History of Dechen

Beginning with the foundation of Manchester's first Buddhist Centre in 1975, Kagyu Ling, Lama Jampa Thaye and his students have strived to spread the teachings and practices of Tibetan Buddhism in the West. It was in the 1970's and 80's that the great Tibetan lamas of the twentieth century made tours of the West and visited the fledgling dharma groups in Europe and America. Thus, Kagyu Ling was fortunate to receive many such lamas who blessed the centre and gave teachings, including H.H. 16th Gyalwa Karmapa, H.E. 3rd Jamgon Kongtrul, Kalu Rinpoche and Dingo Khyentse Rinpoche, as well as many others.

In 1978, H.H. Sakya Trizin visited Dechen’s Sakya Centre in Bristol, founded the previous year. This was the first of eight visits to date made by the Sakya hierarch.  The following year, the great Ngor lama, Phende Rinpoche, made the first of several teaching visits to the Sakya Centre which would take place throughout the 70s and 80s.

During this time, Lama Jampa Thaye founded further centres and groups around the UK, continued to give teachings and initiations, and invited other distinguished lamas to do the same. This was all done under the authority of Karma Thinley Rinpoche, who continued to make periodic visits from his residence in Toronto to give teachings to the Dechen sangha, advising them to rely on Lama Jampa as their principal teacher.

Ganesha Press, the publishing arm of the Dechen Community, was founded in 1983 to publish a translation of Chogye Trichen’s History of the Sakya Tradition.  Subsequently, Ganesha Press would publish numerous translations of prayers, teachings, and vajrayana sadhanas, including the recent Rain of Clarity (2006) - Lama Jampa Thaye’s own treatise on the stages of the path in the Sakya tradition.

From the mid-1980s, Lama Jampa Thaye accepted invitations from other dharma groups to give teachings in continental Europe. He later founded further Dechen groups in Germany, and, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, in Poland and Bulgaria. He also made four visits to receive extensive cycles of teaching from Karma Thinley Rinpoche in Toronto, as well as visiting H.H. Sakya Trizin in India on various occasions.

In 1988 Karma Thinley Rinpoche instigated the construction of Lekshey Ling, a nunnery in Bodhnath, Nepal, near the Great Bodhnath Stupa. From its completion two years later, the nuns of Lekshey Ling would work tirelessly to carry out the extensive programme of prayers and rituals for the benefit of all sentient beings in general, and by request for particular individuals of the Dechen Community, some of whom would visit the nunnery during Rinpoche’s annual residence there, making offerings and visiting the stupa.

1991 saw the purchase of a strip of land and a building in Dordogne, France, which over the coming years would undergo extensive refitting to create a pleasant shrine hall and lama residence in order to host the biennial Sakya summer school known as ‘Chang Lo Chen’, named after the pure land of Vajrapani. Here, Lama Jampa Thaye continues to bestow the longer treatises of the Sakya tradition at the well-attended seminaries.

In 1994, Rinpoche and Lama Jampa founded the Mikyo Dorje Shedra, a college of studies running annually over each new year period, dedicated to disseminating the major philosophical and doctrinal texts of the Karma Kagyu tradition such as the great Indian treatise, Uttaratantrashastra. The shedra is followed by study groups throughout the year, wherein a more detailed study of a certain text may culminate in an oral examination with the lama for those students inclined to the more scholastic side of Kagyu training.

Whilst the teachers of Dechen are masters of both the Sakya and Kagyu schools, as well as preserving many teachings of the Nyingma and Kadam traditions, they have always maintained the traditional necessity for preserving the purity of these traditions by not mixing them together. Thus Lama Jampa’s students tend to focus their studies and meditative training within the tenets of just one of the two great traditions. Nevertheless, when Lama Jampa bestows texts or initiations, most people tend to attend the teachings of both Kagyu and Sakya, as it is considered very beneficial to receive such teachings even if one does not practice them in detail.

In recent years, Lama Jampa-la has maintained a busy schedule of teachings, initiations and personal interviews. He has overseen a regular programme of introductory classes, prayer rituals and study groups throughout all the Dechen groups and centres, which are carried out by the Dechen sangha.  In this way, Lama Jampa Thaye and the Shri Dechen Dharma Community have sought to benefit the transmission of the pure buddhadharma in the West to some extent.

For more about Dechen, you can read about:

• The Sakya and Kagyu Traditions

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