Mongolia | Ulaan Baatar | Lam Rim Temple

Wandered up to Lam Rim Monastery, on Zanabazar Street just below Gandan Monastery in Ulaan Baatar. I have gone here many times over the years but I never really knew the story behind the founding of this monastery. The other day I dropped to see Bayantsagaan, the director of the monastery, and by chance his daughter Erdenetsetseg was there. She lived in Malaysia for several years and speaks near perfect English, so with her help I was able to get some background information.

Erdenetsetseg

Lam Rim Monastery

Bayantsagaan

Lam Rim Monastery was founded in 1990 by Erdenetsetseg’s father S. Bayantsagaan. Originally from Khovd Aimag in western Mongolia, Bayantsagaan studied the Lam Rim Teaching and Buddhist philosophy at the Mongolian Academy of Sciences and the Zanabazar Institute in Ulaan Baatar. He has a Geshé degree from the Zanabazar Institute and is fluent in Tibetan. In the early 1990s he played an active role the democratic movement in Mongolia and for much of the 1990s he worked as the director of the Mongolian Believers Association. During this period about seventy monasteries and temples were activated under his leadership. He has also initiated and strengthened communications between Mongolia and Tibet and in recent years has organized visits of the Dalai Lama to Mongolia.

Lam Rim Monastery was founded to promote the Lam Rim Teaching of Tsongkhapa (Mongolian=Bogd Zonkhov), who in the fifteen-century founded the Gelug Sect in Tibet.

Bogd Zhonkov

Bogd Zhonkov is author of one of the primary Lam Rim texts, The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path of Enlightenment. Bayantsagaan would like to emphasize that the Lam Rim, or Graduated Path, is not just for monks, but for all practitioners who wish to proceed on the path to Enlightenment. The three main Protectors of the monastery are Gombo, Namsrai, and Choijoo, three deities who have promised to protect Bogd Zonkhov’s teaching wherever it may be.

Interior of Lam Rim Temple

Interior of Lam Rim Temple

Ninety-six year old monk, the oldest at Lam Rim Monastery

Lama Gombo, a mere stripling at ninety-five years old

New Generation of monks at Lam Rim

Monks giving blessings

Lam Rim Monastery also specializes in the Kalachakra (Mongolian = Duinkhor) Teaching believed to have come from the Kingdom of Shambhala. Kalachakra ceremonies are performed here on the 10th and 25th day of the Lunar Month. One of the goals of the monastery is to prepare people for the eventually arrival of the 25th Kalkin King of Shambhala under whose reign Buddhism will flourish throughout the entire world.

Kingdom of Shambhala depicted on Thangka at Lam Rim Temple

One of the Thirty-Two Kings of Shambhala on display at Lam Rim Temple
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Mongolia | Gandan | Dhanyakataka Stupa

Tashchoimphel Temple at Gandan

Wandered by Gandan Monastery and took a peek at the Dhanyakataka Stupa Thangka in the Tashchoimphel Temple. Although Taranatha, Zanabazar’s previous Incarnation (See Incarnations of Javzandamba), wrote extensively about the Kalachakra and translated one of the most famous guidebooks to Shambhala from Sanskrit into Tibetan, Zanabazar Himself, the First Bogd Gegen, apparently showed little if any interest in the teachings. It was the Fourth Bogd Gegeen who first introduced the Duinkhor, or Kalachakra Teachings, into Mongolia in 1801. In 1803 he made a trip to Lhasa and brought back with him a large collection statues and books, including material connected with the Kalachakra. According to ethnologist A. M. Pozdneev, “In 1806 he set up a special datsang for the school of Duinkor [Kalachakra]” and services were performed here in 1807. "In the same year 1807, the Gegen ordered a yum written in gold from Tibet . . . Moreover, being devoted to the task of developing Duinkor, the Gegen decorated the temple of Dachin-kalbain-Sume, gilding its roof, and in its courtyard he established his personal residence.”

He also reportedly commissioned a thangka showing the Dhanyakataka Stupa in southern India where by tradition Shakyamuni Buddha first taught the Kalachakra Tantra to the first King of Shambhala. This is the thangka which can now be seen in the Tashchoimphel Temple.

Thangka of the Dhanyakataka Stupa

Close-up of the thangka showing Buddha emanating as the Kalachakra Deity inside the stupa. It was in this form that he taught the Kalachakra Tantra to Suchandra, the First King of Shambhala.

By tradition the Dhanyakataka Stupa is located at Amaravati, in south India, where the Dalai Lama gave a Kalachakra Initiation in January of 2006.

Ninety-two year-old Lama Gombo (left) was kind enough to point out the Dhanyakataka Thangka to me.