Charitable Activities

His Holiness the Dalai Lama meeting an 82 year old Tibetan lady during Lam teachings in South India, 2015.

In recent years, due to the kindness of benefactors, the FPMT Social Services Fund has been able to offer support to elderly homes in India caring for Tibetans of advanced age who have no access to other means of support. Offering these grants to elderly homes is one way to help repay the kindness and bravery of the Tibetan people. There are many Tibetan elders in the exile community who have either been rendered destitute or whose families are not capable of taking care of them due to dire circumstances. In 2019 we were so happy to offer grants to five elderly homes and directly benefit to 370 elders.

In total, US$287,085.23 was offered in 2019.

This is the fourth year that FPMT has been offering substantial support to elderly homes in India. Without these homes, many elderly first-wave Tibetan refugees have very little prospect of accommodation or support as many are without families of their own.

We invite you to rejoice in some details about each of the homes we supported in 2019.

Jampaling Elder’s Home, Dharamsala.

Jampaling Elder’s Home, Dharamsala
Providing care to 124 destitute elders, this home offers accommodation, medication, monthly pocket money, and supplemental nutrition. The residents normally wake up at 5 a.m. and are served fresh tea and then set out on their morning walk then congregate at the prayer hall at 6 a.m. to perform daily prayers for about an hour before breakfast. Until lunch they spend leisure time reciting prayers and circumambulating the temple and large prayer wheel as well as engage in chores they enjoy such as clean and planting beautiful flowers around the home. We provided a grant for the shortfall of this home’s annual operating budget.

Lugsam Samduling Home for the Aged and Disabled, Bylakuppe.

Lugsam Samduling Home for the Aged and Disabled, Bylakuppe
This home has 36 elders including one resident who is 96 years of age. This year we provided a grant for the shortfall of annual operating budget for 2018 and 2019, plus new cushions and chairs and curtains needed on the premises.

Residents of Mundgod Home for the Elderly and Disabled, Mundgod.

Mundgod Home for the Elderly and Disabled, Mundgod
This home has 86 elders, some of which are HIV +, have cancer, psychiatric problems, diabetics, and/or chronic arthritis. A lot of the annual expenses are medical. This year we offered a grant toward their corpus fund which pays some of their annual operating budget. They are fundraising for this fund so that in the future it will fully support the operating costs of the home from the interest. We also offered another grant toward annual expenses, that they were not able to cover.

Residents of Hunsur Old Aged Home, Hunsur, Gurupura.

Hunsur Old Aged Home, Hunsur, Gurupura
This home provides accommodation for 20 elders, the eldest is 94 years old. This year we offered a grant toward this home’s annual operating budget shortfall.

Residents of Dhondenling Old Age Home, Kollegal.

Dhondenling Old Age Home, Kollegal
30 residents ranging in age from 59-96 receive care at this home. A grant was offered this year which went toward food, medical expenses, gas, staff expenses, and pocket money for the elders.

Tremendous thanks to all who make these grants to those in dire need possible by offering support to the Social Services Fund.

Since 2015 we have offered $819,671.76 directly to support Tibetan elder homes and communities in India

FPMT Charitable Projects is honored to support the homes of the eldest and destitute Tibetan refugees. Please consider supporting the Social Services Fund.

Namche Stupa and grounds, during inauguration in May. Photo by Frances Klatzel.

In 2016, the Holy Objects Fund offered a substantial grant to the Namche Stupa and Mani Park, a project in Namche Bazaar, Nepal, located in the Sagarmatha National Park and Buffer Zone (SNPBZ). The grant was used for five prayer wheels filled with mantras, which are turned by flowing water, thus blessing all of the water used throughout the entire park. This project also includes a restored stupa that was damaged in the 2015 earthquake. In May, the park was completed and an auspicious inauguration was attended by many. 

