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Charitable Activities
Students of Sagarmatha Secondary School.
Since 2015, the Social Services Fund has been offering support to Sagarmatha Secondary School in Chailsa, Nepal. The school stands on what was once a Tibetan refugee camp. It currently serves 170 students, including 79 young lay students who live at the school hostel and 25 young monks who live at Thubten Shedrup Ling Monastery, which shares the school grounds. Eleven teachers and one additional employee support these students.
Recently, a US$28,000 grant was issued to the school for the 2018 academic year. This was only possible due to the kindness of people supporting the Social Services Fund. Thank you for making this possible.
Khen Rinpoche Geshe Thubten Chonyi with the students of Sagarmatha Secondary School.
This grant covers the salaries of teachers in addition to yearly text books and one set of school uniforms per year for the students. Grants are also offered for prize distribution for exams, sports competitions, as well as other extra curricular activities. Last year, Lama Zopa Rinpoche sponsored the school uniforms plus shoes and warm socks. The students of this school are ethnically Tibetan or Sherpa, and some come from meager means. The school tries to help in any way, such as finding outside support for the children’s additional clothing needs.
An educator with students of the Sagarmatha Secondary School.
Sagarmatha Lower Secondary School is a government-registered school which means it is recognized by the Nepalese government and can participate in nationwide exit exams. The school has to expand to best support students. Without expanding, the children will have to go to boarding school in Kathmandu to finish their educations. This is prohibitively expensive for many local families and they would simply have to drop out once their education at the school finishes. Kopan Monastery manages the school as well as the hostel.
Students of Sagarmatha Secondary School having a meal.
We invite all of you to rejoice in the ongoing support offered from the Social Services Fund to schools such as Sagarmatha Secondary School.
Sagarmatha Secondary School and hostel.
“Among the virtues, rejoicing is the best, because it is the easiest one to practice. It simply involves our mind thinking, and the merit we accumulate is infinite…. Generally in our life we should practice rejoicing as much as possible. We should rejoice whenever we see good things happening to other people.” — Lama Zopa Rinpoche
In 2018, the FPMT Social Services Fund offers over US$104,000 to six schools providing education to children of Tibetan, Nepali, Sherpa, and Indian heritage. This is made possible by all those who contribute to the Social Services Fund.
If you would like to support the Social Services Fund and help ensure grants such as this can continue, you can read more about the charitable projects this fund supports, or donate any amount to the fund itself.
The monks of Gaden Tharpa Choling Monastery in front of the new Nyung Nä temple.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche with the reincarnation of Domo Geshe Rinpoche at Sera Je Monastery, Bulakyppe, India, December 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Gaden Tharpa Choling Monastery in Kalimpong, India, was founded by the First Domo Geshe Rinpoche in 1912 while traveling on pilgrimage. Lama Zopa Rinpoche established a connection with the Domo Geshe Rinpoche lineage when he took ordination at Domo Drugkar Gompa in Tibet, also established by the First Domo Geshe Rinpoche. Since 2015, Lama Zopa Rinpoche has also been supporting the current reincarnation of Domo Geshe Rinpoche by sponsoring food offered to him daily, as well as the salaries for some of his teachers. In a letter of thanks to Tharpa Choeling Monastery in 2010, Lama Zopa Rinpoche further explains the connection.
The new temple during construction.
Due to the kindness of a benefactor, the Supporting Ordained Sangha Fund was pleased to offer a US$25,000 grant toward the building of a Nyung Nä temple at the monastery. About this retreat practice Rinpoche commented, “Nyung näs take such a short time, but bring strong purification. So many eons can be purified in this life; it makes it so easy to have attainments.” Nyung nä practice is an intensive two-day purification retreat that includes fasting, precepts, prostrations, prayers, mantra recitation, and offerings. Nyung nä is a practice based on the deity, Thousand-Arm Chenrezig, the Buddha of Compassion, and is extremely powerful for healing illness, purifying negative karma, and opening the heart to compassion.
We are happy to report that this temple has now been completed. Please rejoice that this is now finished and will facilitate many powerful and beneficial retreats long into the future.
If you want to help Sangha, please learn more about the Supporting Ordained Sangha Fund and the ways it supports monasteries and nunneries around the world.
Medicine Buddha statue at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington.
Monks offering extensive Medicine Buddha puja.
Every month on the Tibetan 8th day the Puja Fund sponsors all the monks of Sera Mey Monastery to offer the extensive Medicine Buddha puja composed by the Fifth Dalai Lama dedicated FPMT centers, projects, services; all students who are ill or having life obstacles; benefactors of the Puja Fund, and to all beings.
