Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund

Lama Zopa Rinpoche having lunch at Vajrapani Institute with staff, members, and others, California, US, November 2015. Photo by Ven. Sherab.

Vajrapani Institute, an FPMT retreat center, is located in the Santa Cruz Mountains near Boulder Creek, CA at the end of a five-mile dirt road on the border of Castle Rock State Park. Being entirely off-grid has been an ongoing challenge for a busy operation like Vajrapani Institute’s. The logistics in terms of production and distribution of power, water, gas, and communications are complex. After forty years of managing with this difficult infrastructure, last year an overhaul of these systems commenced. Everything is being redone and the entire project is costing approximately US$800,000.

Construction at Vajrapani Institute. Photo courtesy of VPI.

Construction at Vajprapani Institute. Photo courtesy of VPI.

For example, last year five miles of conduit was installed underground. According to director Fabienne Pradelle, this is the biggest construction project the center has undertaken but essential for the future growth and safety. Fabienne explained, “Once the new infrastructures are in place, there’s a level of emergency and stress that won’t longer be there. Much more reliable. We’re proud of what we’ve achieved on a shoestring budget all these years. Our carbon footprint is impressively small.” 

The Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund invested in the electricity wing of this considerable project. Please rejoice that this important retreat center is able to make these improvements to the infrastructure which will benefit students, teachers, and staff for years to come.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund enables Rinpoche’s compassionate service to others to flourish. All the offerings from the fund are used toward the creation of holy objects and extensive offerings around the world; sponsoring young tulkus, high lamas and Sangha in India, Nepal, Tibet and the West; supporting FPMT centers, projects and services; sponsoring Dharma retreats and events; funding animal liberations and blessings, and many other worthy projects. 

New tracksuits offered to the children of Maitreya School and Tara Children’s Project.

The charitable mission of Root Institute, located in Bodhgaya, India, is to provide support to impoverished children, adolescents and adults in neighboring areas through three focused projects. Maitreya School is a primary school providing free education for local children; Tara Children’s Project is a safe, nurturing environment for HIV-affected orphans; and Shakyamuni Buddha Clinic is a free hospital serving impoverished, local people via a variety of medical systems.

For the past six years, due to the kindness of one main benefactor, the FPMT Charitable Projects has been able to offer substantial grants toward this amazing work. Additionally, Lama Zopa Rinpoche personally offers support to these beneficial activities. Recently Rinpoche offered new tracksuits to all of the children of Maitreya School and Tara Children’s Project. 

Children receiving new tracksuits.

In January, when His Holiness the Dalai Lama was teaching in Bodhgaya, the children offered him three recitations of the Heart Sutra as well as “Praise to the Seventeen Nalanda Masters” in Sanskrit and His Holiness was visibly moved receiving this. (The video above shows the children reciting the Heart Sutra to His Holiness in 2017.)

Please rejoice in the ongoing support offered to the children of the Maitreya School and Tara Children’s Project. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund enables Rinpoche’s compassionate service to others to flourish. All the offerings from the fund are used toward the creation of holy objects and extensive offerings around the world; sponsoring young tulkus, high lamas and Sangha in India, Nepal, Tibet and the West; supporting FPMT centers, projects and services; sponsoring Dharma retreats and events; funding animal liberations and blessings, and much more.

Sera Lachi Sangha participating in the long life puja offered to Lama Zopa earlier this year.

Earlier this year when Lama Zopa Rinpoche was in Bangalore, he was requested to help with a desperately needed new sewage system at Sera Lachi.  Sera Lachi is made up of Sera Je and Sera Mey Monasteries in southern India. 6,000 monks study between the two monasteries. 

Rinpoche immediately said he wanted to help and then during a long life puja which Sera Je Monastery offered to Rinpoche after, Rinpoche offered all of the cash offerings made to him which totaled about US$2,988. Recently an additional US$2,156 was offered toward the completion of this project which has an estimated total cost of US$71,112.

The Sera Lachi monks. Photo courtesy of the Sera Lachi Facebook page.

This grant contributes to making the environment at Sera Lachi clean, hygienic, and conducive to thoughtful study for the Sangha on the grounds. The monasteries are still raising money for this important project. Grants such as this are just one way the Supporting Ordained Sangha Fund is working to care for monks and nuns. 

You can learn more about the Supporting Ordained Sangha Fund and the ways it supports monasteries and nunneries. 

