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Smoke from the CZU Lightning Complex wildfire billowing over Pacific Ocean, California, US, August 2020. Photo by Mike Chiodini, photo courtesy of Bureau of Land Management Facebook page.
FPMT students and centers in California in the United States have been affected by the wildfires blazing in many parts of the state. Vajrapani Institute, which is near the small community of Boulder Creek, located in the Santa Cruz Mountains south of San Francisco, had to evacuate due to an ongoing wildfire.
“We all received an immediate evacuation order on the evening of August 18,” Liz Chisler, Vajrapani’s community relations coordinator, writes. “Many of us saw the glow and flames of the fire as we left. The fire was visible from our ridge. Land of Medicine Buddha (LMB) [the FPMT retreat center in Soquel] offered staff a place to stay. We have staff and community members either at LMB or staying with friends. We are all safe, well, and counting the days until we can return.”
Vajrapani staff are remaining in close contact with each other and continuing with their day to day work as much as possible. Elaine Jackson, the resident teacher at Vajrapani, continues with her weekly online program called Touching Peace: An Introduction to Meditation.
The fire that threatened Vajrapani is called the CZU Lightning Complex fire. As of September 2, the fire has spread over 130 square miles (340 square kilometers) and is only forty-six percent contained. Liz writes that they feel very thankful that the flames did not reach the retreat center. Vajrapani is east of the Highway 9 fire line. However, many in the Boulder Creek community have not been as fortunate. “We all have many dear friends that have lost their homes,” she writes. More than 900 homes have been burned by this particular wildfire and the number continues to rise.
Photo shared on Vajrapani’s Facebook page, September 2020.
“We are fortunate that we do not rely on utility companies for our water and power as these services have been badly damaged,” Liz explains. “However we do not have internet at Vajrapani as the two towers that our internet provider had were burned in the fire. We have no date of when these will be up and running again.” Vajrapani staff are hoping to be able to return to Vajrapani in the coming days. Liz says, “We have much gratitude for all the love, support, and prayers that have come from everyone.”
Dozens of wildfires are currently active throughout California. FPMT centers and students in many areas have had to cope with extremely poor air quality. Ven. Carol Corradi, center director of Tse Chen Ling in San Francisco, says that they’ve had several days of bad smoke and haze. Ven. Holly Ansett, FPMT Charitable Projects coordinator who lives at Kachoe Dechen Ling in Aptos, writes that the air has been extremely bad there and at times ash has fallen from the sky. Nadezhda Wein-Duffy, co-director Ocean of Compassion Buddhist Center in Campbell, reports that they’ve also had several days of very poor air quality due to smoke from nearby fires. Ocean of Compassion is located in the suburban South Bay area, so they aren’t directly threatened by fires.
At Land of Calm Abiding in the Central Coast area of California, they were on alert and ready to evacuate, but fortunately did not need to. Ven. Namgyal, the director of the retreat land, was in regular contact with the local officials getting updates.
Wildfires have been affecting other centers outside of California as well. A few weeks ago there was a fire close to Buddha Amitabha Pure Land in north central Washington State. The resident Sangha there were ready to evacuate, but did not need to leave and the fire was put out. Also at O.sel.ling Centro de Retiros, a retreat center located in the southern Spain, there was a fire in a nearby village. Helicopters came in and poured water on it. After two days, it was extinguished.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Advice
Lama Zopa Rinpoche has given advice on several occasions on practices to do in order to dispel and protect from fire, which can be found in the PDF “Practices and Advice to Dispel Fires.” This advice includes instruction on Medicine Buddha practice, White Umbrella practice, the Heart Mantra of Arya Vairochana, Kshitigarbha practice, Chenrezig practice, and more.
You can also find additional instruction on practice to do in Rinpoche’s short advice given in 2017 on California wildfires. The Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive also has a page for Rinpoche’s advice on fires.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice “Practices and Advice to Dispel Fires” can be found here:
https://fpmt.org/wp-content/uploads/teachers/zopa/advice/Fires-Practices-for-dispelling-1.pdf
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