The Puja Fund offers a small money offering, tea, and bread to each of the approximately 2,000 monks performing the puja as well as the cost of light offerings and torma offerings.
About Medicine Buddha Lama Zopa Rinpoche has said:
The Medicine Buddha encompasses all the buddhas. This means that when we practice the seven-limb prayer and make offerings with the seven limbs, we receive the same merit as we would if we had made offerings to all the buddhas. Similarly, when we recite the mantra of Medicine Buddha, we collect unbelievable merit just as when we offer the seven-limb practice to Medicine Buddha.
To recite the Medicine Buddha mantra brings inconceivable merit. Manjushri requested the eight tathagatas (Guru Shakyamuni Buddha and the seven Medicine Buddhas) to reveal a special mantra that would make the prayers they (the eight tathagatas) made in the past (prayers to be able to actualize the happiness of sentient beings by attaining the path to enlightenment and pacifying various problems, to be able to see all the buddhas, and for all wishes to be quickly realized) to quickly come to pass, especially for those sentient beings born in the time of the five degenerations who have small merit and who are possessed and overwhelmed by various diseases and spirit harms.
Please rejoice in this monthly offering that brings so much benefit to the entire FPMT organization. Every Tibetan 8th day, please remember that this puja is happening and you can mentally join in. This is something amazing to rejoice in, to mentally offer and dedicate toward, and also something you can contribute to by donating any amount.
You can learn more about the beneficial prayers, practices, and pujas sponsored by the Puja Fund, or about FPMT’s other extensive charitable activity.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche outside of The Great Stupa visiting the Peace Park, Bendigo, Australia, May 2018. Photo courtesy of Ian Green’s Twitter page.
In May of 2018, Lama Zopa Rinpoche spent six-weeks teaching on Bodhicaryavatara (A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life) and offering Rinjung Gyatsa Retreat at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion in Bendigo, Australia.
At the conclusion of this teaching event Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered US$30,000 to the FPMT entities in the area in support of their work: The Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, Machig Labdron Nunnery (a new nunnery at Atisha Center), Thubten Shedrup Ling, and Atisha Center. Rinpoche also offered the incredibly beautiful White Tara statue, which had been offered offered to him during the long life puja, to the new nunnery.
The retreat was attended by a cross section of FPMT students, traveling from near and far, including more than sixty-five ordained Sangha.
Please rejoice in Rinpoche’s kindness in offering these teachings and investing in the precious Dharma activity of the area.
“It is said in the teachings that among the virtues, or good karmas, the best one to practice is rejoicing. In other words, if we want to create good luck, rejoicing is the best way. People usually think that luck is something that comes from its own side. That’s completely wrong. It is not that luck suddenly comes from outside, without our having to create it. Luck comes from our mind. If we experience good luck, it’s luck that we have created with our mind.” — Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Lama Rinpoche gave an unprecedented number of teachings during this Australia retreat, all of which were streamed live online and are now available to watch as streaming video.
You can learn more about the many beneficial activities of the Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund or other Charitable Projects of FPMT.
Beautiful wall of eight stupas at Centro Muni Gyana, Italy.
We invite you to rejoice that eight new stupas have entered the FPMT mandala at Centro Muni Gyana, Palermo, Italy. The Holy Objects Fund was pleased to offer a grant to sponsor the creation of these stupas which will benefit all who come in contact with them, as well as the entire area.
As Lama Zopa Rinpoche has explained, rejoicing in the creation of holy objects brings one closer to enlightenment. Even rejoicing one time in the completion of these supas, so much merit is generated for oneself. According to Rinpoche, “among the virtues, rejoicing is the best, because it is the easiest one to practice. It simply involves our mind thinking, and the merit we accumulate is infinite.”
Please enjoy these photos of the new stupas with tremendous thanks to Stupa Onlus for making these stupas and arranging their arrival.
Geshe-la blessing stupas made by Stupa Onlus.
View of Palermo, from the side of the stupas.
Arrival of the stupas to to Centro Muni Gyana.
Recent FPMT regional meeting participants with the stupas.
“Rejoicing increases merit, like investing $100 and then constantly receiving interest until we have thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and then millions of dollars. When we rejoice, the merit increases greatly.” — Lama Zopa Rinpoche
If you would like to contribute to the building of holy objects around the world, you are welcome to offer any amount to the Holy Objects Fund which contributes to the creation of stupas, prayer wheels and statues.
