Karma Jinpa wrote:After reading back through old emails, apparently a photo of yourself is also asked for. In addition, i wrote a letter with my English name explaining who I am (on the relative level), etc.
Garchen Buddhist Institute wrote:In response to your requests it will be possible to receive Refuge Vows from H.E. Garchen Rinpoche by streaming when he gives the vows [...]
To receive the vows from Rinpoche via streaming, he asks that you send the following to Garchen Institute:
1. a short clipping of a few strands of your hair cut close to the scalp—the clipping should be about 1/2-inch long, or shorter if your hair is not that long
2. a small picture of yourself
3. your name and mailing address
Mail to:
Refuge Vows
Garchen Institute
PO Box 4318
Chino Valley, AZ 86323
In return, you will receive a card with your refuge name and blessings from the ceremony.
Emaho! May all be auspicious!
I should've mentioned earlier that I did this back in November 2013, and the Refuge ceremony was being webcast directly from Garchen Institute, rather than another Drikung center. I'm not sure if the protocol is still the same or not. I'd contact both centers (Rinchen Chöling and GBI) and see what they say, honestly.
That said, if I were to send those items now, I'd be worried about them reaching Garchen Rinpoche in time unless I shipped them somehow that would ensure that got to Arcadia/Los Angeles in time. As it stands now, Rinpoche will be leaving shortly after April 16th to spend the remainder of the month in Seattle, Washington, and then spending most of May in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
However, due to the
4th annual U.S. Drikung Kagyu Mönlam being held at Garchen Institute this year, we are aware in advance that both Kyabjé Garchen Rinpoche and Drikung Kyabgön Chetsang Rinpoche will be there in the middle of June.
This is why it makes sense (to me, at least) to send the requested items to GBI; rather than possibly miss getting them to Rinpoche in Cali, you could very well have them ready and waiting for Rinpoche before he returns home to Arizona from his travels.
Then again, this was done in a certain context a few years back, so you'll want to check with GBI to make sure they're still doing this.
"The Sutras, Tantras, and Philosophical Scriptures are great in number. However life is short, and intelligence is limited, so it's hard to cover them completely. You may know a lot, but if you don't put it into practice, it's like dying of thirst on the shore of a great lake. Likewise, a common corpse is found in the bed of a great scholar." ~ Karma Chagme
དྲིན་ཆེན་རྩ་བའི་བླ་མ་སྐྱབས་རྗེ་མགར་ཆེན་ཁྲི་སྤྲུལ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་ཁྱེད་མཁྱེན་ནོ།།
རྗེ་བཙུན་བླ་མ་མཁས་གྲུབ་ཀརྨ་ཆགས་མེད་མཁྱེན་ནོ། ཀརྨ་པ་མཁྱེན་ནོཿ