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Monks debating, 2012.
In December 2013, The Lama Tsongkhapa Teachers Fund was very pleased to offer US$6,398 toward the 2013 Gelugpa Examination which was held at Gaden Lachi Monastery, Mundgod, India, September 2013.
Over 500 of the top scholars from the main monasteries attended the exam.
The Lama Tsongkhapa Teachers Fund offered food expenses and all travel expenses for the top scholars to be present at Gaden Lachi for this annual exam. In addition, two full days of food was offered to all the participants.
US$1,4578.88 was also offered toward the monthly stipends given to the current abbots, past abbots and main teachers of the Lama Tsongkhapa tradition including the Gaden Tripa Rinpoche, Gaden Trisur Rinpoche, Shartse and Jangtse Choegyal, Khen Rinpoche, Khensur Rinpoche and Lama Umtse. This small monthly stipend ranges from 1,500 rs – 500 rs (about US$8.20 – US$24) a month and supports these incredibly precious teachers’ basic needs. This allows them to be able to focus more of their time on transmitting Dharma to their students at the monasteries and strengthening their own practices.
The Lama Tsongkhapa Teachers Fund was extremely happy to offer a total of US$20,976.88 in December toward the preservation of the Gelugpa School of Tibetan Buddhism and toward supporting this annual exam and cultivating future teachers.
Please rejoice in this offering. You are welcome to offer any amount to the Lama Tsongkhapa Teachers Fund in support of its mission:
His Holiness the Dalai Lama with Lama Zopa Rinpoche and 27 geshes, who serve as resident teachers in FPMT centers, during the 2007 Geshe Conference organized by FPMT.
In 2013 Lama Zopa Rinpoche, through the Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund, was extremely happy to offer robes to all of the resident geshes and western ordained teachers offering service at FPMT centers around the world.
Tremendous thanks to Kopan Monastery and Claire Isitt for helping to arrange this.
If you were Sangha but you didn’t wear robes, then people would not know [that you were ordained], but with robes on there is no question. That is how the robes have such incredible benefit for the mind. It is planting the seed for enlightenment when people show respect to your wearing of the robes, or to the robes themselves: This is planting the seed of liberation, and is a way of benefiting sentient beings…
—Lama Zopa Rinpoche, conversation with a monk about the benefits of wearing robes
Lama Zopa Rinpoche has requested that this offering be made each year as a small token of thanks for the incredible service offered by these teachers to FPMT through teaching Dharma in the organization’s centers. In 2013 robes were offered to 43 FPMT registered ordained teachers.
Please rejoice in the service offered by these teachers and also in the offering of robes made to them.
You are welcome to contribute any amount to support the Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund:
Each month, approximately 250,000 meals are offered to the monks studying at Sera Je Monastery.
In order for the Sera Je Food Fund to offer three meals per day to all 2,500 monks studying at Sera Je Monastery (3,300 monks join for breakfast), the Sera Je Kitchen must acquire, prep, cook, and clean-up after an enormous amount of food.
In one month alone, the Sera Je Kitchen utilized 17,403 pounds of flour and 21,528.14 pounds of rice.
This is 38,931.14 pounds of rice and flour utilized and offered!
Also in one month, 14,300 bananas were offered and 1,523 bundles of green vegetables were offered.
This, of course, is in addition to the other vegetables, fruits, spices, oil, baking powder, tea, milk and butter needed to offer approximately 250,000 meals per month.
This offering of three nutritious meals a day is something amazing to rejoice in!
You are welcome to contribute anytime to the Sera Je Food Fund.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche in front of the first statue of Lama Yeshe commissioned by Vajrapani Institute, November, 2013.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche was very happy to make an offering of US$10,000 toward a new life-sized statue of Lama Yeshe which Vajrapani Institute, Boulder Creek, CA, USA is having built. This will be the second life-sized statue of Lama Yeshe commissioned by Vajrapani Institute.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche and director of Vajrapani Institute, Fabienne, discussing the art for the new Lama Yeshe statue.
