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FPMT News Around the World
FPMT News Around the World
Gunjiimaa translating in Mongolia
It is with sadness that we share the news of Gunjiimaa Ganbat passing away. After struggling with a very difficult to treat form of drug-resistant tuberculosis, Gunjiimaa died in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, on April 1, 2012. Gunjiimaa made significant contributions to the development of FPMT Mongolia, including serving as an FPMT Mongolia translator, as Ven. Thubten Gyatso’s (Adrian Feldmann) Mongolian translator and as the previous director of the FPMT center in Ulaanbaatar, Ganden Do Ngag Shedrup Ling, founded in 2000.
“Gunjii,” as she was fondly known, was also the driving force in connecting MK Sen, current CEO of FPMT Mongolia, with several parties able to offer the help and assistance needed for Rinpoche’s priority projects in Mongolia. Gunjii was part of the special team overseeing these projects. Her immense personal contributions to ensure the success of each project will remain as testimony of her faith and devotion to her guru, Lama Zopa Rinpoche. As MK puts it, “Gunjii will be irreplaceable and a great loss to FPMT Mongolia. We pray for her blessed rebirth.”
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When reading an obituary or an announcement of death in Mandala, Lama Zopa Rinpoche advises that students make prayers for the recently deceased that they “find a perfect human body, meet a Mahayana guru and become enlightened quickly, or be born in a pure land where the teachings exist and they can become enlightened.”
Advice and practices for sickness and death can be found on Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice page and at the Foundation Store.
FPMT News Around the World
Loving Kindness Peaceful Youth (LKPY), an international project of FPMT, received some much deserved recognition in a thoughtful piece on school violence written by Russell Evans and published on Shambala Sun’s blog Sunspace. Evans, a school teacher in a rural and conservative part of the United States, wanted to offer his students some tools to help them handle the stress they encounter in school. He discovered LKPY’s secular curriculum of mindfulness practices and introduced his class to LKPY’s Be Kind Day, where students brainstorm ideas about what it means to practice kindness and then engaged in those activities.
“Be Kind Day was one of the most wonderful days I ever had in the classroom. Students began laughing, others cried, and everybody left school feeling blessed,” writes Evans. “When I began this journey, I made the assumption that I could actually teach and model kindness. I now know that this is only partly true. Yes, by using the Be Kind Day curriculum and drawing on my own practice, I could make some helpful suggestions and hold the space. What really happened though is that my students already possessed abundant kindness and were just waiting for the opportunity to practice it.”
With 160 centers, projects, and services around the globe, there is always news on FPMT activities, teachers and events. Mandala hopes to share as many of these timely stories as possible. If you have news you would like to share, please let us know.
News from Kopan Monastery and Its Projects. From Mandala April-June 2012.
Each issue, Mandala receives amazing photos for our FPMT News Around the World section – far more photos than we can squeeze into our print magazine. We’ve collected some of these photos into an online photo gallery for your viewing pleasure. Please enjoy this little photo journey to FPMT centers around the world.
On December 8, 2011 Khenrinpoche Geshe Chonyi was officially appointed abbot of Kopan Monastery and Kopan Nunnery by the private office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Please stay tuned for the next print issue of Mandala, April-June 2012, for full coverage of this significant appointment.