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Holy Objects
Simulation of the large Maitreya Buddha statue to be built by the Maitreya Projects.
In October 2014, Maitreya Project Kushinagar published an update regarding the project. You can read this update which includes details on the history of the project as well as its current and future aims.
One of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Vast Visions for FPMT is to build 1,000 large Maitreya statues around the world and the two Maitreya Projects (Bodhgaya and Kushinagar) are helping to actualize this vision.
Who is Maitreya Buddha by Lama Yeshe
You can make a donation to support Maitreya Project Kushinagar.
Guru Rinpoche statue at Great Stupa of Universal Compassion near Bendigo, Australia. Photo by George Manos.
One of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Vast Visions for FPMT is to build many large statues of Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche) around the world in order to create the cause for peace for all beings. To date, 27 statues have been built, one measuring 70 feet [21 meters] high!
The Padmasambhava Project for Peace was established to fund the creation of Padmasambhava statues built in accordance with Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s wishes. Please enjoy a photo gallery of some of these amazing statues.
Padmasambhava Statues Completed/In Progress
- Large statue at a Sakya Monastery in Asia
- Large statue at the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion near Bendigo, Australia
- Lifesized statue at Milarepa Center in Vermont, USA
- (11 total) 13.5-ft and nine large statues in Lawudo, Nepal
- (9 total) 70-ft statue with two consorts, each 25 ft; includes also Eight Aspects of Padmasambhava over 6 feet (2 meters) high
- 7-ft statue at Chandrakirti Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Centre, New Zealand
- 9-ft statue at De-Tong Ling Retreat Centre on Kangaroo Island, Australia
- 3 ft statue in Nepal which will go inside a large stupa in India (in progress)
- 6.5-ft statue in Spain at Osel Ling, Spain.
Offer Your Compassionate Support
The Padmasambhava Project for Peace a project of FPMT Inc. and is administered by FPMT International Office located in Portland, Oregon, United States. All donations made to this fund are tax-deductible within the United States in accordance with IRS Code article 501(c)(3) to the extent allowed by law.
For larger donations, wire transfers, or check donations, contact FPMT Donor Services.
For questions about the Social Services Fund activities, please contact the Charitable Projects Coordinator.
Teresa Navarro with Geshe Dakpa in San Francisco.
In June of this year, Teresa Mia Navarro joined the team in the search for a site for the Stupa to Minimize Harm from the Elements. This stupa was recommended by Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drönme (Khadro-la) to help minimize the disastrous effects of earthquakes and other natural disasters such as an upcoming earthquake which Khadro-la saw in a vision. The probability of such an earthquake has been prognosticated scientifically.
Khadro-la at Kushi Ling Retreat Centre, Italy, July 2012. Photo by Sirianni.
The area designated by Khadro-la as the most beneficial for the building of the stupa is the northwestern region of San Francisco. Unfortunately, the relevant trusts representing the area have denied the project a site on public land. A variety of alternatives are being explored including for sale parcels and long-term leasing, as well as public and private land.
The search is in full swing and has been expanded to neighborhoods surrounding the initial target area. Lama Zopa Rinpoche has emphasized the need to do more prayers and practices specifically to prevent earthquakes in the San Francisco Bay Area. Representatives from each of the bay area centers meet monthly to do the practices. In July, FPMT and the Stupa Team sponsored a Medicine Buddha puja lead by Geshe Ngawang Dakpa, in San Francisco.
As news of the stupa project grows, more and more San Francisco individuals and organizations, including interfaith groups, are demonstrating active interest in the success of the project.
Please check back for news on this project as it develops.
You can learn more about the Stupa to Minimize Harm from the Elements as well as the other Charitable Projects of FPMT.
Please keep this hugely important project in your prayers. You are also welcome to donate any amount toward this stupa’s completion.
The Kadampa Center community with the finished stupa which took two years to complete. Photo by David Strevel.
