Monastics, teachers, and practitioners from around the world gathered at Tergar Osel Ling Monastery—the principal monastery of the Tergar lineage and seat of Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche in Nepal—to formally inaugurate the monastery’s reconstruction following the devastating 2015 Nepal earthquake. The five-day Grand Opening and Consecration, held from 31 May–4 June, featured a consecration ceremony, teachings, meditation practice, cultural performances, and community gatherings led by senior lineage holders including His Holiness Tai Situ Rinpoche and His Eminence Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche.
Osel Ling, a hill-top monastery on the outskirts of Kathmandu, has undergone more than a decade of rebuilding, supported by students, benefactors, and volunteers from around the world. The inauguration celebrates not only the completion of that effort but also the renewal of one of the principal centers of the Tergar lineage, where monastic and lay practitioners gather for study and practice.
“Today feels to me like a dream come true,” Mingyur Rinpoche remarked during the first day of the five-day inauguration. “For a long time, deep in my heart and from the depths of my mind, I repeatedly held a profound aspiration and wish. I feel that this is the moment that this profound aspiration has finally been fulfilled.
“The reason this has come about is through the interdependence of many causes and conditions: the blessings of the gurus; my own accumulation of merit; the generosity of benefactors; and the faith and aspiration of the students. Through these and other conditions, Tergar Osel Ling—the monastery itself, together with its sacred representations—has now been successfully completed.”
Home to more than 150 monastics, Tergar Osel Ling serves as a center for Buddhist study, meditation, ritual practice, and monastic training, while also welcoming students and practitioners from around the world.
For the global Tergar community, the grand opening represents the restoration of an important nexus of Buddhist practice and a milestone in the preservation of Mingyur Rinpoche’s lineage for future generations. More than a monastery, Osel Ling serves as a spiritual home for a worldwide community of practitioners and organizations dedicated to cultivating awareness, compassion, and wisdom, while supporting the ongoing transmission of the Buddhadharma for the benefit of all.
“Originally, this place, Tergar Osel Ling, was established by my noble father, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, who recognized this as a special place and expended great effort and resources to found the monastery here,” Mingyur Rinpoche continued. “He bestowed it upon my elder brother Tsoknyi Rinpoche and myself. . . . Later Tsoknyi Rinpoche understood that I had a strong wish to establish in Nepal a significant monastic college and branch monastery of Palpung Monastery, a monastery connected to Tergar Monastery in Tibet. Therefore he exchanged his property for a smaller monastery at Chobhar, allowing this monastery to become a center for study and practice according to my aspiration.
“However, while I was in retreat, the earthquake caused severe damage to the monastery, including the main temple. . . . After emerging from retreat and without losing heart, plans were made for restoration and reconstruction. Thanks to the support, cooperation, and encouragement of many people . . . today, this vast temple, together with its sacred contents, has been successfully completed.
“My own personal aspirations and the principal vision for Tergar Osel Ling, is to do whatever we can to help address the difficulties facing the world and contribute to the well-being of society.”
Nepal’s devastating earthquake in 2015 caused extensive damage to the main temple and residential buildings. The inauguration represents the renewal of a cherished spiritual home for the Tergar community, and an important step in ensuring that the monastery can continue serving future generations as a place of study, practice, and preservation of the Buddhadharma.
The auspicious five-day gathering included a ribbon-cutting ceremony, with blessings led by His Holiness Tai Situ Rinpoche, a Rabne Puja and consecration ceremony, Mahamudra teachings led by Tai Situ Rinpoche and Mingyur Rinpoche, cultural performances, presentations and offerings from Tergar’s global mandala of organizations, guided meditations and shared practice sessions, and culminating with a Vajra Yogini empowerment ceremony.
Mingyur Rinpoche emphasized the continuing relevance of Buddhist teachings and contemplative practice in addressing contemporary challenges.
“Although the causes of [the world’s] difficulties are complex, it is becoming increasingly clear that humanity needs methods for cultivating mindfulness, compassion, emotional balance, and inner resilience. In this regard, the ancient wisdom tradition of sacred Dharma contains profound methods arising from wisdom, awareness, loving-kindness, and compassion that are not only spiritually meaningful, but deeply relevant to the condition of modern life.
“Therefore, preserving these teachings and creating places dedicated to study, reflection, and meditation practice is extremely important. With this aspiration at Osel Ling, we are continuing to develop: schools that integrate the essential wisdom and compassion of the Buddha’s teaching, together with modern education methods—a monastic college that unites study, contemplation, and meditation of the scholastic traditions of the three vehicles; Dharma schools for international students to study, contemplate, and meditate on the Dharma; meditation retreat centers emphasizing the union of Samatha and Vipassana; local programs for guidance on the Buddha’s teachings; and other programs that align the ancient sacred learning of the noble land of India with the traditional Buddhist teaching tailored to the needs and benefit of the world today.”
Concluding his remarks, Mingyur Rinpoche offered prayers for peace, the flourishing of the Buddhadharma, and the welfare of all beings.
“In conclusion, I sincerely pray that the Buddha’s teachings, which bring benefit and happiness to all beings, may endure for a long time; that the holders of the teachings may live long and remain firmly established; that all noble individuals working for peace, harmony and the welfare of human society may enjoy long life; that the wars now escalating throughout the world may swiftly come to an end; that the difficulties of climate change, environmental destruction, disease, famine, and conflict may all be pacified; that beings may live in happiness and the prosperity of the world increase. And ultimately that all beings, myself and others, may manifest the innate co-emergent wisdom and attain the state of Buddha Vajradhara.”
Born in 1975 in the Himalayan border region between Tibet and Nepal, Mingyur Rinpoche received extensive training in Tibetan Buddhist meditative and philosophical traditions from his father, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (1920–96), considered one of the greatest modern Dzogchen masters, and subsequently at Sherab Ling Monastery in northern India. After just two years, at the age of 13, Mingyur Rinpoche entered a three-year meditation retreat and then completed a second immediately afterward, serving as retreat master. At 23, Rinpoche received full monastic ordination.
Mingyur Rinpoche famously undertook a four-year solitary wandering retreat through the Himalaya from 2011–15. In recounting how he came to terms with the realities of his ambition to practice in the manner of a wandering yogi, Rinpoche revealed that he confronted many personal and spiritual challenges—including, at one point, his own mortality. Rinpoche has described the years he spent wandering in the Himalaya as “one of the best periods of my life.”*
* Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche Returns from Four-year Wilderness Retreat (BDG) and Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche Releases Video Offering Insights Following His Retreat (BDG)
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