Pristine Awareness Foundation for Buddhist Practice

The Pristine Awareness Sangha is led by Rigdzin Jamyang Tenphel and Lama Dudjom Pema Düddul as the source of living transmission. Pema and Jamyang have been authorized by their principal teachers to guide others in the view, meditation, conduct and realization of the path according to the unique practices transmitted to them. The practice lineage we follow at Pristine Awareness: Foundation for Buddhist Practice stems from our principal teachers - Kyabje Togden Amtrin (Drukpa Kagyu) and Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche, Jigdral Yeshe Dorje (Dudjom Nyingma), who were masters of Mahamudra and Dzogchen. We also draw on the teachings of the Early Sutras and the Chan tradition. We focus on the path of simple meditation and the awakening of joy, love, compassion and evenness rather than the path of scholarly study or elaborate ceremonies or rituals. The Path of Joy and Ease is our unique practice approach. Lama Pema and Jamyang Tenphel teach meditation, natural presence and the core of the Buddha's message in an authentic and accessible way that is appropriate to our modern world. With decades of experience, practice and study behind them, they are well-versed in how to apply the Buddhist teachings in daily life.

Lama Dudjom Pema Düddul (Phd) is the Buddhist Chaplain in the University of Southern Queensland’s Multi-Faith Service and the Co-Director of Pristine Awareness: Foundation for Buddhist Practice. Lama Pema is a published poet and author, academic, and Dharma teacher. Lama Pema has been a Buddhist for forty-five years, discovering at the age of eleven that his personal worldview and the tenets of Buddhism were in perfect accordance. Pema began practicing in the Chan tradition in 1979. From the late 1980s he started practicing in the Vajrayana, or Tibetan Buddhist, tradition. He now practices a form of simple, universal Buddhism that draws on the essence of all traditions. Pema considers Dudjom Rinpoche, Jigdral Yeshe Dorje (1904-1987) to be his Heart Lama. Over the years Lama Pema has received teachings from masters in all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism and is completely non-sectarian, but the teachers who influenced him most are Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche, Chogyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche, Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and Ngakpa Karma Lhundup Rinpoche. Through Jamyang Tenphel (see below), Lama Pema's practice has also been guided by the pith instructions of Kyabje Togden Amtrin. Lama Pema did his first solitary retreat at the age of 18, in 1987. This was a six month Guru Yoga retreat. From 2000 to 2005 Lama Pema held genyen vows with celibacy and undertook a series of retreats of varying durations, focused mainly on Guru Yoga. In 2005 he received the tantric vows of a white-robe wearer (ngakpa) in the Dudjom tradition, the Tibetan Buddhist equivalent of a non-monastic religious minister. He received these vows from one of his principle teachers, Ngakpa Karma Lhundup Rinpoche. It was around this time that he was given the Dharma name Pema Düddul. In 2019, Dungse Namgyal Dawa Rinpoche, one of Dudjom Rinpoche's grandchildren and Dharma heirs, kindly agreed to be Lama Pema's Dudjom lineage guru. Lama Pema has decades of experience as a Buddhist practitioner and has taught mindfulness and meditation in Buddhist, educational and other settings since 2007. Lama Pema is also a qualified transpersonal counselor, hypnotist and EFT therapist. Lama Pema has a doctorate (PhD) in creative writing and is an Associate Professor of writing, editing and publishing at an Australian university. Lama Pema describes himself as 'a completely run of the mill Buddhist, an extremely ordinary person. By no means a Buddhist scholar, certainly not a great meditator, not in any way masterful, just trying like every other Buddhist to integrate the path of Dharma into everyday life with all its routine challenges'. Lama Pema is the author of multiple books and articles on Buddhism, including Luminous Awareness: A Guidebook to Natural Awakening in Life and in Death, which includes a foreword by Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, and Natural Presence: Concise Advice on Buddhist Practice.

Rigdzin Jamyang Tenphel is an Australian-born Buddhist practitioner, long-term retreatant and founding Co-Director at Pristine Awareness: Foundation for Buddhist Practice. He stumbled on the Dharma in 1995 at the age of 19 and then studied and practiced in Australia and India for the next decade, primarily in the Tibetan tradition. Jamyang took monastic ordination in 2001. He handed back his monastic robes in 2005 and in the same year took white robe ordination in the Dudjom tradition with Ngakpa Karma Lhundup Rinpoche. Since 2005 his focus has been on practice rather than study. His Guru is the late Kyabje Togden Amtrin, a highly revered yogi of the Drukpa Kagyu lineage from Khampagar Monastery in Eastern Tibet. Jamyang is committed to non-sectarianism and has received teachings from masters in various schools of Buddhism, though practices in the Drukpa tradition. Jamyang’s heart practices are Guru Yoga and Sky-Gazing. Despite a debilitating and sometimes life-threatening chronic illness of over 20 years duration, Jamyang has maintained his meditation practice, using his sick bed as his retreat place. He went into retreat at the beginning of 2019, and has no fixed end date. While he is in retreat Jamyang is not involved in the foundation's activities. However, he does occasionally reach out to support fellow practitioners using modern technology such as social media as permitted by his retreat master. Jamyang also has a degree in Social Welfare and is deeply committed to social justice. Jamyang is author of The Awakening Heart and co-author, along with LamaPema Düddul, of Resting in Stillness, a book about meditation, compassion and the nature of the mind. A review of Resting in Stillness can be found HERE.

SCHEDULE

PRISTINE AWARENESS

Foundation for Buddhist Practice

OUR TEACHERS

Kyabje Togden Amtrin

Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche

Lama Pema Düddul and Jamyang Tenphel (2005)

Lama Pema Düddul (2006)

Jamyang Tenphel with his Guru Kyabje Togden Amtrin (2003)