Dzogchen Beara is a Tibetan Buddhist retreat centre on the Beara Peninsula near

Allihies Allihies (; ) is a townland in the civil parish of Kilnamanagh, in County Cork, Ireland. The townland of Allihies is located at the western tip of the Beara Peninsula. History of copper mining From the Bronze Age the area had been a site of co ...

West Cork West Cork ( ga, Iarthar Chorcaí) is a tourist region and municipal district in County Cork, Ireland. As a municipal district, West Cork falls within the administrative area of Cork County Council, and includes the towns of Bantry, Castletownbe ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

established by

Sogyal Rinpoche Sogyal Rinpoche (; 1947 – 28 August 2019) was a Tibetan Dzogchen lama. He was recognized as the incarnation of a Tibetan master and visionary saint of the 19th century, Tertön Sogyal Lerab Lingpa. Sogyal Rinpoche was the founder and forme ...

in 1987. It is home to the Spiritual Care Centre, which was opened by Mary McAleese on 12 September 2007.

History

Peter and Harriet Cornish bought the land where Dzogchen Beara is located in 1973. In 1992, they offered the land and its buildings to a charitable trust under the guidance of Sogyal Rinpoche. Harriet died in 1993 and her death, and the way she was cared for, became the inspiration for the Spiritual Care Centre, which opened in 2007. Peter Cornish and Dzogchen Beara were the subject of a documentary made for Dutch television called ''The Retiring Hermit''. Cornish's memoir describing the creation of Dzogchen Beara was published in 2014 under the title ''Dazzled by Daylight''. In 2006 the centre became the first Buddhist centre in Ireland to host a Christian Mass, performed by Father Laurence Freeman. In 2017 following multiple allegations of physical, emotional and sexual abuse from current and ex-members of Rigpa, Sogyal Rinpoche "decided, with immediate effect, to retire as spiritual director from all the organizations that bear the name of Rigpa in different countries around the world".

Events

The first closed one-year retreats, which follow a traditional Tibetan schedule of practice and study, began in 1994.Dzogchen Beara
at Rigpawiki Over the years, Dzogchen Beara has hosted a number of senior

lama Lama (; "chief") is a title for a teacher of the Dharma in Tibetan Buddhism. The name is similar to the Sanskrit term ''guru'', meaning "heavy one", endowed with qualities the student will eventually embody. The Tibetan word "lama" means "hi ...

s from the Tibetan tradition, including

Dzogchen Rinpoche Dzogchen Rinpoche () is the head lama of Dzogchen Monastery, one of the largest monasteries in eastern Tibet which was destroyed in 1959 and rebuilt in the 1980s. The current Dzogchen Rinpoche, who is enumerated as the seventh in the lineage of ...

, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche,

Garchen Rinpoche The Eighth Garchen Rinpoche (Tib. མགར་ཆེན་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་, ), also called Garchen Triptrul Rinpoche (Tib. མགར་ཆེན་ཁྲི་སྤྲུལ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་, ), is a Tibetan Budd ...

Orgyen Tobgyal Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche, also called Tulku Ugyen Topgyal, is a Tibetan Buddhist lama who was born in Kham in Eastern Tibet in 1951, living in exile in India. Life Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche, born in 1951 in Riwoche in Kham, Eastern Tibet is the elde ...

, Ringu Tulku, H.E Jetsun Khandro Rinpoche and Garje Khamtrul Rinpoche. It has also hosted events with several non-Tibetan teachers, including Father Laurence Freeman,

Sister Stanislaus Kennedy Sister Stanislaus ''Stan'' Kennedy is an Irish nun, social activist, and former member of the Irish Council of State. She was born Treasa Kennedy in 1939 or 1940 near Lispole on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry, Ireland. In 1958 she joined ...

, Dr Tony Bates,

Christine Longaker Christine Longaker is the former director of the Hospice of Santa Cruz County (California) and is considered a pioneer in the hospice movement. She has provided trainings in caring for the dying around the world since 1978. She co-designed Naropa U ...

, Patrick Gaffney, Sharon Salzberg and Andrew Warr.

Care centre

The Spiritual Care Centre opened in 2007. According to Darci Meyers, its aim is "to support people leading up to death, at the time of death, and after death."

Temple project

There are plans to build Ireland's first Buddhist temple on the site. The project is being guided by

, who consecrated the site by performing a fire ceremony in 2010. Work on the foundations of the temple building began in April 2016 and the block work of the three level building has recently been completed.

References

External links

Official websiteOfficial website for Dazzled by Daylight BookDechen Shying website
{{coord missing, County Cork Buddhism in Ireland Tourist attractions in County Cork