Completed buildings and prayer wheels at Lugsum Elderly Home.
Over two years, the Social Services Fund offered grants to support the building of ten new rooms for accommodation (we provided sponsorship for five of these rooms) and the construction of large and smaller prayer wheels on the property of Lugsum Samduling Home for the Aged and Disabled, an elderly home in Bylakuppe, India, which cares for approximately forty elderly Tibetan individuals. Without homes and accommodation like this, many elderly first-wave Tibetan refugees have very little prospect of accommodation or support as many are without families of their own. Further, by supporting the creation of holy objects, FPMT is helping to take ultimate care of the elders by providing the conditions for them to create merit for this and future lives, not simply their immediate needs for survival.
We invite you to rejoice in the completion of both of these projects, which were finished with high quality design and materials, for the benefit of this important community.
New prayer wheels and upgrade to the grounds of Lugsum Elderly Home.
Two residents share these new simple, clean, and safe rooms at Lugsum Samduling Home for the Aged and Disabled.
New rooms at Lugsum Elderly Home.
Safe and accessible bathroom accommodation for the elderly.
Prayer wheels on the property which can be used by the elders in the community.
FPMT Charitable Projects is honored to support the homes of the eldest and destitute Tibetan refugees. You can show your support by making a donation to the Social Services Fund.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Amitabha Buddhist Centre, Singapore, September, 2018. Photo by Lobsang Sherab.
Recently Lama Zopa Rinpoche shared a heartfelt thank you to everyone who supported the Sera Je Food Fund for twenty-seven years of operation. The food fund provided free meals to all of the monks of Sera Je Monastery for nearly three decades before handing over an endowment to the monastery which allows this offering to continue long into the future.
Rinpoche wanted to send his sincere thanks to all who made the food fund and endowment possible, an achievement for the entire FPMT organization which is truly worth rejoicing about:
Thank you very, very, very much! Thank you very, very much! So much merit you created, so many lifetimes to enjoy, to meet Dharma, to achieve enlightenment, not only to be free from samsara, but to achieve enlightenment. Free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering by you, and bring to enlightenment. So, thank you very much.
Rinpoche explains the incredible benefits of having offered food to Sangha through the Sera Food Fund for so many years:
You have to recognize the good karma, how much unbelievable good karma you collected. So many years, so many years, so many years, wow! You have to rejoice, rejoice! No time for depression, no space for depression in the life! Can’t imagine! For so many years, you have offered dinner, lunch, breakfast, can’t imagine, wow!
On the impact on the lives of all who benefit from the monks’ education and training including the Sera Je monks who go on to teach in FPMT centers around the world:
Now, in many countries in the world, so many people are receiving lamrim teachings, philosophy teachings. Those people who offered food, they developed their education, they got their education and so many people in the world are receiving benefit from them. This is not material benefit but this is benefit for the mind!
Rinpoche discussing the merit of offering food to those who share one’s guru:
All those Sera Je monks, they are His Holiness’s disciples also. So, you are making offerings to the pores of your guru. In that case, every day, every breakfast, every lunch, every dinner, even if it was just one time, the merit you collect by making offering to one disciple of the same guru, His Holiness, you collect FAARRRRRRRRR more merits than offering to numberless Buddhas, numberless Dharma, numberless Sangha, numberless statues, numberless stupas, numberless scriptures. They become so small compared to offering to one pore of the guru, a disciple.
On behalf of all who have been involved in the Sera Food Fund for the last twenty-seven years we would like to join Rinpoche—who made this project possible due to his incredible courage, kindness, and compassion—in thanking everyone from our heart. Thank you for your kind support, time, effort, and service over so many years. Many people came together to make this possible.
You can watch this entire message from Rinpoche on YouTube. An edited transcript of this message is also available via PDF.
Please also enjoy this recent in-depth look at the accomplishments and historical context of the Sera Je Fund over the last twenty-seven years. All are welcome to view this article in eZine or PDF format.
You can read more about the history and impact of the Sera Je Food Fund.
If you want to help Sangha, please learn more about the Supporting Ordained Sangha Fund and the ways it supports monasteries and nunneries around the world.
Karnataka, India. Photo courtesy of FPMT Charitable Projects.
The latest issue of Mandala magazine features an extensive article, “Sustaining the Pure Unbroken Lineage of Buddha’s Teachings in This World: The Legacy of the Sera Je Food Fund,” which is an in-depth look at the accomplishments and historical context of the Sera Je Fund over the last twenty-seven years. All are welcome to enjoy this article in eZine or PDF format.