The children of Maitreya School and Tara Children’s Project attending a talk by Lama Zopa Rinpoche about the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation. January, 2017.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche was in Bodhgaya, India, for several weeks from late December 2016 through February 2017. During that time Rinpoche attended the Kalachakra initiation offered by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, went on pilgrimage to many holy sites, met with students and other lamas, and visited and made offerings, through the Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund, to three very important FPMT social projects of Root Institute: Maitreya School, Tara Children’s Project, and Shakyamuni Buddha Clinic.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche giving gifts to the children of Maitreya School and Tara Children’s Project. January, 2017.

Maitreya School is a free school benefiting impoverished children from Bodhgaya and neighboring villages. The children not only have the chance to obtain a traditional education but, more importantly, they receive life skills in compassion, honesty, and loving-kindness presented through Buddhist study. This is the core of the training and vision of the school: making lives meaningful.

Tara Children’s Project (TCP) is the only children’s home caring for HIV-affected orphaned children in the state of Bihar. Currently there are twenty-one children living there. 

Shakyamuni Buddha Clinic began in 1991 as a home for the destitute and has evolved into a diverse community health program encompassing a wide range of medical and rehabilitative services and health promotion activities. Services included allopathic medicine, homeopathic medicine, health promotion and education, and patient care.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche blessing a very sick patient of Shakyamuni Buddha Clinic. January, 2017.

While at Root Institute, Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered new shoes, socks, toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, and new towels to all the children of Maitreya School and Tara Children’s Project. Rinpoche also met with the children and gave a talk on Eight Verses for Thought Transformation. 

At the Shakyamuni Buddha Clinic Rinpoche offered INR₹500 plus a blanket to mothers who have children with cerebral palsy. While there Rinpoche also blessed everyone in the clinic on that day and offered extensive prayers for a number of people who were extremely sick. Rinpoche also thanked all of the doctors and nurses of the clinic who offer such an incredible service to those in need. 

Please rejoice in the incredible social services offered by Root Institute which benefit so many in need in the area. For the past six years, due to the kindness of one main benefactor, the FPMT Social Services Fund has been able to offer substantial grants toward this amazing work. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund enables Rinpoche’s compassionate service to others to flourish. All the offerings from the fund are used toward the creation of holy objects and extensive offerings around the world; sponsoring young tulkus, high lamas and Sangha in India, Nepal, Tibet and the West; supporting FPMT centers, projects and services; sponsoring Dharma retreats and events; funding animal liberations and blessings, and much more.  

Lama Zopa Rinpoche prostrating to a precious Guru Rinpoche statue during visit to Chailsa. Rinpoche sponsors the butter in the butter lamp in front of this statue 365 days a year.

Chailsa is in Solu Khumbu, north-eastern Nepal, the district where Lama Zopa Rinpoche was born. Chailsa is in the southern part of the district.

In May, Lama Zopa Rinpoche stayed at Thubten Shedrup Ling Monastery for a month and visited the Sagarmatha Secondary School which is located there. More than two years ago, the Social Service Fund took on the commitment of sponsoring this school which has about 120 students and is managed by Kopan Monastery.  

While in the area, Tsipri Lama approached Rinpoche about the need of these retreat houses in the area, specifically for geshes from the monasteries of Kopan, Sera, Drepung, and Ganden who have completed their studies and then wanted to engage in retreat. Rinpoche was very inspired by the project and immediately wanted to help actualize it and Rinpoche now has offered the full amount to complete this project: US$80,000. 

The sloping land below the buildings is where the new retreat area will be located. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Tsipri Lama was once a Kopan monk and is also the recognized reincarnation of a lama from the Tsipiri region of Tibet. Tsipri Lama fled Tibet and settled in the Solu Khumbu region in Nepal. The offering is to fund the building of retreat huts and a gompa for geshes who have finished their studies and want to meditate on the path in isolation. There are currently five geshes on the property who are engaged in retreat, occupying very temporary and inadequate housing. 

Providing the conditions needed for sincere practictioners to actualize the path to enlightenment is one of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Vast Visions for the FPMT organization. 

Please rejoice in this offering which will enable many precious geshes to engage in retreat in a meaningful way in a blessed place. 

You can learn more about the Supporting Ordained Sangha Fund and the ways it supports monasteries, nunneries, and individual ordained Sangha. 

The extensive offerings at Rinpoche’s residences consist of hundreds of saffron-filled water bowls that are offered daily, thousands of light offerings as well as an extensive flower garden. Photo by Chris Majors.