Namche Bazaar, locally known as “Nauje” is the gateway to Khumbu (Mt. Everest region). This small town is a tourist and trading hub and a popular resting stop, especially for altitude acclimatization. It is also a junction from where different Everest region trekking routes diverge.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche wrote a letter explaining the benefits of this new park:

“This is an incredible great gift to make the prayer wheel that purifies the “digpa” negative karma of so many beings so that they get a higher rebirth. For a prayer wheel turned by water… The Tsogshin, the life tree inside, should go underneath to have a connection to the wheel. The water that turns the wheel gets blessed, by the how many million or hundred thousand mantras in the prayer wheel. So that blessed water goes down and joins the river, and gets bigger and bigger, and finally goes to the ocean.

“That blessed water spreads in all the waters that go to the ocean, so suffering, obscurations, and negative karma “Digpa” are purified for numberless sentient beings and all kinds of fish, mammals, and insects. When they die they may get a higher rebirth and hopefully meet the Dharma. So rejoice, now the prayer wheel is not one, but five. This brings unbelievable benefit.”

You can read Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s full letter here.

Please rejoice in the inauguration of this beautiful new park which will bring so much benefit to residents of Namche Bazaar and tourists alike due to the incredible power of the prayer wheels and stupa. 

You can read more about the architecture of this park in Spaces Nepal. 

Prayer wheels turned by water which bless the entire area. Photo by Frances Klatzel.

Lotus fountain and mantra, Namche Stup and Mani Park. Photo by Frances Klatzel.

The grounds of Namche Stupa and Water Park. Photo by Frances Klatzel.

If you would like to contribute to the building of holy objects around the world, you are welcome to offer any amount to the Holy Objects Fund which contributes to the creation of stupas, prayer wheels, and statues.  

2018 participants in the annual Gelug Examination.

Every year the best scholars from the main Gelug monasteries come together for the annual Gelug Examination. This year, which is an annual custom, the Lama Tsongkhapa Teachers Fund offered US$20,955 for daily food, travel expenses, and for teacher stipends for the main teachers of the Lama Tsongkhapa tradition. 864 monks participated in this year’s exam at Sera Lachi, South India, in September.

Monks enjoying a meal sponsored by the Lama Tsongkhapa Teachers Fund.

Stipends were offered to the 128 current abbots, past abbots, and main teachers of the Lama Tsongkhapa tradition. This small offering of money supports these teachers’ basic needs and 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.

Examination in progress.

The Lama Tsongkhapa Teachers Fund would like to congratulate all the monks for their successful completion of this challenging event. Due to the grant offered each year from this fund, all qualified monks are able to participate in the debate and examination, rather than being exempt due to prohibitive costs.

For twenty years, FPMT has been sponsoring this important event. Please rejoice in this ongoing support to past, present, and future teachers of the Gelug tradition. 

Since its inception, the Lama Tsongkhapa Teachers Fund, an extension of the Supporting Ordained Sangha Fund, has supported senior teachers each year of the main Gelug monasteries, plus hundreds of monks attending the traditional winter debate and annual Gelug exam. 

Lay woman and nuns from Jamyang Choeling Institute, Dolma Ling Nunnery and Institute, Jangchub Choeling Nunnery. Nuns’ Jang Guncho, Khachoe Ghakyil Ling Nunnery, Kathmandu, Nepal, October 2018.

For the second time, the annual Nuns’ Jang Guncho (annual winter debate session) was held at Khachoe Ghakyil Ling Nunnery (Kopan Nunnery), in Kathmandu, Nepal, from October 3-November 3, 2018. Approximately 710 nuns, 17 teachers, and some lay women from ten nunneries in India and Nepal gathered for one month-long training session in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, through the Supporting Ordained Sangha Fund, was happy to offer food for one day of this event plus a small cash offering for each participant.

The first Nuns’ Jang Guncho took place in Dharamsala, India, in 1995 and provides an opportunity for nunneries to gather together to train in and practice debate. This is an incredible opportunity for the nuns to receive such a valuable and thorough education, an opportunity that was previously not offered. 

After the conclusion of the Nuns’ Jang Guncho, a two-day celebration was observed for the  Geshema Damcha, the final step in the geshema ceremony rituals. Every nun from each nunnery debated five major texts of Buddhist philosophy during the celebration. Two Kopan nuns are already geshemas from Khachoe Ghakyil Ling Nunnery and four more will become geshemas in 2020 after successful completion of two more exams.

