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Painting tsa-tas during Losar, Ganden Tendar Ling Center, Moscow, Russia, March 2020. Photo by Artur Balbakov.
Ganden Tendar Ling Center, the FPMT center in Moscow, Russia, has been teaching the tsa-tsa making practice since November 2019 and has introduced the tsa-tsa making practice to the two FPMT study centers in Russia, Aryadeva Study Group and Lama Tsongkhapa Study Group. Tatiana Ilina, Ganden Tendar Ling Center volunteer and tsa-tsa workshop coordinator, shares the story.
The story of the tsa-tsa workshop in Moscow began in September 2019, when Lama Zopa Rinpoche attended an animal blessing event in the city at the request of the Save Tibet Foundation in Moscow. Ganden Tendar Ling Center volunteers were asked to organize an altar, and to do this they had to make as many tsa-tsas as possible.
Tsa-tsas painted by Liubov Kriakina at Aryadeva Study Group, St. Petersburg, Russia, November 2020. Photo by Liubov Kriakina.
I had learned the tsa-tsa making practice at the Root Institute for Wisdom Culture, the FPMT center in Bodhgaya, Bihar, India, from Ven. Tenzin Dekyong. I took up the task of organizing the making of the tsa-tsas for the animal blessing event.
We used funds we had raised to purchase several tsa-tsa molds from Nalanda Monastery, the FPMT monastery in the South of France. A small group of volunteers from Moscow and Yekaterinburg managed to make about four hundred tsa-tsas in a short amount of time.
Tatiana Ilina and Nima Panyukova leading a tsa-tsa making workshop at Ganden Tendar Ling Center, Moscow, Russia, November 2019. Photo courtesy of Ganden Tendar Ling Center.
It turned out that a lot of people wanted to learn the tsa-tsas making practice. As we already had the molds, in November 2019, another volunteer, Nima Panyukova and I began to conduct a monthly training on the tsa-tsa making practice for anyone who wanted to learn. Despite the pandemic, about twenty group practices were conducted—attended by more than eighty people—and more than 1,000 tsa-tsas were made. All of the completed tsa-tsas are transferred to the Moscow Stupa of Enlightenment for distribution to stupa visitors.
Nima Panyukova, a tsa-tsa workshop coordinator at Ganden Tendar Ling Center, Moscow, Russia, January 2020. Photo by Tatiana Ilina.
In August 2020, we went to St. Petersburg, and held a training on the tsa-tsa making practice at Aryadeva Study Group. Local volunteer Liubov Kriakina, a professional art restorer was very inspired by the tsa-tsa making practice. Liubov now leads a tsa-tsa making practice in St. Petersburg and teaches people how to paint the tsa-tsas.
Moscow volunteers donated two silicone tsa-tsa molds to the Lama Tsongkhapa Study Group in Yekaterinburg. Ven. Tenzin Yangi and study group coordinator Sergey Kuvaev now lead a tsa-tsa making practice in Yekaterinburg.
In December 2020, we presented a tsa-tsa to Telo Tulku Rinpoche, honorary representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Russia, Mongolia, and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries.
Telo Tulku Rinpoche highly praised the quality of the tsa-tsa. He expressed his wish that we teach the practice of making tsa-tsas from plaster to as many people as possible and in various Russian cities. This will contribute to the revival of Buddhist art in Russia.
We are planning a trip to Kalmykia to share our experience making tsa-tsas from plaster in accordance with Telo Tulku Rinpoche’s wish.
Luibov Kriakina leading a one-day Green Tara tsa-tsa painting practice at Aryadeva Study Group, St. Petersburg, Russia, January 2021. Photo by Budyma Tsoktoeva.
To learn more about Ganden Tendar Ling Center, visit their website:
https://fpmt.ru/
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