Two new ordained members of the Aro gTér gö kar chang lo’ dé

A warm welcome to our newly ordained members of the Aro gTér gö kar chang lo’ dé (gos dKar lCang lo’i sDe / གོས་དཀར་ལྕང་ལོའི་སྡེ་). These two thoroughly delightful people are Naljorpa A ’gyür Rang-zhin Tsal-shug Trö-zér (rNal ’byor pa A ’gyur rang bZhin rTsal shugs khros zer /
རྣལ་འབྱོར་པ་ཨ་འགྱུར་རང་བཞིན་རྩལ་ཤུགས་ཁྲོས་ཟེར) the Naljorpa whose self-nature becomes primordial realisation – Powerful Force of Strength in Rays of Wrath. He is the husband of Ngakma ma Dé-ying Gyü’trül Yeshé Wangmo (sNgags ma bDe dByings sGyu ’phrul ye shes dBang mo / སྔགས་མ་བདེ་དབྱིངས་སྒྱུ་འཕྲུལ་ཡེ་ཤེས་དབང་མོ་) the Mantrini of Ecstatic Magical Display as the Powerful Lady of Primordial Wisdom.

Naljorpa A ’gyür and Ngakma ma Dé-ying are a newly married couple — and both disciples of Lama Mé-tsal Wangmo and Lama Ja‘gyür Dorje — who, in turn, are disciples of Ngak’chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen. The Aro gTér Tradition places great emphasis on marriage and family life. This is ery much in line with the Düd‘jom gTér family Lineage — as Ngak’chang Rinpoche was a disciple of Kyabjé Düd’jom Rinpoche Jig’drèl Yeshé Dorje from 1971.

It was in 1971 that Ngak’chang Rinpoche promised Kyabjé Düd’jom Rinpoche Jig’drèl Yeshé Dorje that he would take on the responsibility of establishing the ordained sangha of ngakpas and ngakmas in the West — and there are now well over 100 ordained members of the gö kar chang lo’ dé in Britain, America, Scandinavia, and Europe.

The day after ordination the old clothes are burned. In the first part of the ordination ceremony — the postulants wear old worn-out clothing which would otherwise have been discarded. In the second phase they dance in ru-rGyan (rus rGyan / རུས་རྒྱན་) bone ornaments or ang-ra (ཨང་ར་). Once the dance is concluded they leave and re-emerge wearing their robes.

The following morning their old clothes are ceremonially burnt in a rite which destroys all obstacles (བར་ཆད་).