Please rejoice that this annual event, which for centuries was only available to monks, continues to take place and bring together so many nuns in such a beneficial way.

You can read more about the 2018 Nuns’ Jang Guncho and firsthand details of the event from participating Kopan nuns. 

Please learn more about the Supporting Ordained Sangha Fund and the ways it supports monasteries and nunneries around the world. 

“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. 

Offering robes to the Buddha statue at the Mahabodhi Stupa, Bodhgaya, India. Photo by Bill Kane.

Every month on the full moon as well as on all four great Buddha multiplying days, the Puja Fund sponsors a new set of robes made of high quality material for the precious Buddha statue inside the Mahabodhi Stupa in Bodhgaya, India. Root Institute kindly organizes this every month.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche frequently quotes Buddha’s teachings on the subject of offering to statues:

Any sentient being who, during the period of my teachings, makes charity well
(even if the material is the size of a hair),
For 80,000 eons there will be great results of great enjoyment:
No pain, no disease, and enjoyment of happiness.
Like that, one will be enriched with the desirable things.
At the end, you can actually achieve the result: the peerless cessation and completion (enlightenment).

Verse of OfferingRobes 

By offering these soft, light, divine clothes
With indestructible faith in
Those who have attained the adamantine holy body,
May I also achieve the vajra holy body.

Various garments that are strong like a bow string and extremely fine,
Whoever touches them experiences bliss,
To train my mind, I offer these precious, quality clothes
May I be adorned by the pure robes of patience.

Please rejoice in this monthly offering. This is something amazing to rejoice in, to mentally offer yourself, dedicate toward, and participate in by donating any amount. 

You can learn more about the beneficial prayers, practices, and pujas sponsored by the Puja Fund, or about FPMT’s other extensive charitable activity. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Khadro-la at Root Institute, Bodhgaya, India, January 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Recently Lama Zopa Rinpoche arranged for several practices, sponsored by the Puja Fund,  for the long life of Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drönme (Khadro-la). 

Khadro-la in Kyichu Lhakhang, Bhutan, offering butter lamps with Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

57,232 animals were liberated by the Sangha at Kachoe Dechen Ling in California, and Buddha Amitabha Pure Land in Washington State. These animals were offered extensive prayers and blessed water before being released. Additionally, the Kangyur was recited by Drati Khagten; and Lama Zopa Rinpoche  led extensive Medicine Buddha Puja at Amitabha Buddhist Centre in Singapore, four mandala offering pujas to Tara, and later on led Lama Chöpa Tsog with 3,000 tsog offerings dedicated to Khadro-la’s health and long life. During Lama Chöpa Rinpoche movingly spoke extensively about the incredible qualities of Khadro-la, and explained some of her extraordinary activities. 

This is one way that the Puja Fund is able to benefit our kind teachers. Thanks to all for continued support to this fund, please rejoice in these practices done for Khadro-la’s long life and may she remain among us for a very, very long time. 

You can learn more about the beneficial prayers, practices, and pujas sponsored by the Puja Fund, or about FPMT’s other extensive charitable activity. 

Water bowls and extensive offerings at Ganden Do Ngag Shedrub Ling Center, Mongolia, offered by a dedicated group of elderly volunteers.

Since 2000, a group of very dedicated volunteers have been offering over a thousand water bowls plus extensive offerings of flowers, incense, candles, and food daily at Ganden Do Ngag Shedrub Ling Center, Mongolia. In August, Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered these volunteers lunch to thank them for their incredible kindness and perseverance. 

Most of the volunteers are retired women who have been providing this service every morning for a number of years. The average volunteer is 60-75 years old and there are two ladies who are 86. Despite hardships of weather (temperature lows can reach -20 °F) or physical challenges, the volunteers complete the offering practice daily. If 10-15 people participate, they finish in approximately 1.5-2 hours; if just a few participate, they need 2-3 hours to complete. At the conclusion of the daily offering activity, they all enjoy breakfast together. This is remarkable dedication on the part of these extraordinary volunteers. 