If you want to help Sangha, please learn more about the Supporting Ordained Sangha Fund and the ways it supports monasteries and nunneries around the world.
Bird feeder at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land with roof painted with a mantra to bless all the birds who go under it to eat. Washington State, 2014. Photo by Ven. Kunsang.
Resident Sangha at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land in Washington State and Kachoe Dechen Ling in California, in the United States, engage in weekly animal liberation practice; offer charity to over 80 different ant nests; perform extensive daily offering practices of water, light, incense, and flowers; make tsa-tsas and stupas daily for those who have passed away or who are sick; and engage in nightly Dharma protector practices and sur offering.
At Buddha Amitabha Pure Land a bird feeder with mantras on the roof blesses the birds while eating the seeds, and there are continuous mantras and sutras playing through a speaker which they can hear while eating. Additionally, a bird bath is filled with water blessed by mantras and precious substances so the birds receive blessings when they wash and play in the water. Speakers also play various sutra recitations and mantras so the birds can hear and receive blessings.
During Summer months (when the snow is not present) the monks regularly visit lakes in the area to bless the sentient beings abiding there with Namgyälma mantras and blessed fish food. As they offer the food a speaker under the water plays sutras and mantras for the animals. At Kachoe Dechen Ling the Sangha make regular trips to the Pacific Ocean in order to bless all the beings living there by using large Namgyälma mantra boards and doing practices which bless the ocean with mantras.
During the animal liberation practice, animals are carried around holy objects so they can create merit.
All of this is done with extensive dedications and prayers for the entire FPMT organization and all beings, as requested by Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Approximately 125,149 animals were liberated at Amitabha Pure Land and Kachoe Dechen Ling in 2018. This year, over 51,000 more animals were liberated than in previous years and these were specifically dedicated to the long lives of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Khadro-la (Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drönme). Since 2015, approximately 728,099 lives were liberated.
Not only were the animals saved from untimely death by the Sangha, they were also taken around an incredible amount of holy objects, mantras were recited and blown on them, and they were carefully placed where they could live out the rest of their lives. When Sangha finish these liberations, they make strong prayers for all those who are sick, have recently died, or who have requested prayers. This is one of the most beneficial aspects of this practice as the merit is shared among so many.
Please rejoice in the liberation of these most vulnerable sentient beings who have no opportunity to protect themselves from danger or accumulate merit on their own.
Read more about the lake blessings:
fpmt.org/lama-zopa-rinpoche-news-and-advice/lama-zopa-rinpoche-news/lama-zopa-rinpoche-blesses-lake-bound-beings
Read more advice about how to benefit small animals and insects from Lama Zopa Rinpoche:
fpmt.org/lama-zopa-rinpoche-news-and-advice/advice-from-lama-zopa-rinpoche/how-to-benefit-insects-and-other-small-beings
Read more about the daily stupas and tsa-tsas made for those who are sick or have passed away:
fpmt.org/charitable-activities/projects/holy-objects/daily-stupas-and-tsa-tsas-made-for-those-who-have-passed-away-or-are-sick
The Animal Liberation Fund sponsors these practices and offerings. All are welcome to contribute to this fund to help with one’s own life obstacles or obstacles to the lives of loved ones.
New Year celebration attendees at Ganden Do Ngag Shedrup Ling, Mongolia.
Beneficiaries offered songs and poems in Mongolian in appreciation of the generosity.
Since 2003 Lamp of the Path NGO (LOP), part of Ganden Do Ngag Shedrup Ling, has offered essential social services in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
This year, the new year was celebrated with 130 poor and homeless individuals from the area thanks to kind organizers and volunteers from LOP. Hot soup, Mongolian dumplings, bread with jam, as well as cake and sweets were offered. Additionally, everyone was gifted with essential clothing items such as shirts, pants, coats, and socks.
Some grateful attendees offered a song or poem in Mongolian in appreciation of the party, while others listened and joined the singing, or cheerfully applauded. LOP reported, “It was a great day full of joy and we were very happy to see our beneficiaries so relaxed and sincerely happy.”
Please rejoice in this generous and kind celebration for those in need who might otherwise have no opportunity to enjoy welcoming the new year.
A child is offered warm clothes for the new year.
The Social Services Fund contributes to many beneficial charitable projects as funds allow. You can learn more about these activities, or make a donation of any amount.
