receive our newsletters
join Friends of FPMT
Holy Objects
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
—
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.
Many people are responsible for helping actualize this amazing stupa.
Land of Medicine Buddha, located in Soquel, California, USA has undertaken yet another ambitious holy object project! They are building a 39-ft stupa replicating the holy Mahabodhi Temple in Bodhgaya, India, the site where the Buddha attained enlightenment.
Recently Land of Medicine Buddha received the permits for this amazing stupa! Please rejoice in this incredible accomplishment! Many people have worked incredibly hard for years to actualize this project.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche, via the Stupa Fund, has pledged US$50,000 toward the creation of this magnificent stupa.
Land of Medicine Buddha’s stupa plans. This 39 foot stupa will be a replicate of the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodhgaya, India.
One of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s vast visions for FPMT is to build 100,000 stupas around the world.
You can learn more about this stupa or make a donation directly to support this project:
The plan is to build stupas all over the world, individual people or centers [can do this], no matter how many years one puts effort into building stupas, the benefit that this gives to sentient beings every day in so many ways is unimaginable.
—Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Kachoe Dechen Ling, Aptos, CA, March 2007
Lama Zopa Rinpoche with the Vajrapani Institute family, November 2013.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche recently pledged, through the Prayer Wheel Fund, US$10,000 toward a giant prayer wheel which Vajrapani Institute, Boulder Creek, California, is building once funds are raised.
Vajrapani Institute is planning for the prayer wheel to house one trillion OM MANI PADME HUM mantras, the mantra of Chenrezig, the Buddha of Compassion.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche has given extensive advice regarding the benefits of prayer wheels in relation to this powerful mantra.
From The Peerless Wish-Granting Jewel Tantra: “The person who turns this wheel which possesses OM MANI PADME HUM will be blessed by all the gurus, the deities will grant realizations, those gone to bliss will pay attention to him or her, and the Dharma protectors will eliminate all obstacles.
—- Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Land of Medicine Buddha in Soquel California has finished three impressive prayer wheels. They contain: over 170 billion mantras as well as many sets of texts, 12 billion mantras, and 64 billion mantras respectively.
One of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s vast visions for FPMT is to build 100,000 prayer wheels around the world. The following advice was given by Rinpoche regarding this vision:
“[I would like] for the whole organization to build 100,000 prayer wheels in different parts of the world, a minimum height of six feet. Prayer wheels are a great blessing for each country….The idea is to get as many people involved as possible. If you are personally going to build a one-storey stupa, you can’t afford it. But if many people, help by offering $100, $10 or $20, then also you become part of the building. It is incredible. Even children can help, each child donate $1 or $5. This is a very good way of doing it. This way it benefits so many sentient beings, liberates and brings them to enlightenment, even including the insects and mosquitoes landing on the stupa or the worms on the ground, because the rain comes, touches the stupa and flows down on the ground and purifies the worms.”
You can read more of Rinpoche’s explanation of the benefits of making prayer wheels.
To date, approximately eleven prayer wheels have been build, only 99,989 to go!
You can learn more about Vajrapani Institute’s prayer wheel and donate directly to their project. As Rinpoche says, if many people get involved, this amazing prayer wheel can be actualized.
You are welcome to donate at any time to the Prayer Wheel Fund which contributes to Rinpoche’s wishes for large prayer wheels around the world.
Dagri Rinpoche making offerings to Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the long life puja offered to Rinpoche at Land of Medicine Buddha, September 2013.
Following the long life puja offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Land of Medicine Buddha, CA, USA, on September 29, 2013, Rinpoche offered US$12,106, toward the completion of two stupas being build in California.
US$6,053 was offered to the Stupa to Minimize Harm, a stupa to minimize harm caused by possibly earthquakes on the coast of California, and US$6,053 was offered to a new stupa being built at Land of Medicine Buddha.
If you build stupas or statues to inspire people, without even teaching Dharma, for however many hundreds and billions of years the holy object lasts, it continues to liberate many sentient beings every day, freeing them from the lower realms, causing them to actualize the path liberating them from samsara and bringing them to enlightenment. Even if after you die you are in another universe, in the hell realms or a pure land, wherever you are the stupa or statue that you built is continually benefiting sentient beings. It is incredible how you can continually benefit sentient beings by having built a stupa.
—Lama Zopa Rinpoche
The very famous Padmasambhava statue that is called “Looks Like Me” in Tibet that Lama Zopa Rinpoche often uses as an example.
