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“Building stupas helps develop so much peace and happiness for numberless sentient beings. As a result, wars, disease, and desire will all be pacified. Instead of feeling hopeless, people will gain courage. This is about peace – for the beings who see it, for the whole country, for the entire world, for all sentient beings.” –Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Lama Zopa Rinpoche with project manager, Denice Macy at the stupa.
Land of Medicine Buddha is building a 39-foot-tall Mahabodhi Stupa in California on the advice of Lama Zopa Rinpoche. This stupa will be the main attraction in a beautiful offering garden featuring an area to meditate, thousands of memorial stupas, places to perform prostrations, and ponds with spots for reflection.
Buddha statue which will live in the Mahabodhi stupa’s alcove.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche through the FPMT Stupa Fund has offered over US$100,000 toward this stupa project to date including a grant toward the creation of a life-size Buddha statue that will live in the alcove of the stupa. This statue, which took two years to complete, was made in Nepal by an extremely talented statue maker. About this statue, project manager Denice Macy said, “The engraving and detail on the statue is phenomenal. There are auspicious symbols on the arms and knees and finely detailed designs on the robes. When I wrote Ven. Roger after it came, I said, ‘Our minds are blown.’ That’s the closest I could come in my limited vocabulary to expressing my feeling. We are profoundly honored by how, since the very beginning, Rinpoche has been right there, engaged in every way, in bringing an inspiring holy object to our land. When people walk up the hill, they will first see the stupa, and then they will look into the alcove and see the statue in there and will be blown away.”
Construction site at the base of the stupa.
After installing a new entrance to the stupa project received a final approval from the County of Santa Cruz. This was a major milestone.
Grading around the stupa, which refines the site for beginning the garden layout has been completed and a deer fence was installed so that the garden would be protected from the deer which share Land of Medicine Buddha’s 108 acres.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche visited the stupa site in August 2018 and provided more advice on the layout of the grounds and decoration of the Mahabodhi stupa. Rinpoche stressed to Denice the importance of keeping the project moving along at a good pace. “We need to finish this because we might die, then the project might not be finished.” Rinpoche also met with Gelek, Land of Medicine Buddha’s resident artist and gave advice and instruction.
In April the team broke ground on the first of the walls of a dharmakaya mandala that will surround the stupa. Several sizes of smaller stupas will be placed in niches and on top of the mandala walls once the mandala walls are completed. These stupas will fulfill the center’s 100,000 Stupa Project which will be sponsored and/or dedicated by individuals around the world.
On May 19th Land of Medicine Buddha will begin accepting sponsorship of the gardens. A total of 23 trees will be planted at the site including: Weeping Cherry, Japanese Maple, Mimosa, Black Pine, Dogwood, Redbud, Flowering Plum, Hinoki Cypress, and Cryptomeria Japonica.
Please rejoice in the progress of this incredible stupa which helps fulfill Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Vast Vision for the FPMT organization to build 100,000 large stupas around the world.
The Holy Objects Fund offers grants to the creation of holy objects around the world. All are welcome to donate to this fund to ensure grants like this continue long into the future.