The Riwoche Temple in Toronto is part of the unbroken Nyingma and Taklung Kagyu lineages, and is the result of the dedication of the Venerable Khenpo Sonam Tobgyal Rinpoche, a Tibetan from the Riwoche area of Tibet where the original Riwoche temple was founded over 800 years ago.
Traditionally, the Riwoche Temple provides material support to the community. This year on Sunday, September 6th, 2009, at 9am, Riwoche Temple will be hosting its' third annual '5K Run for Enlightenment' fundraising run in High Park. We encourage everyone to participate - previous years have been very enjoyable. There will be a 5K and a 1K course, and registrants may choose to either walk or run.
A portion of the funds raised from this event will be gifted to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health; the Odette Cancer Centre, at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre; and the Tibetan Canadian Cultural Centre; as well as the new library at Riwoche Temple.
Since 1982, Sonam Rinpoche has undertaken several projects, including the development of a new Riwoche Monastery in the Kathmandu area, the rebuilding of the original Riwoche gompa in Tibet, the preservation and publishing of the Taklung Kagyu Canon, the propagation of Taklung Kagyu teachings in Asia and the West, and the development of the Riwoche Temple and community of Dharma practitioners in North America.
Two prominent sculptors, Tshewang Dorji and Karma Dorje, from the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan were invited to Canada to create the statues for the temple, the first to be made in the West using traditional Tibetan methods.
His Holiness Phakchok Rinpoche, head of the Riwoche Taklung Kagyu Lineage, recognizes the great success of the Venerable Khenpo Sonam Tobgyal Rinpoche in establishing a home for Riwoche in Canada.
His Holiness has instituted a foundation fund program to build a second floor on the temple for the Riwoche Kagyu Nyingma Library. Sonam Rinpoche has named the new facility ‘The Temple of the Rejuvenation of Scriptures of the Taklung Kagyu Tradition of Tibet’. Master sculptor Tshewang Dorji, and master painter Urgyen Gyalpo, have created statues of the fifty dzogchen lineage masters, which will be permanently displayed here. This new addition will be used to teach classes related to the arts, music, and language of Tibet, as well as provide accommodations for visiting lamas.
Sonam Rinpoche has devoted countless hours to acquiring the texts of the Taklung Kagyu lineage from the original Riwoche monastery in Tibet. These unique teachings, along with other sacred texts, will now be permanently housed in the new library. From here, these wonderful texts will be edited and translated and made available to Tibetan monasteries and scholars around the world.
Riwoche Tibetan Buddhist Temple Website
