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The 42-foot stupa at Rabagayling Tibetan Settlement in Hunsur, India, October 2022. Photo by Ven. Lhundrup Tsundu.
The Rabgayling Tibetan Settlement in Hunsur, South India is home to the Rabgayling Old Aged Home, a care facility serving approximately twenty residents. FPMT Charitable Projects, through the Social Services Fund, has been supporting this home since 2015, providing grants for annual operation costs, the construction of living accommodations, medical assistance, and a community hall for the elders.
In addition to this critical support for the basic needs of the residents and facilities, Lama Zopa Rinpoche sponsored the construction of a magnificent forty-two foot stupa close to the elderly home at the settlement, which was recently completed. The stupa will provide the elders and all other residents of the Tibetan settlement an easy opportunity to create merit and purify negative karma.
Padmasambhava taught in Instructions on Offerings to Stupas:
“Since all the three-time buddhas and bodhisattvas have actually absorbed into the holy object of the mind and are abiding in it, any request or prayer done to this great stupa will spontaneously and effortlessly succeed, for it is like a precious wish-granting jewel. The benefits received by any transmigratory being with a pure special attitude who does prostration or circumambulation or makes offerings are incalculable and cannot be expressed even by all the past, present, and future buddhas.”
Lama Zopa Rinpoche presiding over the consecration ceremony for the stupa at the Rabgayling Tibetan Settlement, joined by the abbott and monks of Gyudmed Monastery, Hunsur, India, October 16, 2022. Photo by Ven. Lhundrup Tsundu.
On October 16, 2022, during his visit to South India, Lama Zopa Rinpoche presided over the consecration and opening ceremonies for the stupa, which included the planting of a juniper tree in front of the stupa. Alongside Rinpoche was the abbot and monks of nearby Gyudmed Tantric Monastery, who oversaw the building and planning of the stupa throughout its construction.
In addition to the consecration, Rinpoche offered blessings to the elder residents of the Rabgayling Old Age Home; a teaching on the benefits of seeing and circumambulating stupas and other holy objects, and the benefits of reciting mantras; plus the oral transmission of some mantras.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the consecration for the stupa at the Rabgayling Tibetan Settlement, Hunsur, India, October 16, 2022. Photo by Ven. Lhundrup Tsundu.
Vast Vision for Building Stupas
One of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Vast Visions for the FPMT organization includes the construction of 100,000 stupas around the world, including in countries where there aren’t yet any holy objects present. Rinpoche explains, “Since there is unbelievable benefit, such as liberating sentient beings, then I thought we should aim to build 100,000 stupas (minimum size, one story, up to the distance from the earth to the moon) in different parts of the world and for the organization to do this as a whole.”
While this vision will take generations to fully accomplish, many stupas have been completed to date. To support this amazing endeavor, one of FPMT’s Charitable Projects is the Holy Object Fund which provides grants for holy objects such as this one at the Rabgayling Tibetan Settlement, and the impressive Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, which stands 164 feet (50 meters) high, in Bendigo, Australia.
We invite you to please rejoice in the actualization of this beautiful new stupa which took three years to complete and came through the generous legacy offering of an FPMT nun, and the great benefit the stupa will bring to many beings. We would like to especially thank Geshe Tsundu, who oversaw the whole building of the stupa and beautiful decorations, as well as the abbott and monks of Gyudmed Tantric Monastery, who helped to fill the stupa and participated in the consecration. Please enjoy this short video of the actual stupa consecration with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, the abbott, and monks of Gyudmed Tantric Monastery.
To help support to the creation of stupas around the world, we invite contributions of any amount to the Stupa Fund. We also invite you to read more about all of our FPMT Charitable Projects.
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