Building a large holy object, like the 18-foot tall Kadampa Stupa now finished at Kadampa Center in North Carolina, requires a tremendous amount of work and dedication from many.
Lead volunteer David Strevel carefully documented every stage of the process of building this stupa. Please enjoy a photo gallery of some of the major milestones along the way to completion.
Learn more about FPMT Charitable Projects and all of the beneficial activities which they support. You can find further information about FPMT spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche and his beneficial activities by visiting Rinpoche’s webpage, where you will find links to Rinpoche’s schedule, new advice, recent video, photos and more.
9 ft Padmasambhava statue at De-Tong Ling Retreat Centre, Kangaroo Island, Australia
A beautiful new 9 ft tall statue of Padmasambhava has manifested at De-Tong Ling Retreat Centre on Kangaroo Island, Australia.
One of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s vast visions for FPMT is to build many large Padmasambhava statues around the world. Please rejoice that 16 statues have now been built with Rinpoche’s wishes in mind!
Creating large holy objects like this 9 ft Padmasambhava statue require the help of many. Congratulations to the team at De-Tong Ling who made this happen.
Congratulations to De-Tong Ling and all who helped bring this project to fruition.
Listen, beautiful one having the form of a goddess,
For those sentient beings who have not met me,
Statues of me in the future
Will become the light eliminating the darkness of ignorance.
Whoever builds such statues of me,
Which become objects of offering and so forth,
All their future lives will become meaningful
And they will establish the banner of the teachings
—Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava)
Land of Medicine Buddha’s stupa plans. This 39 foot stupa will be a replicate of the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodhgaya, India.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche had previously pledged to support Land of Medicine Buddha’s planned 39-ft stupa which is a replication of the holy Mahabodhi Temple in Bodhgaya, India, the site where the Buddha attained enlightenment.
We are happy to report that $50,000 has now been offered, through the Stupa Fund, to this incredible stupa project.
One of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s vast visions for FPMT is to build 100,000 stupas around the world. Please rejoice that yet another stupa will be completed toward this long-term aim!
You are welcome to offer any amount directly to the completion of this stupa.
If you would like to support the Stupa Fund, to help ensure that pledges like this continue, you may do so at any time.
Land of Medicine Buddha will be building a Mahabodhi stupa, dedicated to the promotion of peace.
Please enjoy this short video of Land of Medicine Buddha’s Great Prayer Wheel being turned by many. This incredible prayer wheel contains over 170 billion mantras as well as many sets of texts.
The Great Prayer Wheel at Land of Medicine Buddha.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche circumambulating the stupas on the way to front door of Kachoe Dechen Ling, October, 2013. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Every day, Sangha at Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s residence in Aptos, CA, make three long life and 13 Mitukpa tsa-tsas as well as three small Kadampa stupas which are filled with a roll of the Four Dharmakaya Relic Mantras. These are dedicated to any person who is sick with prayers that they may immediately recover, be liberated from samsara, and may achieve enlightenment quickly. In addition, on the eighth day of the Tibetan month, three Eight Medicine Buddhas tsa-tsas are also made. On the thirtieth, one 12-inch (30-centimeter) tall Padmasambhava tsa-tsa is made.
After the tsa-tsas and stupas are made they are used in other stupas that many people circumambulate when visiting Kachoe Dechen Ling. All the stupas and tsa tsas that are made are utilized in this way, given to others to use, or they go inside larger stupas that are being built. As each tsa-tsa is an image of a buddha it is created and cared for with utmost respect at all times.
Rinpoche has commented often on the benefits of holy objects and how stupas can be used on the path to enlightenment.
You can offer any amount to the daily holy object creation at Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s residence.
The Benefits of Building Stupas
- Help purify their mind
- Help collect merit, which is the cause of all happiness and all success
- Help heal their body and mind through purification specifically due to the power of the stupa, meditating on and seeing the holy object
- Help to preserve Tibetan Mahayana culture
Pamtingpa Center’s nearly complete stupa, Tonasket, Washington, US, January 2014. Photo by Su Ianniello.