Volunteers enjoying lunch offered by Lama Zopa Rinpoche as thanks for their dedication.

This is one of a few places in the world where extensive offerings like this are happening every day. The only other locations are at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, (in Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s rooms); Root Institute, India, (in Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s room); Kachoe Dechen Ling, CA, USA; and Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington State, USA. Extensive light offerings occur at Amitabha Buddhist Centre, Singapore; and Chokyi Gyaltsen Center, Penang, Malaysia. 

“We are not aware of the limitless skies of benefits we achieve from the practice of offering, what we can achieve and enjoy from life to life. Even while you are in samsara, you enjoy good rebirths, wealth, and every happiness. Even just the samsaric perfections are amazing, without adding all those incredible realizations that allow us to offer deep benefit to sentient beings, liberating them from oceans of samsaric suffering and its cause, delusion and karma.”   — Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Please rejoice that these daily offerings are occurring in Mongolia and the other locations mentioned around the world. Lama Zopa Rinpoche often advises students, whenever making offerings ourselves, to visualize places around the world where extensive daily offerings are made, in order to greatly increase our own effort.  In this way, all are welcome to participate. Lama Zopa Rinpoche personally makes these offerings daily in his prayers before meals. 

Thanks to each of the dedicated volunteers who have committed to offering in this way daily despite external complications or obstacles. Truly amazing!

Lama Zopa Rinpoche teaching at Amitabha Buddhist Centre, Singapore, March 2016 in front of Thousand-Arm Chenrezig statue. Photo by Ven. Losang Sherab.

One of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Vast Visions for the FPMT organization is to sponsor 100 million mani retreats (100,000 recitations of 100 million OM MANI PADME HUM) around the world.

Rinpoche explained, “[I would like] for the organization to establish 100,000 recitations of 100 million OM MANI PADME HUM mantras. This can be retreats of 100 million recitations, so 100,000 different retreats in different parts of the world and where it is happening, then for it to happen regularly, each year.”

We invite you to rejoice that 29 of these retreats have been completed so far according to Rinpoche’s wishes. Only 99,971 to go! You can read details of the completed retreats on our newly designed 100 Million Mani Retreats page. 

“The benefits of reciting OM MANI PADME HUM are infinite, like the limitless sky.” 
                                                                                                                               — Lama Zopa Rinpoche

The next 100 million mani retreat is scheduled for October 7-20, 2019 in Kalmykia, Russia with Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Geshe Tenzin Zopa serving as the retreat leader. Please email Ganden Tendar Ling for more information about the retreat. 

The Practice and Retreat Fund provides grants and sponsorships for students engaged in retreats such as 108 nyung nä retreats, 100 million mani retreats, recitations of sutras and long term retreat.  

Large Guru Rinpoche thangka displayed at Khachoe Ghakyil Ling every year.

For the forth year a very large thangka of Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava) was displayed and an auspicious 100,000 tsog offering event (Guru bumtsog) took place at Khachoe Ghakyil Ling, Nepal, also known as Kopan Nunnery. The thangka, which is 75 feet (23 meters) high and 87 feet (27 meters) wide depicts in stitched appliqué the Padmasambhava merit field in the center. The incredible weight of the thangka and raising it safely up large scaffolding to display requires tremendous skill and effort. All Sangha present (approximately 1,000) received offerings for their participation. The Holy Objects Fund sponsors this ceremony, the cost in 2018 was US$11,850. Tremendous thanks for the kindness of Khachoe Ghakyil Ling for hosting this incredible event and catering lunch for all involved. The entire set up for this requires a solid week to execute. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has encouraged, as part of the Vast Visions for FPMT, to support, create, and display very large thangkas, and to host thangka festival days where many people can gather to enjoy their beauty and power, participate in making offerings, and other virtuous activities.  Rinpoche explained, “My wish is for the big centers in FPMT to have these large thangkas. This is a way to leave imprints for all these people [who see them], for enlightenment.”  

Sangha participating in Guru bumtsog at Khachoe Ghakyil Ling during the display of the giant Guru Rinpoche thangka.

