About the Community
The MarNgok Committee
The MarNgok committee was created and named by His Holiness Drikung Kyabgon Thinle Lhundup in July 2017. His motivation was then to establish Marpa in his proper place within the Kagyu Lineage and to revitalize the transmissions passed from Marpa to his pupil Ngog Chöku Dorje, by focusing especially on two of the Ngok mandalas, the nine-deity Hevajra and the fifteen-deity Nairatmya maṇḍalas.
Carld Djung, one of the founding members of the committe, created a first website advertising its activity and a Facebook page. These are now administered by Daniela König and the other members of the committee.
The leading force behind the committee, Carl Djung, put more than seven years of hard work into this project to bring it to fruition, under the close supervision and the encouragement of His Holiness.
From 1984 onwards, Carl engaged in various activities in the Kagyü tradition. He lived for nearly eight years in a Buddhist center in Denmark and administratered parts of it for over 25 years. He received his first Hevajra Empowerment by His Eminence Jamgon Kongtrül Rinpoche in 1987. In 2015, he heard about the activities of His Holiness Kyabgon Thinle Lhundup to revive the Marpa’s tradition of Hevajra and traveled to Dehra Dun for the Monkey Year Teachings (2016) where he also received the first instructions by His Holiness. They met again for the Monkey Year teachings at Milarepa Retreat Center, where His Holiness asked him a first draft translation of the long Hevajra sadhana. Also, His Holiness shared the wish to establish a tradition of Hevajra drubchen in English with Western Melodies and that Carl should be the umze for this. His Holiness also sent Carl to meet Daniela, who also attended the teachings and with whom His Holiness had also shared his wish to implement drubchens in the West.
In December 2016, Carl made a project plan and timeframes under the guidance of His Holiness, which was presented in January 2017. In June 2017, His Holiness met Carl, Daniela and Cécile in Copenhagen and drafted a plan that he shared with Carl and Daniela. Daniela was asked to become the umzé for the Nairatmya Drubchens.
The project was then presented to the administration of the Milarepa Retreat Center and officially announced. The project started with volunteers until the first translator, Sonam Spitz, was sponsored by the Garchen Stiftung in order to translate the Hevajra and then later the Nairatmya drupchen texts.
The first Hevajra drupchen took place in 2018 and the first Nairatmya drupchen in 2019.
In 2018, Westin Harris joined the group and undertook with Carl important revisions of the Hevajra long sadhana. In 2019, Cécile joined them and continued to work with Carl and Westin in order to establish a faithful and elegant translation of the sadhanas in its various lengths.
In 2023, Drupon Rachel Dodds also joined the group and brought her practice and ritual expertise, as well as her talent for versification and singing, into the group.
The committee is at the moment made up of four members, Cécile, Daniela, Rachel and Westin. Carl Djung is not part of the group anymore as this activity was putting a heavy drain on his health. The group also works closely with the Milarepa Retreat Zentrum, especially Carolina van Gravenreuth, with Christian Licht from the Aachen Drikung Center, and with Elvira Glück. It is also connected with many other individuals, mostly put into contact by Carl.
For profiles of individual members, see the next page.
Mar-Ngok Committee
Cécile Ducher has been researching the early history of the Kagyü lineage since 2000. She has been collaborating with the Mar Ngok Group since its foundation in 2017. Cécile published a book on Marpa’s biographies, and her PhD research was on the history of the Mar Ngok lineage. At present, she is translating the commentary His Holiness made for the Hevajra practices as well as being the main researcher for all Sadhanas of the Hevajra and Nairatmya cycle of the Mar Ngok Tradition. She will continue to study Marpa’s Hevajra tradition and aspires to contribute to the spread of the Mar Ngok lineage in whichever way possible.
Daniela König started to officially volunteer for the Mar-Ngok project in 2016. She is a professional manager and leader of the Office of Further Education in Stuttgart, a project of the Ministry of Finance and Labor in Baden-Württemberg. So she was asked to take on the role of project coordinator together with Carl Djung. Due to her deep devotion and experience of the Nairatmya practice, she was also asked by His Holiness to become the Umze for the Drubchens. In 2021, she also organized the first commemoration day of the MarNgok lineage, with the support of the Milarepa Center (MRZ), and which is celebrated since then.
Drupon Rachel Dodds joined the Marnok project in 2023. Drupon Rachel has completed a traditional Three Year Retreat in the Drikung Kagyu lineage and is authorized by HH Drikung Kyabgon Thinle Lhundup as the Drupon of the Milarepa Retreat Center in Germany. There she teaches and guides long term retreats. As a member of the Marnok group Rachel lends her knowledge of ritual, chanting and Drupchen duties. She is supporting the development of English versification and melodies for both Hevajra and Nairatmya. In addition she is instrumental is learning, recording and teaching all the ritual duties necessary for the Drupchens to continue at the Milarepa Retreat Center in the future. Drupon Rachel is working closely with the Marnok group and Holiness to develop short and longterm retreat possibilities for Hevajra and Nairatmya.
Westin Harris joined the MarNgok group as a translator in 2018 to support His Holiness’s wish of preserving the core practices of the Marpa and Ngok Kagyü. He has helped translate and edit several sadhana texts related to the Hevajra-Nairatmya cycle. At present, he is translating a large corpus of texts devoted to the protectress Düsölma in the Kagyü Ngak Dzö as well as an important commentarial text on perfection phase yogas according to Marpa’s Hevajra-Nairatmya system. Beyond his translation activities, Westin will soon complete his PhD in the Study of Religion at the University of California, Davis, where he studies the life stories of mahāsiddhas like Virūpa.
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