Resident Sangha at Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s residences in Washington State and California, USA, offer weekly animal liberation practice and charity for ants, extensive daily offering practices, make tsa-tsas and stupas daily, and engage in nightly Dharma protector practices and sur offering. All of this is done with extensive dedications and prayers for the entire FPMT organization and all beings, as requested by Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

Sangha blessing Lake Omak, Washington, USA, November 2016. Photo by Ven. Holly Ansett.

Last November Rinpoche blessed several lakes located near his Washington State residence, Buddha Amitabha Pure Land (BAPL), using a variety of methods to bring the most benefit. Rinpoche asked the Sangha, in his absence, to keep going out on the lakes regularly, in order to continue to benefit all of the fish and other living beings. They were unable to do this over the winter months, but have picked up these practices again now that the ice and snow has thawed. 

Approximately 70,400 animals were liberated at Rinpoche’s houses in 2016. Not only were the animals saved from untimely death by Sangha, but 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. 

Buddha statue with extensive lights at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land. Photo by Chris Majors.

Resident Sangha make thousands of light and water offerings daily. Gorgeous flowers adorn Rinpoche’s garden. About the benefits of offering to holy objects, Rinpoche has said, “We are not aware of the limitless skies of benefits we achieve from the practice of offering, what we can achieve and enjoy from life to life,” in Extensive Offering Practice to Accumulate the Most Extensive Merit. “Even while you are in samsara, you enjoy good rebirths, wealth, and every happiness. Even just the samsaric perfections are amazing, without adding all those incredible realizations that allow us to offer deep benefit to sentient beings, liberating them from oceans of samsaric suffering and its cause, delusion and karma.” Rinpoche encourages extensive offerings around the world.

Please rejoice in the ongoing beneficial activity of the Sangha at Rinpoche’s residences. This is an incredible offering on behalf of the entire FPMT organization enthusiastically maintained by the resident Sangha. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund enables Rinpoche’s compassionate service to others to flourish. All the offerings from the fund are used toward the creation of holy objects and extensive offerings around the world; sponsoring young tulkus, high lamas and Sangha in India, Nepal, Tibet and the West; supporting FPMT centers, projects and services; sponsoring Dharma retreats and events; funding animal liberations and blessings, and much more.  

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Chief Representative Chophel Thupten.

The Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) is an organization based in India with the stated goals of “rehabilitating Tibetan refugees and restoring freedom and happiness in Tibet.” The CTA attends to the welfare of the Tibetan exile community in India, who number around 100,000. It runs schools, health services, cultural activities and economic development projects for the Tibetan community as well as assists with legal issues which might arise for Tibetans in exile. More than 1,000 refugees still arrive each year from China, usually via Nepal.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, through the Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund, recently offered a grant to the CTA office in Bangalore (known as the CTA South Zone). Chief Representative Chophel Thupten explained that it is quite difficult to fundraise for administrative and upkeep needs of the office, but the needs are vast. Rinpoche was very happy to help in this way and offered half of the amount needed for upcoming expenses.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund enables Rinpoche’s compassionate service to others to flourish. All the offerings from the fund are used toward the creation of holy objects around the world; sponsoring young tulkus, high lamas and Sangha in India, Nepal, Tibet and the West;  supporting FPMT centers, projects and services; sponsoring Dharma retreats and events; funding animal liberations, and much more. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has offered a grant for the translation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler’s Art of Happiness series from English into Tibetan. These translated books will be offered to the Tibetan community free of charge, thus giving Tibetan-speaking students access to His Holiness’s practical and universal teachings which are very well suited for lay students and will appeal very much to the younger generation of Tibetans who may not have had the opportunity to engage with the teachings in this format. 

Making His Holiness’s teachings available in this way is also one critical way we can help preserve Tibetan culture and support its relationship with the West. 

We will update on this important project as it progresses. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund enables Rinpoche’s compassionate service to others to flourish. All the offerings from the fund are used toward the creation of holy objects around the world; sponsoring young tulkus, high lamas and Sangha in India, Nepal, Tibet and the West;  supporting FPMT centers, projects and services; sponsoring Dharma retreats and events; funding animal liberations, and much more.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, Italy, June 2014. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Recently when Lama Zopa Rinpoche was visiting Sera Je Monastery, he was requested to help with a new elevator at Sera Lachi.  Sera Lachi is made up of Sera Je and Sera Mey Monasteries in southern India. 6,000 monks study between the two monasteries. 

The Sera Lachi monks. Photo courtesy of the Sera Lachi Facebook page.

Entrance to the new elevator at Sera Lachi.

