Geshe YongDong Losar teaching in the new space, a former dance studio on the outskirts of Courteny, B.C.
Photos by: Gordon Ross and courtesy of Sherab Chamma Ling

This spring has marked a new beginning for the Tibetan Bön Buddhist Society, and the sangha of Sherab Chamma Ling. After closing our physical doors during the COVID pandemic, the sangha is delighted to open doors to a new lovely space, where we can once again gather with each other and personally welcome newcomers.

Nestled in the heart of the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Sherab Chamma Ling has been operating for over 20 years in the town of Courtenay. As far as we know, we remain the only Tibetan Bön Buddhist Center in Canada.

One of our main goals since our inception has been to purchase open land or a site with buildings, to create a Tibetan Yungdrung Bön teaching and retreat center of international renown. Although that remains a vision, our enthusiasm and commitment is unflagging.

It has been a long journey since the November 2022 decision to close our beloved center, a rented basement space in downtown Courtenay. As with many other sanghas during the pandemic, online communication and learning via Zoom became the new normal.

While Zoom has been a wonderful way to stay connected with the teacher, the teachings, and other students, over time the lack of energy exchange and connection through physical presence took a toll.

Sherab Chamma Ling’s new rental space is a large, high-ceilinged, upper-floor room that was once a dance studio, and that is serving us well as a weekly meeting place. Here the sangha hopes to regroup, rejuvenate, and open up to many more in the area, especially young people who are hungry for the dharma.

Sangha members also hope the meeting place will help bring new ideas and opportunities for fund raising, and for moving closer to the retreat center goal.

Behind this is an intention and responsibility to protect and share the precious teachings and lineage brought from Tibet to Western Canada by our teacher, Geshe YongDong Losar. Geshela, as he is affectionately called, received his geshe degree (equivalent to a Western doctorate degree in theology) from the Nangshig Bönpo Monastery in Tibet. Beyond that credential, his simple, unassuming, loving embodiment of wisdom and compassion, is another sign of his authenticity.

Geshela is a lama of the Tibetan Bön tradition, the oldest indigenous spiritual tradition of the Himalayas. His lineage is more accurately called Yungdrung Bön, which refers to the eternal, immutable, indestructible essence at the root of all dharma.

The practices of this ancient lineage span across what is known as the nine ways of Bön. The first four ways include teachings to enhance our outer relationship with the natural world. The next five ways enhance our inner development of wisdom and compassion, with the ninth way encompassing the highest teachings of dzogchen, the great perfection.

Dzogchen practice entails resting in the non-dual, non-discursive, natural state of mind, which is the ultimate antidote to our fundamental ignorance of the way things really are.

Geshe YongDong spends a good part of every year travelling and teaching all over the world. He also hopes to have his own center one day, where he can settle into teaching, conducting longer retreats, and hosting other dharma teachers and students.