask Geshe Jamyang to get them for us when he was in India. This year we were able, through the kindness of one of the students, to give Geshe La the $4,000 necessary to have them printed, wrapped and delivered to us in Mackay.
Geshe Jamyang went to the printers when he arrived in India and placed the order for a full set of the texts and the commentaries, the Kangur and the Tengur. The printers said that it would take three months to print them. Geshe Jamyang placed the order.
A couple of days later the printers rang GesheLa to tell him
that they had just printed two sets of the Kangur and Tengur for His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s library but because they were ready quicker than expected His Holiness could only take one set at this time. The printers did not have the facilities to store them and so they were offering them to Geshe La at the quoted price and said that they would pay the freight to get them to Australia.
The printers said they were on the best quality paper, in the best of print, wrapped in the best of cloth and correctly labelled: this being particularly important, as getting something correctly labelled is a good idea and very helpful.
The texts consisted of half a ton of paper in thirteen individually packed, wrapped and labelled parcels.When they arrived in Australia we had to get them cleared through customs and sent to Mackay.
Geshe La contacted, through his interpreter, that he hoped that the texts would be here when he came to Mackay to teach for five days in August. The texts arrived here two days before Geshe La’s time of arrival.
When they arrived we had an elevated base covered with a new carpet square, on top of which was a new tarpaulin. We knew that they were very precious and so we treated them with great respect. We placed the texts on this and wrapped them carefully and blessed them with silk blessings scarves and a conch shell which represents the transmission of wisdom and learning causing the awakening to enlightenment, to await Geshe La’s arrival.
Geshe La taught on the first four days. The main teaching was on the 10 innermost jewels of the Kadampas. This was a two day week end teachings attended by 36 students. The next teaching was on the Bodhisattva Vows and the transmission of those and then a public talk on the Tuesday evening
With the help of all the students we unwrapped the texts on the Wednesday afternoon. The students were encouraged to touch the holy text to receive the blessing of having handled them and sow the seeds for getting the teachings in the future. The text were handed to Ven. Namdag and Geshe La and placed in the correct order in the new cupboards that we had designed and had made and which were the causes put in place for the texts to arrive.
The texts arrived in record time as Geshe Jamyang had hoped as his hope was to help us unpack them. He was then able to perform a beautiful blessing ceremony that we recorded on DVD and in the evening he taught on the importance of the Kangur and the Tengur and the great blessings to Dewachen and the community of Mackay of having these holy texts on site.We are so fortunate and blessed to be able to be the custodians of these beautiful texts and we rejoice at the blessings all who come here obtain from their presence.
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