Su Ianniello, spiritual program coordinator at Pamtingpa Center, a small FPMT center in north central Washington in the United States, shares in the April-June 2014 issue of Mandala the story of how the students there came together to fulfill Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice to build a stupa.
“A few years ago, Lama Zopa Rinpoche came to the land. As we were all leaving, Rinpoche turned and looked out over the mountains and said, ‘A stupa here.’ That’s how our stupa building project began,” Su writes. “We were still trying to figure out how complete the project two years later. When Lama Zopa Rinpoche came back to town, he told us to build the gompa first, giving us some funds to begin this new project. However, a few weeks after Rinpoche left, we got a message to go back to the stupa project, using the funds for the gompa. These were some good lessons in flexibility.”
Read the complete story with our online edition for Mandala April-June 2014.
Mandala brings you news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and of activities, teachings and events from over 160 FPMT centers, projects and services around the globe. If you like what you read on Mandala, consider becoming a Friend of FPMT, which supports our work.
All of the walls of the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion are now built. Please rejoice! Photo courtesy of Ian Green, Twitter.
Rising 26 meters (85 feet) above the bushlands of central Victoria, Australia, the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion has grown well past the half-way point. Project Director, Ian Green told Mandala magazine during a phone call in January, “We have another 20-21 meters (66-69 feet) to go to reach the complete
height.”
Mandala reports in the April-June 2014 print issue, “Most recently the steel framework for the two-story high bumpa was erected on top of the six-level concrete structure. The bumpa level of the stupa will contain the stupa’s collection of holy relics. It will also be the highest level that the general public will be able to visit and take in the impressive view of the area. More progress will be made between now and September 2014, when the Great Stupa hosts the CPMT meeting, which will bring FPMT representatives together from around the world. Following the week-long meeting, Lama Zopa Rinpoche will present a month-long course inside the Great Stupa, beginning on September 25 .”
In January Ian Green announced, via Twitter, “All walls of Great Stupa of Universal Compassion are now complete and we have started on many of the doors. The large holes are for windows.”
Please rejoice in this amazing progress!
Lama Zopa Rinpoche recently finished a brand new translation of a teaching on the benefits of offering to stupas, Padmasambhava’s Instruction on Offerings to Stupas. The monumental work took Rinpoche more than two months to complete in 2013. The text, which Rinpoche would like to be used far and wide, details the benefits of circumambulating and prostrating, making offerings and offering service to stupas. It begins:
King Trisong Detsen requested, ‘Hey, Great Master, what are the benefits of prostrating to, circumambulating, making offerings, offering service and so forth to the great stupa, which in nature embodies all the buddhas of the three times?’…
—Padmasambhava’s Instruction on Offerings to Stupas
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Dusum Sangay Guru Rinpoche statue, February 2014. Photo courtesy of Chandrakirti Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Centre.
My wish is for FPMT to build many holy objects everywhere, as many as possible. Making it so easy for sentient beings to purify their heavy negative karma and making it so easy for sentient beings to create extensive merit. Which makes it so easy to achieve the realizations of the path and so easy to achieve liberation and enlightenment.
—Lama Zopa Rinpoche, CPMT 2002, Taos
A 2-meter (7-foot) Padmasambhava statue has been built at New Zealand’s Chandrakirti Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Centre. This statue is of Dusum Sangay Guru Rinpoche, the manifestation of Guru Rinpoche who dispels all obstacles and brings amazing success.
The statue was crafted in Nepal and Gen Tenpa Choden la and Ven. Ani Fran at Kopan Monastery coordinated the production of it.
This brings the number of large Padmasambhava statues around the world, in accordance with Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s vast vision for FPMT, up to 15!
You can offer any amount to the Padmasambhava Project for Peace, which is dedicated to offering support to the building of many large statues of Padmasambhava around the world in order to create the cause for peace for all beings.