You can offer directly to LOP to help ensure services such as these continue in Mongolia in the future.
Children of Sagarmatha Secondary School engaged in prayer. A school supported by FPMT Charitable Projects.
FPMT Charitable Projects had an incredible year offering support to beneficial initiates which include: offering food to ordained Sangha; providing scholarships to study Buddhist philosophy; offering to the main teachers of the Lama Tsongkhapa tradition and sponsoring annual debates; offering grants for social services such as schools, hospitals and monastic institutions; providing comprehensive Dharma programs; translating Dharma texts; sponsoring holy objects: statues, stupas and prayer wheels, and saving animals.
We invite you to rejoice in a few areas of great accomplishment which were made possible by grants generated from FPMT Charitable Projects in 2018.
- The final handover of an endowment large enough to support the long-term health of the Sera Je Food Fund has been completed. The interest from this endowment will cover the annual costs associated with offering three nutritious meals daily for all the monks of Sera Je Monastery, for as long as the endowment remains. After offering the daily meals through the fund to the monks of Sera Je for twenty-six years, this is a massive achievement.
- A new project was launched, Protecting the Environment and Living Beings Project, which was initiated due to Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s recent advice that specific pujas and practices should be done regularly to pacify harm from the elements and to protect those (humans, animals, insects) who have been affected.
Residents of the Dhondenling Elderly Home, one of the elderly homes supported by FPMT Charitable Projects.
- Ongoing support was offered to six elderly homes serving Tibetan refugees in India. We have been offering support to elderly Tibetans in this way since 2015.
- Ongoing support was offered to six schools providing education to children of Tibetan, Nepali, Sherpa, and Indian heritage in India, Nepal, and Mongolia. We have been offering support to education in this way since 2012.
- Completed rebuild of a magnificent 460-foot by 54-foot stupa, with a large prayer wheel inside, on the site where a previous stupa was destroyed by the 2015 earthquake in the Thame region of Nepal.
- Grants were offered to programs which support people in prison wishing to study and practice Buddhism in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Mexico through the Liberation Prison Project.
- On every one of the four great Buddha holy days of the calendar, up to 15,650 Sangha are sponsored through the FPMT Puja Fund to offer specific pujas and engage in particular practices selected by Lama Zopa Rinpoche and dedicated to the long life of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and to the success of all the FPMT centers, projects, services, students, benefactors and those serving the organization in any way, as well as all beings.
- Continued support to annual Winter Jang Debate and Special Memorization Examination for top scholars of the Gelug tradition.
- Sponsorship of ten people continued with food and accommodation for each round of 108 nyung nä retreat at Institut Vajra Yogini, south-west France. This year marked the seventh round of 108 nyung näs to be completed there.
- Weekly animal liberations were sponsored at Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s residences in California and Washington State. Sangha offer the practice of animal liberation every week (the Winter months in Washington State are not conducive to this practice due to the snow being too much for the animals), dedicated to anyone who is sick, dying, or having life obstacles and extensive prayers are made for the long life of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
- A grant was offered toward the building of a gompa, reception area, offices, and library for
Dorje Pamo Monastery, a new nunnery for approximately twelve FPMT nuns in the South of France.
Tremendous thanks to everyone who donated to the various FPMT Charitable Projects or generated good wishes for our work, and rejoiced in grants offered.
You can learn more about all the activities of FPMT Charitable Projects and keep up on news of grants offered and progress made on sponsored projects.
The Give a Gift that Helps Others program was created four years ago by FPMT International Office as a gift giving option that serves as an alternative to material gifts.
Focusing on four FPMT Charitable Projects, the “Give a Gift” program offers a means to support social services, ordained Sangha, animal liberations, or the creation of holy objects, as a gift for a friend. The gift recipient then receives a colorful e-card or printed card in the mail that celebrates how the gift makes an impact in the world.
Since the program began, almost US$10,000 in gifts has been raised to support these charitable projects. The program can appeal to those wanting to give to their Buddhist friends, and with the inclusion of the secular FPMT Social Services Fund, also provides an option for friends and family who aren’t Buddhist, who would appreciate their gift helping vulnerable populations with basic needs and education.
Front of the Social Services Fund print card.
The program is offered year-round, and as expected, sees an increase of support each the holiday season.
To read more on the Give a Give that Helps Others program, or order a donation gift visit the webpage:
https://fpmt.org/projects/fpmt/give-a-gift/
To learn more and keep up on the current news and activities of FPMT Charitable Projects around the world, visit the FPMT Charitable Projects News page.