User talk:Wonderlane/Sakya Monastery of Tibetan Buddhism

Sakya Monastery of Tibetan Buddhism is located in Seattle, Washington, USA, founded in 1984 by Jigdal Dagchen Sakya Rinpoche, and Dezhung Rinpoche III, after its namesake of Sakya, Tibet. It was the first traditional Tibetan Buddhist monastery constructed in the United States.

The original organization under the prior name Sakya Tegchen Choling, was founded in 1974 and located on Ward Street on Capital Hill, which moved to Wallingford, then the University District, and finally to its present location in the Greenwood neighborhood of Seattle.

History
Buddhist Master Atisa while traveling on horseback through Tibet from India in 1040 saw a vision of seven Bodhisattva seed syllables on the slopes of what came to be known as Sakya. He stopped, prostrated, and prophesied that in this location emanations of Bodhisattvas would appear in the future.

The original Sakya Monastery was founded in 1073 by Khon Konchog Gyalpo (1034-1102) in the area known as dPal Sa skya or Pel Sakya meaning "White Earth" or "Pale Earth" for the color of the soil in Tibet.

Notes founded in 1073 in Tibet by the Sakya Khon family after a prediction by the scholar Atisha. It was refounded in 1973 in Seattle by two of the most well known Buddhist teachers in the US at that time. Sakya Monastery is the first Tibetan Buddhist Monastery in the US, it the largest Tibetan Buddhist Monastery in the US, and the most notable Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the US.

The film "Little Buddha" by Umberto Bertolucci starring Bridget Fonda and Keanu Reeves was filmed at Sakya Monastery as part of the story.

The first Tibetan American born in the US is from the Sakya family and is a one of the head lamas five sons who attends Sakya Monastery. Sakya Monastery is maintained and supported by a hereditary family of Tibetan Buddhists which traces their lineage back through at least 42 generations, more than 900 years. In other couple of generations it will be the thousand year jubulee — in 2073. That will make Sakya Monastery as an institution nearly 4 times as old as the United States is.

There are several books about the lamas who have taught there, and the one that co-founded it, Dezhung Rinpoche III "A Saint in Seattle, the story of the Tibetan Mystic Dezhung Rinpoche" by David Jackson. http://www.amazon.com/Saint-Seattle-Tibetan-Dezhung-Rinpoche/dp/0861713966

Dezhung Rinpoche's reincarnation is the first Tibetan-American White bi-racial lama born in the US.

Little Buddha the film is in part based on his life story and generally that of the Khyentses — the renown Tibetan incarnations. Several books by Western English speaking scholars mention Sakya Monastery, or refer to it due to the Lamdre and Hevajra tantra (First Tibetan Tantra translated into English). There are 206 books which mention Sakya Monastery on Amazon's site alone — http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Sakya+Monastery — including one co-authored by a founders wife — her autobiography — http://www.shambhala.com/html/catalog/items/isbn/978-1-57062-691-3.cfm The original Monastery library which survived the bombing, has hundreds of thousands of volumes of Buddhist books still existant.

The co-founder Dezhung Rinpoche's mother Caroline Massey was featured on Oprah when it was decided Dezhung Rinpoche IV should be raised in Nepal at his old monastery there and attend Sakya College in India. I loved her quotes "What makes you believe that you are the only ones who can love your children?" and "We are talking about ultimate enlightenment here and you are worried about going to the prom?" "The Boy on the Throne," producer Dianne Atkinson Hudson, Oprah, Harpo Productions, ABC, March 17, 1998

The Sakya family is one of the few royal Buddhist lineages left on earth, and the only Tibetan Royal family, there is only the Sakyas and the Lhuding Sakyas. Here's a recent article from the Seattle Times; http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002709523_prince29m.html

There are hundreds of articles since the reason the family came to the US so the Rockefeller Foundation could study their tradition.