My Background in the Dharma

During first five years in India and Nepal, I had the luxury to dedicate all my time to studying the view, training in meditation, receiving empowerment and transmissions from great masters of Buddhism. Often, I was living with my heart teachers who were an infinite source of inspiration for study and practice. The genuine way they were living,practicing and interacting with others, I consider the most important and precious transmission of the essence. Undoubtedly, it was the most interesting and fulfilling journey in my life. During that time,  I also have met other authentic practitioners and great masters of Buddhism, such as H.H. The Dalai Lama, H.H. Karmapa, H.H. Dodrubchen Rinpoche, H.H. Sakya Trizin, Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, Togden Amtin, Wangdu Rinpoche, as well as other unknown yogis and hermits - friends of my teachers and those whom I have met in mountains. I like to mention about these meetings here, because actually each of them has been bringing a teaching, blessing, and revelations with it, and it is impossible for me to separate them from the entire process of the path of recognition.
During that time I have finished two Ngondro practices and did a few retreats in sacred places of Padmasambhava, including 2 retreats in Urgyen Dzong Cave - a pure land of Guru Rinpoche in mountains of Ladakh; 3 retreats near Guru Rinpoche Cave in Pharping, Nepal; retreat in Bodhgaya Retreat in Dharamshala; and retreat in Rewalsar - Guru Rinpoche Lake.
In short, all of these - living with my teachers and learning from them, receiving empowerments and transmissions, studying Dharma and training is short retreats - have helped me to establish a foundation for my next step - a one-year solitary retreat in the mountains.
In December 2008, with blessings of my teachers, I went to Solukhumbu - the Himalayan region in Nepal, to the place named Senge Pug, The Lion's Cave. There, I have stayed for one-year solitary retreat, during which I did  my third Longchen Nyingthig Ngöndro and Korde Rushen, on the basis of Longchen Rabjam, Jigme Lingpa, Dza Patrul Rinpoche and my teacher's instructions.
Life stories of great genuine masters of the past were - and always will be - a powerful source of my inspiration, as well as a source of my understanding the nature of the path. In their life stories and explanations, I have never met any pieces of advice to live a mundane life in order to accomplish the two goals of the path. Instead, they all were pointing out to a simple thing: in order to actually advance on the path, one has to leave mundane life, go to the mountains and forests, and practice diligently till the rest of the life. Life stories of such masters as Longchen Rabjam, Jigme Lingpa, Do Khyentse, Dza Patrul Rinpoche, Lama Shabkar, are reviling so much about the path, and among other facts, make the obvious importance of living and practicing in remote places.
Till I have got such experience, all these were just theories and inspirations. However, after this mountain retreat, I feel confident about why actually all those masters were emphasizing the importance of living and practicing in mountains and forests.
I was lucky enough that so many auspicious factors and conditions have come together and served as a good and necessary foundation for such retreat. Because of that, in 15 years of being a Buddhist, that was certainly and incomparably the most effective period of my practice.
After that retreat, on the hill above Rewalsar lake, near the cave of Padmasambhava, my heart teacher Lama Tashi Choyjor has bestowed me the lung, rigpa'i tsel and pith instructions on two fundamental practices of Dzogchen, and so, I've started as a beginner again.