The leader of an ancient Tibetan religious sect threatened with extinction will visit CU-Boulder next week in support of a unique video archival project that is recording the heritage and teachings of a belief system that is said to pre-date Buddhism by some 15,000 years.
His Holiness the 33 rd Menri Trizin Lungtok Tenpai Nyima (cq), head lama of the indigenous Tibetan Bonpo people and Abbot of the new Menri Monastary, will address the public at the Meunzinger Auditorium at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 10. The talk will accompany the premiere of a documentary video on the abbot聮s life.
The video was produced by documentary film maker Roslyn Dauber of the CU-Boulder School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Dauber, founder of the Tibetan Bonpo Media Archive Project, was assisted by Samdup Lama, a young Bonpo monk who is studying digital editing under her guidance.
Just as many Tibetan Buddhists and their leaders, such as the Dalai Lama, fled their country in the wake of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the Bonpo people also dispersed as their religion came under Communist attack. The abbot now lives in northern India, where he resides in the new Menri monastery with about 100 monks. There are an estimated 1,000 Bon refugees in India and Nepal, and some 750,000 more followers still in Tibet, but the few monks still there have little formal training.
Dauber聮s project is an attempt to preserve the ancient traditions of the minority culture through the use of technology, and the new video will be her first work on the Bonpo to be shown to the public. She earlier produced a ten-minute piece on the world聮s only Bonpo nunnery.
The religious leader will arrive at Denver International Airport on Wednesday, Dec. 9, at 3:45 p.m., accompanied by five monks. On Thursday, Dec. 10, he will tour the Tibetan Media Archive Project at CU-Boulder and meet with members of the faculty prior to a reception in his honor at 3 p.m. in the British Studies Room of the Norlin Library. Administration and faculty members are invited.
The public talk and video screening at 7 p.m., in the Muenzinger Auditorium will follow a private dinner. Admission is $3 per person, but free to students.
On Friday, Dec. 11, he will conduct a "Tru Sol" water blessing ceremony and deliver an address on Bon meditation at the Old Church at Pine and Grant Streets in Louisville. A potluck dinner and welcome for the monks will follow. A donation will be $5.
The visitors will leave on Saturday.