In February 2011, Vajrapani Institute asked Lama Zopa Rinpoche for advice regarding how to create the causes needed for the retreat center to further flourish and benefit many beings. Rinpoche recommended them to commission another statue of FPMT’s founder, Lama Thubten Yeshe.
Rinpoche also added that Vajrapani’s future new meditation hall should contain one-thousand statues of Lama Yeshe! This statue will act as the prototype for smaller ones to be made available.
The budget for this statue is estimated at US$20,000. Please rejoice that Lama Zopa Rinpoche has offered half of funds needed to complete this beneficial statue.
You may donate any amount to the Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund which allows Rinpoche’s compassionate charitable activity to flourish:
The Bylakuppe School for Tibetans, Karnataka, India, December 2013. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Sera Monastery is located in the Tibetan settlement Bylakuppe near Mysore, Karnataka in South India. Lama Zopa Rinpoche sponsored the new kitchen at the Bylakuppe School for Tibetans, which was inaugurated on December 19, 2013.
Bylakuppe School for Tibetans students greeting Lama Zopa Rinpoche, India, December 2013. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Plaque commemorating the new kitchen, Bylakuppe, Karnataka, India, December 2013. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), an organization dedicated to preserving Mahayana Buddhism through offering the Buddha’s authentic teachings and to facilitating reflection, meditation, practice and the opportunity to actualize and directly experience the Buddha’s teachings. Sign up to receive news and updates.
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.
Over 1,000 monks and several hundred international students participated in a long life puja offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche, December 22, 2013 at Drati Khantsen, Sera Je Monastery, India.
On December 22, 2013 at the conclusion of this year’s oral transmission of Most Secret Hayagriva given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Sera Je Monastery’s Drati Khangtsen in India offered a long life puja to Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Ven. Roger Kunsang, CEO of FPMT and assistant to Lama Zopa Rinpoche, made strong request for Rinpoche’s long life and made an offering on behalf of the whole FPMT organization during the puja. There were over 1,000 monks and several hundred international students in attendance, including 70 FPMT centers represented and about 17 FPMT Geshes.
Please rejoice in this amazing offering, please make prayers for Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s long and healthy life so we may always be guided by his perfect example.
If you would like to donate to this fund, which sponsors long life pujas for Lama Zopa Rinpoche, you may do so at any time.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche leaving the long life puja offered on December 22, 2013, at Drati Khantsen, Sera Je Monastery, India.
Geshe Sengye, the past Abbott of Sera Je Monastery in Tibet, and Extensive Hayagriva torma.
Every month on the Tibetan 29th day, an important day to offer protector pujas, The Puja Fund sponsors about 40 of the most senior monks of Sera Je Monastery, who specialize in the practice of Most Secret Hayagriva, to offer the Extensive Most Secret Hayagriva puja (Hayagriva Tsog Kong). This is an all day puja with an elaborate torma offering (pictured above) and extensive prayers and meditation. 150 rs is offered to each monk offering this puja.
The Extensive Most Secret Hayagriva puja is dedicated to all FPMT centers, services, projects; the success of all Dharma activities and removal of obstacles; to all students who are facing obstacles; to the benefactors of the Puja Fund and to all beings.
The Puja Fund makes a small offering to the 40 monks who perform the puja; offers breakfast, lunch and dinner; and covers the cost of extensive torma offerings for the puja.
Every Tibetan 29th day (This month it is: December 31, 2013), you can remember that there are over 40 monks performing the Extensive Most Secret Hayagriva puja. This is something amazing to rejoice in, to mentally offer and dedicate towards and also something you can participate in by donating any amount … How amazing!
You may donate toward this monthly puja and the entire array of ongoing offerings sponsored by The Puja Fund:
Most Secret Hayagriva torma.
Exquisite long life thangka made with pearls which Lama Zopa Rinpoche is offering to His Holiness the Dalai Lama at the upcoming long life puja for His Holiness on behalf of the entire FPMT organization. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
FPMT has the incredible opportunity to be one of the main sponsors of the long life puja that will be offered to His Holiness the Dalai Lama at the conclusion of this year’s Jangchub Lam-Rim teaching event at Sera Je Monastery. This is His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s continued teachings and transmissions on eighteen classic Lam-rim commentaries.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche with the artist who created the incredible long life thangka to be offered to His Holiness the Dalai Lama at the upcoming annual long life puja. Rinpoche worked closely with the artist on all aspects of this thangka’s creation.
