Nyingma school

Nyingma is the oldest school of Tibetan Buddhism. The name means "the ancient ones" and points to the first wave of translations of Buddhist texts from India, carried out in the eighth and ninth centuries. Whatever comes down from that early period is called Nyingma; what was translated afresh centuries later became known as Sarma, "the new ones". The distinction is one of chronology and translation work rather than of rank.

How the tradition began

King Trisong Detsen wanted Buddhism to take root in Tibet and invited the scholar Shantarakshita to help. The work stalled. On his advice, Guru Rinpoche, Padmasambhava, was called from India. Between them they oversaw the building of Samye, Tibet's first monastery, the ordination of the first Tibetan monks, and a translation project of a scale rarely matched anywhere since.

When the Tibetan empire collapsed in the ninth century, the monasteries lost their patrons. The teachings survived on a smaller scale: in families, among yogis practising at home, passed from teacher to student with little institution around them. That period shaped the school. Even today the Nyingma is less centrally organised than the other traditions, and lay practitioners hold a full place within it: ngakpas, with families and working lives, recognisable by long hair and a white shawl.

What marks the school

Teaching reaches us through two channels. Kama is the long line, transmitted without a break since the eighth century, mouth to ear. Terma are treasure teachings that Guru Rinpoche and Yeshe Tsogyal concealed for a later age, to be revealed by a tertön at the moment they are needed. This keeps the tradition oddly fresh. A terma practice arrives as though it had been given yesterday, rather than something left on a shelf for twelve hundred years.

The Nyingma also orders the whole path into nine vehicles, running from the first sutra teachings up to Dzogchen, held to be the highest and most direct instruction on the nature of mind.

Both of the lineages we practise within grew out of this. The Düdjom Tersar was revealed by Dudjom Lingpa and transmitted onward by H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche; the Longchen Nyingthik came through Jigme Lingpa. We meet every Saturday in Hoofddorp for the Düdjom Tersar Ngöndro, and gather for tsok on Guru Rinpoche day and Dakini day.