The Padmasambhava Project for Peace is dedicated to fulfilling Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s goal of building many large statues of Padmasambhava around the world in order to create the cause for peace for all beings
In October of 2013 the project offered US$7,000 for gold and equipment needed for gold leafing a 70 ft Padmasambhava statue with two consorts. A very skilled artist began the tremendous task of gold leafing this large statue. Scaffolding was set up and the artist spent time training some of the local monks in the gold leafing process. This year only one month of work was done due to the onset of Winter, but the gold leafing will continue next few years.
You are welcome to offer any amount toward this amazing offering of gold to Padmasambhava.
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.
—Padmasambhava
Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Khadro-la at Sera Je Monastery, December 2013. Khadro-la has given extensive advice about a stupa that must be built in California in order to minimize harm from potential earthquakes.
In order to minimize harm caused by possible earthquakes in California, USA; a stupa is being built near the Golden Gate Bridge, under the advice of Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drönme (Khadro-la). This project is called the Stupa to Minimize Harm from the Elements.
An incredible amount of groundwork has been done in relation to the building of this important stupa. In June 2013 Drew Bagdasarian of DRB Associates, a professional project management firm, became the project manager of the Stupa to Minimize Harm from the Elements project.
Khadro-la identified a very specific area in San Francisco that the stupa should be built for the most possible benefit. The project is currently in pursuit of appropriate sites in the Presidio and Fort Mason Areas of San Francisco. Mr. Bagdasarian has been diligently working on locating appropriate sites and approaching the companies and owners of properties. As to be expected with a project of this magnitude and importance, some difficulties have presented themselves. For instance, local restrictions as well as lack of available land have provided challenges.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Khadro-la are being updated regularly on the progress of this project and giving instructions accordingly so that the appropriate location can be obtained and the stupa built as quickly as possible.
This is an extremely important project. Lama Zopa Rinpoche recently remarked that we typically offer prayers and try to help after disasters happen. But in this case, we can do something to actually stop a disaster from happening. This is an amazing and great opportunity to prevent much suffering and hardship to many.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche has also requested all of the FPMT centers in the Bay Area to begin offering regular prayers in order to prevent earthquakes.
Please keep this hugely important project in your prayers. You are also welcome to donate any amount toward this stupa’s completion.
Kadampa Stupa at Kachoe Dechen Ling, Aptos, CA, USA. Photo by Whitney Dafoe.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche translated Padmasambhava’s Instruction on Offerings to Stupas, which details the benefits of prostrating to, making offering, circumambulating , and offering service to stupas.
Translations Available:
One of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Vast Visions for FPMT is to build 100,000 stupas around the world. The Stupa Fund was established in 1992 with the aim of providing the resources needed to fulfill Rinpoche’s wishes.
If you would like to contribute to the Stupa Fund, you may donate any amount.
All those who with virtue help the stupa will, in all lives, enter into the perfect path of the ten virtues, never be separated from the support of virtuous friends, and achieve all the realizations they wish.
—- From Padmasambhava’s Instruction on Offerings to Stupas
New Padmasambhava statue built for Lawudo gompa.
In 2011 the Padmasambhava Project for Peace offered US$14,000 toward the creation of three Padmasambhava statues at Lawudo Retreat Center, Nepal.
Lawudo is an incredibly special location for FPMT. The cave of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s previous incarnation, known as the Lawudo Lama, is situated there, 14,000 feet up in the mountains of Nepal. Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s brother, Sangye Sherpa, is the current director of the Lawudo Retreat Center and has been rebuilding the gompa. Lama Zopa Rinpoche advised that these new statues should go into the new gompa.
We are very happy to report that the statues are now finished.
Please rejoice that we are now three statues closer to fulfilling Lama Zopa Rinpoche wish for many large Padmasambhava statues to be built around the world!
You may donate any amount to the continued building of more large Padmasambhava statues around the word:
New Padmasambhava statues built for Lawudo gompa.
14-foot Auspicious Stupa of Many Doors at Milarepa Center, Vermont, USA.
In 2007, Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave advice about several of his Vast Visions for the FPMT organization spanning lifetimes into the future.
One of his wishes is for the organization to build 100,000 stupas around the world. About this initiative he said, “The plan is to build stupas all over the world, individual people or centers [can do this], no matter how many years one puts effort into building stupas, the benefit that this gives to sentient beings every day in so many ways is unimaginable.”
The Stupa Fund is very pleased to present you with a new page dedicated to showcasing and keeping count of this incredible effort happening around the world to fulfill Rinpoche’s wishes.