FPMT will be organizing the traditional offerings as well as a special thangka of White Tara, that is made completely of tiny pearls, which Lama Zopa Rinpoche has carefully arranged in Nepal, working closely with the artist on the design, brocade, and many details.
An important priority for FPMT is offering long life pujas every year for our immeasurably precious teachers: His Holiness the Dalai Lama and our Spiritual Director, Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Lama Zopa Rinpoche requested the FPMT organization to offer a long life puja to His Holiness the Dalai Lama every year. FPMT International Office has taken on this responsibility, through the Long Life Puja Fund, for twenty years, and will continue to do so, on behalf of the entire organization.
If you would like to contribute to the annual long life puja offered to His Holiness the Dalai Lama on behalf of the entire FPMT organization, you are welcome to offer any amount toward the expenses.
To understand why a long life puja is essential, we must understand the value of the Guru. He is our guide in this life, the bardo, and future lives. He is immensely important. It is not a case where if we ask him to live he will, and vice-versa, but that to offer such a ceremony purifies our own broken samayas.
—Geshe Lama Konchog
Texts distributed for the 2012 teachings on the 18 Great Lam-Rim Commentaries. The Preserving the Lineage Fund sponsored 50,000 copies of five different texts needed for the teaching event. Photos courtesy of the Jangchup Lam-rim Teachings website.
In November 2012, on the very auspicious occasion of the 610th Anniversary of Lama Tsongkhapa’s composition of his masterpiece Lam-rim Chen-mo (The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment) and the 600th Anniversary of Lama Tsongkhapa’s teaching of this text at Gaden Monastery for the first time, His Holiness the Dalai Lama began offering teachings and transmissions on eighteen classic Lam-rim commentaries at the request of His Eminence Ling Rinpoche. His Holiness is continuing the incredibly rare teachings and transmissions this year. The teaching event will take place December 25, 2013 – January 3, 2014 at Sera Je Monastery. More details can be found on the event’s website.
The Preserving the Lineage Fund sponsored 50,000 copies of five different texts needed for the teaching event. Photos courtesy of the Jangchup Lam-rim Teachings website.
In 2012 the Preserving the Lineage Fund sponsored the printing of the 50,000 copies of five different texts needed for the teaching event, as well as the bags for all the texts and a sound system for the event. The texts will be utilized again this year.
These incredible teachings are being streamed via live webcast.
You may also download the texts used in the event.
Please rejoice in this incredibly precious and historic event. Sincere thanks to all who have contributed.
50,000 participants attended this event in 2012 including many high lamas. Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be seen with Choden Rinpoche in the fourth row of this photo.
Lama Rinpoche during the long life puja, December 9, 2013, Kopan Monastery, Nepal. Photo Ven. Roger Kunsang.
Tenzin Phuntsok Rinpoche, the reincarnation of Geshe Lama Konchog, during the long life puja for Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
The annual long life puja was offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche on behalf of the entire FPMT organization at Kopan Monastery, December 9, 2013. 800+ monks and nuns; 280+ Western students; and many local Nepalis, Tibetans and Sherpas were in attendance.
Tremendous thanks to all who donated to this auspicious and successful ceremony, and to all who generously offered practices for Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s long life.
You are welcome to offer any amount to the Long Life Puja Fund for Lama Zopa Rinpoche at any point during the year. By maintaining harmony, following Rinpoche’s advice and offering long life pujas, FPMT students are accumulating the merit needed for our precious spiritual director to stay in the world with us for a long time.
Tsog offering during the long life puja for Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Kopan Monastery, December 9, 2013. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.
The Kopan course participants and Sangha getting settled into the best positions to watch the entertainment and enjoy a picnic following the long life puja. December 9, 2013. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.