Szakralis Enekek (Sacred Rituals)

Gyuto Monks – Mahakala 15:18

Gyuto Monks – Guhjasamaja 17:19

Gyuto Monks – Shakiyamuni 25:51

Gyuto Monks – Felszentelo pudzsakat tartalmaz 15:38

From 779 A.D., when Buddhism became the state religion of Tibet, until 1959 -- when His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama was forced into exile -- the nation of Tibet was unique in the world for its unparalleled dedication to spiritual development. Its singularly beautiful music and art were inspired by, and intended to enhance, the practice of meditation. Great monastic universities – the largest housing as many as 10,000 teachers and students – taught the theory, practice, and history of human spiritual development.

The Gyuto Tantric Monastic University is one of Tibetan Buddhism's most elite such schools, founded in 1474 by Jey Kunga Dondrub – a leading disciple of His Holiness the First Dalai Lama. Originally based in northern Lhasa before the era of exile, it ranked among the finest and most demanding sacred trainings in tantric meditation, believed to be the straightest path to enlightenment.

It began with 32 monks, and by 1959 had grown to 900 -- but only a few dozen of those monks were able to follow His Holiness into exile in Dharamsala, India. Over time, however, such an exodus of Tibetan refugees has arrived in India – and at Gyuto – that the monks found many young people eager to preserve their endangered spiritual tradition, and have now trained over 400 young initiates. Gyuto Tantric Monastic University outgrew its original site, and a new monastery near Dharamsala now houses the over 400 monks of the present-day Gyuto Monastery.

In April of 2007, the Gyuto Center hosted His Holiness the Dalai Lama in San Francisco for a two-day teaching. H.H. encouraged the Gyuto monks to build a permanent monastery in the San Francisco Bay Area.

It is to raise human consciousness, as well as funds to help sustain their spiritual community, that some of the Gyuto Monks have left their mountain home to bring their venerable tradition and its message of peace and compassion to a troubled world.

The Gyuto Monks Tantric Choir:
The monks of Gyuto developed and perfected a distinctive polyphonic chant, in which each monk sings not a single note but what sounds like an entire chord. "This remarkable, transcendentally beautiful sound," notes Robert Thurman, Chair of the Department of Religion at Columbia University, "is thought to arise only from the throat of a person who has realized selfless wisdom."

They have been chanting in this multi-tonal style since the university's founding in the 15th century, and their liturgical arts—among the most ancient and complex in all of Tibetan Buddhism— evolved to an extraordinary degree of refinement in the rarefied environment of their mountainous homeland – "the roof of the world." Chants and practices are to this day handed down from elder monks to young initiates, as has been the way of Tibetan Buddhist teaching for centuries – hence the preservation of their unique spiritual heritage in monastic outreach to young Tibetans is essential for the survival of Tibet's exquisite, enlightened --and highly endangered -- culture. This biography was provided by the artist or their representative