Ewam Sang-ngag Ling
In 2000 Rinpoche made plans for a new construction project—The Garden of One Thousand Buddhas. While discussions were going on and while Rinpoche was thinking about the layout and other aspects of the garden, he had a dream one night in which he saw the shape of an eight-spoked wheel. Rinpoche decided on this as the layout for the garden. The year 2001 brought the terrible 9/11 attack in the United States, and the entire world was undergoing evil times, with wars, social unrest, famines, and pestilences. Following the system of the Heart Sutra ceremony for turning back the maras, with the intention is that of pacifying such evils and helping to restore peace and happiness, Rinpoche chose the representations of Enlightened Form for the Garden: a central 25-foot-high statue of Yumchenmo (Prajñaparamita) at the hub of the eight-spoked wheel, with 1002 buddhas statues lining the eight spokes. The representations of Enlightened Speech are the text of the Heart Sutra engraved in eight languages—including Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan, and English—around the wheel’s inner rim. The representations of Enlightened Mind are one thousand stupas of enlightenment on the circular rim surrounding the spokes, each containing a statue of the venerable Tara, who exemplifies the Enlightened Activity of all buddhas.
Ewam Yangti Gomde
One branch of Ewam Sang-ngag Ling is the dark retreat house of the Yangti Gomde group, called Nang-mun Ödsel Chöling. It was in the water serpent year of the seventeenth sexagenary cycle (that is, 2013) that Tulku Sang-ngag Rinpoche first began teaching the preliminary practices of the Yangti cycle at Ewam Pema Khandro Ling. In 2016, Rinpoche moved the site for these teachings to the Ewam Garden of One Thousand Buddhas. Once the first class of students had completed the five hundred thousand repetitions of the preliminaries (with the additional supplementary numbers), Rinpoche transmitted to them the main body of practices involving the stage of development—the four cycles of The Sphere of Enlightened Mind (Thukthig Khorzhi). They received the major empowerments for the lama practice of The Sphere of Enlightened Mind of the Three Kayas (Kusum Thugthig), the dakini practice of The Sphere of Tsogyel’s Enlightened Mind (Tsogyel Thugthig), and the The Sphere of Enlightened Mind: The Peacful and Wrathful Deities (Zhitro Thugthig). In conjunction with these empowerments, they received detailed instructions on the corresponding deity practices.
Pema Khandro Ling Center
To begin with, in 2008 Tulku Sang-ngag moved with his family to Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico in the United States. Then, in 2009 Khandro Melong, Mary McLellan and others held discussions about founding a new center, which Rinpoche named Pema Khandro Ling. This has come to be a center where Rinpoche’s students can carry out an uninterrupted practice of ceremonies on the tenth day of the waxing and waning moon, as well as weekly meditation sessions. As well, in 2011 Ewam acquired a new property for a retreat center, where Rinpoche installed a stone statue of Longchen Rabjampa and a set of eight stupas, naming this retreat center the Dharma Throne of Longchenpa (Longchen Chötri). At present, both of these places have hosted annual Nyung-ney retreats, Vajrakila drupchöd rituals, retreats on the advanced yogic practices of tsalung and physical exercises from the Nyingthig teachings, including the six yogic practices of the Namchak tradition, and the practices of trekchö and tögel.