The elevator will be used to bring His Holiness the Dalai Lama up to his rooms at Sera, which are located on the top floor. As His Holiness is now eighty years old, climbing all of those stairs has become difficult, and the monks wanted to have an elevator to easily bring His Holiness to his rooms and also to facilitate elderly monks getting to different levels of the building to access offices, rooms, etc. 

Rinpoche was very happy to make an offering of US$69,000 toward the cost of the elevator through a grant issued from the Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund. 

“Proper devotion to the guru, or virtuous friend, is the root of all success, from success in this life up to enlightenment, just as the trunk, branches, leaves and fruit of a tree depend upon its root,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaches in The Heart of the Path. 

The new elevator installed at Sera Lachi.

“Or we can think that guru devotion is like the fuel in a car or a plane, without which the vehicle cannot take us where we want to go. Without guru devotion, nothing happens – no realizations, no liberation, no enlightenment – just as without the root of a tree there can be no trunk, branches, leaves, or fruit. Everything, up to enlightenment, depends on guru devotion.

“Guru devotion is the root not only of ultimate success, achieving full enlightenment and bringing sentient beings to the ultimate happiness of liberation and enlightenment, but also of temporary success and happiness. This practice is the foundation of the development of the whole path to enlightenment, as well as the foundation of all happiness. Since everything comes from the practice of guru devotion, it is called the root of the path. …”

You can read more of Rinpoche’s teachings on guru devotion in “Why Do We Need a Guru?,” the first chapter of the book The Heart of the Path: Seeing the Guru as Buddha by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, published by the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund enables Rinpoche’s compassionate service to others to flourish. All the offerings from the fund are used toward the creation of holy objects around the world; sponsoring young tulkus, high lamas and Sangha in India, Nepal, Tibet and the West;  supporting FPMT centers, projects and services; sponsoring Dharma retreats and events; funding animal liberations, and much more.

Lifelike statue of Lama Yeshe, FPMT’s founder, residing now at Vajrapani Institute, CA, USA.

Since 2011, Vajrapani Institute has been working with others to create a lifelike statue of FPMT’s precious founder, Lama Yeshe. In 2013, Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered US$10,000 toward the completion of his statue. 

In November of 2015, after an unusual array of obstacles and difficulties, the finished fiberglass statue arrived at Vajrapani Institute from Thailand, just in time for a visit by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Director Fabienne Pradelle explains, “When we opened the crate [after picking it up from the airport], Lama’s head appeared peaking up from the packing foam. Elaine Jackson burst into tears. We unpacked it and placed it in the Geshe House.” About the appearance of the statue, which depicts Lama Yeshe in a young aspect, Lama Zopa Rinpoche commented, “It is extremely good. He has become very young! In Mongolia there were statues made in China, very young looking, of Buddha Shakyamuni. The geshe said that it was very auspicious, looking young like this, so I think the young [appearance] is very auspicious.”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche meets the new statue of Lama Yeshe at Vajrapani Insitute, November 2015.

Two years previously, when Fabienne was checking the progress of the statue with Rinpoche, Rinpoche told her that the statue should go in Vajrapani Institute’s new gompa (yet to be built) surrounded by 999 smaller replicas to make a total of 1,000 Lama Yeshe statues. This will form the main altar of their new gompa. The smaller statues will be made from a mold which comes from a 3D scan of the main statue. With the 3D scan, they will be able to reduce the size of the statue to whatever height they determine. From that mold, they can also create smaller replicas (either in fiberglass or possibly bronze) to offer to benefactors.

Members of the Vajrapani community with the new statue of Lama Yeshe.

About building statues of one’s guru, Lama Zopa Rinpoche commented, “When you build a guru statue, you get the merit of having built numberless Buddha statues. Whether you build small or big you get unbelievable merit, the same merit as numberless statues of Buddha.” While Rinpoche offered to cover the cost of half of the smaller statues, he suggested that students should also join in the incredible merit of the statue creation by helping sponsor the other half. That is 500 opportunities to create the merit of building numberless Buddha statues! Vajrapani isn’t actively fundraising for this project yet, as they have to first build a prayer wheel, then a gompa, then an altar, in addition to other tasks before they will create the statues. But when the time approaches, all are welcome to join in and help fulfill this incredibly auspicious request from Lama Zopa Rinpoche. 

Vajrapani Institute wishes to thank Ven. Jamyang Wamgo who initiated the project and Elea Mideke who helped see this project through to completion and traveled to Thailand twice to work with the local artists. 

The Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund enables Rinpoche’s compassionate service to others to flourish. You can learn more about other beneficial activities this fund supports. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with the incarnation of one of his teachers, Domo Rinpoche.

