Kalachakra Initiation

Kalachakra Tantra

In the summer of 2000 His Holiness the Dalai Lama traveled to the monastery in Spiti, high in the Himalayas near the Tibetan border, to give the complete Kalachakra initiation teachings to thousands. The higher meditations of the Kalachakra Tantra were highly secret, but because of past and future events there is now a tradition of giving the initiation to large public gatherings.

The Kalachakra initiation has been passed on from generation to generation until the present day. His Holiness received the initiations and the transmission of teachings on the creation and completion stages from his Vajra Teacher Kyabje Ling Dorje Chang, the Ninety-seventh Patriarch to Tsong Kha Pa’s Throne, and the transmission of the Commentary to the Root Tantra from Serkhong Tukse Rinpoche.

Mystic Fire Video and our production company Hither Hills has closely followed the unfolding of the Dalai Lama’s teachings for some years now. We have published, edited and recorded many of His Holiness’ Buddhist teachings in the West. This event makes the library of the teachings complete. Naturally, when we heard that he would be giving this unprecedented complete transmission of the Kalachakra, we were interested in participating in its documentation.

We found an able partner in His Holiness’ Foundation for Universal Responsibility, and embarked upon what has become a fruitful collaboration. FUR was established from the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to His Holiness in 1989. Shot on Beta SP, with three cameras, directed by Rajiv Mehrotra over ten days and edited by Mystic Fire Video to approximately eight hours, this is the first in-depth recording of the Kalachakra teachings and initiations. The teachings are blessings, both for the participants and also for anyone who will see the final DVD of this unique event. The extraordinary setting of the filming makes for a very beautiful and spiritual event. It has taken eight months to edit Kalachakra from ten days down to eight hours, and has been a labor of love for Mystic Fire Video, which has commissioned a narrator, and still requires a DVD conversion, all of which are costly.