NEW WEBSITE SECTION: BHUTAN

Inspired by the Kālacakra empowerment 2025 in Bhutan, and other activities of HH 70th Je Khenpo on the full ordination of the nuns, I have created a new section of the Dakini Translations website dedicated to articles about or connected to the sacred Buddhist country of Bhutan, see here. A downloadable pdf file of Je Khenpo’s Kālacakra teaching is here Kālacakra Bhutan 2025 Day one transcript e-book download.

Bhutan is a landlocked country in South Asia, in the Eastern Himalayas between China and Tibetan areas to the north and northwest, and India to the south and southeast. With a population of over 727,145 and a territory of 38,394 square kilometres (14,824 sq mi), Bhutan is small in terms of land and people. Bhutan is a democratic constitutional monarchy with a King as the head of state and a prime minister as the head of government. The Je Khenpo is the head of the state religion, Vajrayana Buddhism.

First, I would recommend people read my historical article on the founding of Bhutan Remembering the Roots of Bhutan (2024), grounded in the violent and forceful Mongolian army takeover of Tibet, and their creating of a new political tulku institution (the Dalai Lamas: a Mongolian name) as both the spiritual and (seeming) political leader of Tibet for the first time in Tibet’s long history. The Mongolian-Gelug persecution (and destruction) of other main lineages, like Drukpa Kagyu in both Tibet and Ladakh, led to the Drukpa Kagyu and Nyingma fleeing into the area that is now called Bhutan, a country with no Gelug monasteries (and with good reason!).

I spoke at the Bhutan Vajrayana conference in October 2022 on The Female and Yogic Roots of Vajrayana, but for reasons not given/shared by the organisers, the talk was not published, so here is my re- recording of it here .

May it be of benefit and may the sacred Vajrayana land of Bhutan flourish and prosper and Dharma, and all beings there be protected from harmful, non-Dharmic influences and ideas!