DNKL

About DNKL

How Do You Pronounce
Do Ngak Kunphen Ling?

How Do You Pronounce

Webster's might say "do ngäk kün phen ling." Maybe it's easier if you think of it as "doe knock coon pen ling" – but that would be butchering it to a Tibetan ear. That nga sound is probably the most confounding part. DNKL is a handy workaround. But despite all the tongue twisting, it's important to know the meaning.

Do is the Tibetan word for sutra. Sutra is a Sanskrit word originally meaning thread, sketch, plan, rule, direction, fiber, girdle, line, or stroke. It has come to refer to anything that like a thread runs through or holds things together – a work or manual consisting of strings of rules hanging together like threads. In Buddhist tradition, sutra refers to the direct teachings of Buddha Shakyamuni as recorded by his disciples, and specifically to the open or exoteric teachings in the Buddhist canon.

Ngak is the Tibetan word for mantra, another Sanskrit word that is an abbreviation of the two syllables mana and tara, respectively meaning "mind" and "protection." Hence mantra literally means a device for "protection of the mind." It is a particular combination of sounds symbolizing and communicating the nature of a deity and leading to purification and realization. One of the best-known mantras in Tibet is
Om mani padme hung. The word mantra is also a synonym for Tantra or the Vajrayana vehicle, the esoteric, accelerated path to enlightenment.

Kunphen (where the "h" simply aspirates the hard "p") is a compound word. Kün means all, entire, universal, everyone, everywhere, wholly, thoroughly, completely. Phen means help, benefit, welfare, well-being, and also has the connotation of liberation and freedom. Taken together, künphen means "beneficial to all." In poetic language, it also connotes moonlight (literally "good to all").

Finally, Ling, the easiest word to pronounce, is the word for island, location, continent, sanctuary, monastery, district, temple, or "a dry place great or small surrounded by water." A center, you might say.

Do Ngak Kunphen Ling, then, is a phrase meaning something like "Sutra and Tantra for the benefit of all." We've loosely translated it as "Tibetan Buddhist Center for Universal Peace": A place where sutra and tantra are combined for the good of all.