“These holy objects help other sentient beings easily purify inconceivable negative karma and create the causes of happiness, merit, and extensive happiness, which definitely brings them to enlightenment quickly. Because it makes them create extensive merit, allowing them quickly to realize the path, it also helps them to improve their life very soon; from a very difficult life with many problems—business problems, relationship problems, and many other things—to an easy life having perfect enjoyments, external and inner prosperity at the same time, realizations of the path and a very happy, peaceful, inspiring death.” — Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Please rejoice in this annual event which is fulfilling Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Vast Visions and has profound effects on clearing obstacles of all types in Nepal and 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. 

Long life puja offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Monastery, December 17, 2018. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.

Every year, Ven. Roger Kunsang, assistant to Lama Zopa Rinpoche and the CEO of FPMT, Inc., checks whether any practices need to be done to contribute to Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s health and long life.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Khadro-la, February 2018. Photo by Ven.Roger Kunsang

This year, Khadro-la (Rangjung Neljorma Khandro Namsel Dronme) advised that a 16 Arhat Long Life Puja, with additional recitations of Tenden Dukpa, would be beneficial.

This long life puja will be offered at Kopan Monastery on April 6. Khen Rinpoche Geshe Chonyi is flying in from Singapore to preside over the ceremony.

All are welcome to participate in this puja by offering any amount toward the costs, or doing prayers during the day while this is happening. 

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Additionally, you may download one of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s long life prayers to use at any time.

The official long life puja offered every year on behalf of the FPMT organization and students will take place at Kopan Monastery on December 7.

^{The Long Life Puja Fund contributes to long life pujas offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche. You can also learn about the many Charitable Projects of FPMT and discover the many ways the various funds and projects are benefiting others.}.

Students of Sagarmatha Secondary School.

Since 2015, the Social Services Fund has been offering support to Sagarmatha Secondary School in Chailsa, Nepal. The school stands on what was once a Tibetan refugee camp. It currently serves 170 students, including 79 young lay students who live at the school hostel and 25 young monks who live at Thubten Shedrup Ling Monastery, which shares the school grounds. Eleven teachers and one additional employee support these students. 

Recently, a US$28,000 grant was issued to the school for the 2018 academic year. This was only possible due to the kindness of people supporting the Social Services Fund. Thank you for making this possible.

Khen Rinpoche Geshe Thubten Chonyi with the students of Sagarmatha Secondary School.

This grant covers the salaries of teachers in addition to yearly text books and one set of school uniforms per year for the students. Grants are also offered for prize distribution for exams, sports competitions, as well as other extra curricular activities. Last year, Lama Zopa Rinpoche sponsored the school uniforms plus shoes and warm socks. The students of this school are ethnically Tibetan or Sherpa, and some come from meager means. The school tries to help in any way, such as finding outside support for the children’s additional clothing needs.

An educator with students of the Sagarmatha Secondary School.

Sagarmatha Lower Secondary School is a government-registered school which means it is recognized by the Nepalese government and can participate in nationwide exit exams. The school has to expand to best support students. Without expanding, the children will have to go to boarding school in Kathmandu to finish their educations. This is prohibitively expensive for many local families and they would simply have to drop out once their education at the school finishes. Kopan Monastery manages the school as well as the hostel.

Students of Sagarmatha Secondary School having a meal.

We invite all of you to rejoice in the ongoing support offered from the Social Services Fund to schools such as Sagarmatha Secondary School. 

Sagarmatha Secondary School and hostel.

“Among the virtues, rejoicing is the best, because it is the easiest one to practice. It simply involves our mind thinking, and the merit we accumulate is infinite…. Generally in our life we should practice rejoicing as much as possible. We should rejoice whenever we see good things happening to other people.” — Lama Zopa Rinpoche

In 2018, the FPMT Social Services Fund offers over US$104,000 to six schools providing education to children of Tibetan, Nepali, Sherpa, and Indian heritage. This is made possible by all those who contribute to the Social Services Fund. 

If you would like to support the Social Services Fund and help ensure grants such as this can continue, you can read more about the charitable projects this fund supports, or donate any amount to the fund itself.