Background
Personal greetings with His Holiness, The Dalai Lama on Sunday, April 29, 2007. Photo by Vance Jacobs.
Yamantaka.org, (Vajrabhairava.com, Yamantaka.com) started in the ‘90’s by both Dr. Wolfgang Saumweber and Lama Jhampa Shaneman. It was a support and collaboration site for Anuttara Yoga Tantra practice groups. A group of dedicated practitioners got together to translate, create, and produce usable Yamantaka sadhanas, commentaries and other practice materials. The site was soon joined and greatly helped by renowned scholar and translator Dr. Alexander Berzin who ever since has guided us patiently through subtleties of the Dharma. Sharpa Tulku Rinpoche has contributed a great deal of wonderful Yamantaka materials. In the past few years more translators have helped us out, like the formidable Hermes Brandt. We are also greatly indebted to our friend, the thangka painter and great artist Andy Weber who helped us with the visualization material. Nicholas Ribush of the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive allowed us to have Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s A Chat About Yamantaka available on our site for download. Later the very gifted lotsawa David Gonsalez joined us.
Membership
In accordance with the wishes of the teachers who have conferred the Yamantaka initiation certain aspects of the practice are reserved for initiates only. Anyone who has received the various Single-Deity or 13-Deity Yamantaka (Vajrabhairava) initiations is welcome as member of the yamantaka.org website and is encouraged to apply for membership. All you have to do is to fill out the registration form and answer a few questions.
All of the information you provide us with is strictly confidential and will only be reviewed by the administrator of this site.
Mission Statement
Our mission is:
To provide world-wide support for Yamantaka practice and study in authentic lineages, by acting as a non-hierarchical communication platform between vajra brothers and sisters, with the deepest respect for the advice of fully qualified teachers such as His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.
- To promote effective and efficient communication and cooperation between teachers, practitioners, scholars and translators as well as the Yamantaka Practice Groups and Centers about teaching programs, retreats and any other related activities.
- To support emerging Yamantaka Practice Groups and Centers.
- To promote the translation, creation and production of practitioner-friendly Yamantaka texts, commentaries and other practice materials.
- To preserve and make accessible traditional Yamantaka texts for practitioners, translators and scholars by creating and maintaining a catalogue and repository of available texts.
- To protect the purity of individual lineages and to recognize the value of discussion and friendly, constructive debate between different commentary traditions.
Projects
So far, the most ambitious project has been the translation of the Yamantaka 13-Deity sadhana by Je Tsongkhapa. The late Dr. Wolfgang Saumweber spent a full year to complete this task – even with the tireless tutoring by Dr. Berzin. Beside Alex we greatly appreciate the help and encouragement of Lama Kunga Rinpoche, Sharpa Tulku, Dr. Kurt Keutzer, Cate Hunter, Michael Müller, David Gonsalez, and Jhampa Shaneman. Behind the scenes, Ben Griffin has been helping out with technical issues and site administration, as well as sharing his own experiences. Check the news, and if you are registered, the forum, for latest developments.