Shamar Rinpoche leaves on final journey from Renchen

GANGTOK, 22 June: Several thousand Buddhists from all over the world converged at Renchen in Germany to pay their last respects to the 14th Kunzig Shamar Rinpoche whose Kudung, mortal remains, was flown to India on the 20th, Friday. Karmapa Thaye Dorje led the farewell ceremony for his teacher from his centre at the village of Renchen to the flight to New Delhi, informs a communiqué received from Diamond Way Buddhism, Germany.

He accompanied the Kudung on its last journey to India and several other Asian countries, the release adds. Tens of thousands of Buddhists will bid him farewell there.

The release adds: "Shamar Rinpoche himself did not fear death. In one of his last teachings he said: ‚You don’t need to be afraid of death if you know how to practice [meditation] in death‘.”

Shamar Rinpoche died of a cardiac arrest on 11 June at the age of 61 in the meditation center of his Bodhi Path organization in Renchen-Ulm. Shamar Rinpoche was, after Karmapa Thaye Dorje, the highest-ranking teacher in the Karma Kagyu tradition.

After his death, letters of condolence were received from many high masters of Tibetan Buddhism as well as the Royal Family of the Kingdom of Bhutan. "I have known Rinpoche for many years and my family and I will always remember Shamar Rinpoche as a close and dear friend,” the Druk Gyalpo Jigme Singye Wangchuk, the 4th King of Bhutan, wrote.