From time to time we like to acknowledge a senior sangha member who has had a long involvement in activity and made a real contribution to how things get done in our Rigpa sangha. Barbara Brooks is one of these people.
Many of us receive emails advising when the next Tendrel Nyesel tsok practice will take place. Sogyal Rinpoche has said many times that there is no better practice than Tendrel Nyesel for removing obstacles, averting the inauspiciousness of the times and fulfilling our aspirations.
For over 25 years, Barbara Brooks has been a mainstay in the Sydney sangha, ensuring that we have the opportunity to practise Tendrel Nyesel as a group on Dakini and Guru Rinpoche days. Barbara began as a chöpön, both at the Sydney centre and on retreats, looking after the shrine and preparing tsok offerings, and helped to write a chöpön and shrine manual for the Australian sangha, well before we began to share practice information on the internet. Barbara then took over the role of umdzé, originally running the practice using cassette tapes at the Sydney centre near Central Railway Station. In more recent years, her calm and gentle presence, together with her dedication to Sogyal Rinpoche and the practice, has imbued many Australia-wide Zoom tsok practices and supported us in continuing to practise, as a sangha, this profound method for removing, preventing and transforming inauspicious interdependent circumstances and for protecting against them doing harm. Thank you Barbara.