Domo Rinpoche with His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

As a boy, Lama Zopa Rinpoche was ordained and educated at the monastery of one of his teachers, Domo Rinpoche — Drugkar Monastery.  Domo Rinpoche’s incarnation is now being educated at Sera Je Monastery in South India and Lama Zopa Rinpoche supports him in whatever way he is able.

It is a high priority of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s to offer support, directly and indirectly, to the next generation of Dharma teachers who will continue to pass on Buddha’s teachings in an unbroken lineage. By offering support to young tulkus, at pivotal stages in their development, The Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund invests in the next generation of lamas by making offerings toward a number of young tulkus’ food expenses, educational needs and accommodation needs.

The Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund enables Rinpoche’s compassionate service to others to flourish. You can learn more about other beneficial activities this fund supports. 

Medicine Buddha statue at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington, USA. Photo by Chris Majors.

The Sangha living at  Buddha Amitabha Pure Land (BAPL), located in North Central Washington state in the United States, engage in weekly practices for animals and make extensive offerings to holy objects. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche often explains the benefits of offering to many holy objects and encourages extensive offerings around the world. 

We are not aware of the limitless skies of benefits we achieve from the practice of offering, what we can achieve and enjoy from life to life. Even while you are in samsara, you enjoy good rebirths, wealth, and every happiness. Even just the samsaric perfections are amazing, without adding all those incredible realizations that allow us to offer deep benefit to sentient beings, liberating them from oceans of samsaric suffering and its cause, delusion and karma.

—Lama Zopa Rinpoche, (from Extensive Offerings, published by FPMT Education Services)

Extensive offerings at BAPL, Washington, USA. Photo by Chris Majors.

Weekly animal liberation practice and charity for ants, extensive daily offering practices, and nightly dharma protector practices and sur are offered. All of this is done with extensive dedications and prayers for the entire FPMT organization and all beings, as requested by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. 

Offering to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, BAPL, USA. Photo by Chris Majors.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has said that by having as many holy objects as possible, when you enter the room then you can put your palms together in the mudra of prostration to all the holy objects, looking at each tiny holy object and prostrating. You can look around the room with your hands in the mudra of prostration and think “I am prostrating to all the buddhas.” When you do this you collect eight benefits in that second so for however many thousands or hundreds of pictures of buddhas, statues, tsa-tsas etc. you have, merely by placing your palms together respectfully you receive these eight benefits, the last benefit is that you will be enlightened.

Some of the many holy objects such as tsa tsas’s at BAPL, USA. Photo by Chris Majors.

In this way, in just one second, it is so easy to collect merit because there are so many pictures of deities and buddhas; even in one photo there are many buddhas, such as the Guru Puja merit field or the thirty-five buddhas, even in one picture there are so many merit fields. Each time you prostrate to them you collect that many causes of enlightenment, that many causes of liberation from samsara and, by the way, happiness of future lives.

Extensive offerings to the Thirty-Five Confession Buddhas. Photo by Chris Majors.

So you can see that it is very helpful to have many pictures and statues for prostrations, it helps the visualization and also with each prostration you do to just one holy object you create incredible causes, so the more holy objects the more causes you create.

When you prostrate you can think of all the ten direction buddhas, Dharma, sangha, statues, stupas, scriptures, tsa-tsas etc.; if you have many, many pictures of holy objects it makes it very easy to visualize the ten directions actually filled with buddhas. This is also very good if you can’t visualize very well.

When you are not prostrating, but even just entering the room where you have all the holy objects (the gompa or your meditation room), if you put your palms together to the holy objects every time, then in that second it is an unbelievable easy way to collect extensive merit.

Extensive Offerings to holy objects and the Dalai Lama lineage. Photo by Chris Majors.

Amitabha Buddha statue at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington, USA. Photo by Chris Majors.

Extensive offerings to 21 Tara, BAPL, USA. Photo by Chris Majors.

It is explained by Buddha in the Sutra of the Mudra of Developing the Power of Devotion:

The minute you see a holy object you create infinite merits, so no question, if you actually make prostrations, offerings and so forth, you create far greater merit.

Holy objects and extensive offerings at BAPL, USA. Photo by Chris Majors.

Please rejoice in the offerings and practices that take place daily at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land and the beautiful photography of Chris Majors which shows the extensive offerings to the holy objects. 

The Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund enables Rinpoche’s compassionate service to others to flourish. You can learn more about other beneficial activities this fund supports.