Charitable Activities

Some of the monks of Thame Monastery.

The Supporting Ordained Sangha Fund was very pleased to offer a grant for over US$10,000 to Thame Monastery in the Solo Khumbu District of Nepal. The grant will cover the cost of food for all the monks during 2018. The monastery houses nine elderly and thirteen young monks. Thame Monastery is one of the oldest in the region, and is famous for the annual Mani Rimdu Festival.

Thame Monastery

Lama Zopa Rinpoche was born in Thame which is located very close to Lawudo. FPMT is very happy to support the Sangha of Thame through this offering of food, to contribute to holy object restoration in the area through a recent grant for a large stupa which is being rebuilt in the area, and through support following destruction due to the 2015 earthquake which devastated the area. 

If you want to help Sangha, please learn more about the Supporting Ordained Sangha Fund and the ways it supports monasteries and nunneries around the world. 

An early morning puja during 2017 Losar at Kopan Monastery.

The Fifteen Days of Miracles began on the first day of the Tibetan new year (Losar, February 16) and continues until March 1. This period commemorates the special time when Guru Shakyamuni Buddha showed many powers. All fifteen days are merit-multiplying days, when the merit of virtuous actions performed on these days is multiplied by 100 million. The Puja Fund makes offerings on Buddha Multiplying Days and sponsors Sangha to offer particular prayers and pujas. We invite you to rejoice in these activities which are dedicated to overcoming obstacles and creating merit for the entire FPMT organization. 

Monks of Sera Mey Monastery offering a puja sponsored by the FPMT Puja Fund.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has explained that the karma of group practice is more powerful than individual practice. “The karma of one ordained Sangha reciting a sutra in a temple or room alone, compared to reciting a sutra with all the assembly of Sangha present, the latter one—reciting a sutra with all the Sangha—is much more powerful…. The more people there are supporting the practice, the more powerful it becomes…. When the karma is more powerful, the result comes more quickly.”

This year, Losar fell on February 16. The Fifteen Days of Miracles continue through March 1. During this time the following offerings, practices and pujas are being sponsored by the FPMT Puja Fund on behalf of all the donors and the whole FPMT family. Please take a moment to rejoice in these incredible offerings!

• Offerings are made to all of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s gurus.
• Offerings are made to over 15,650 ordained Sangha including IMI communities around the world. 
• Bouddhanath and Swayambunath stupas are offered white wash and four giant saffron flower petals and new umbrellas to the stupas’ pinnacles.
• Buddha inside the Bodhgaya Mahabodhi temple is offered a new set of robes of the most precious material.
• 650 monks recite the Prajnaparamita (three versions) at Gyurme Tantric College.
• 10,200 monks offer the practice of Druk Chu Ma, Namgyäl Tong Chö, and Zangcho at Sera Je, Sera Mey, Drepung Gomang Loseling and Deyang monasteries.
• Druk Chu Ma, Medicine Buddha Puja and Zangcho are offered at Gaden Jangtse and Shartse Monasteries.
• Namgyäl Tong Chö and Zangcho is offered at Gyuto Tantric Colleges.
• A full set of robes is offered to all FPMT geshes and resident teachers.
• Printing of the Sutra of Golden Light 6 times, Arya Sanghata Sutra 10 times, Vajra Cutter Sutra 200 times, and the Amitayus Long Life Sutra 20 times is offered by IMI Sangha.
• 100 Indian rupees and lunch was offered to 1,200 Sangha at the Monlam celebration at Kopan Monastery, Nepal. 

Even just remembering these offerings, pujas, and practices and rejoicing in them brings so much merit. Thanks to all for being part of this incredible list of offerings and activities which are dedicated to all beings. 

All are welcome to donate to the Puja Fund and directly support these most precious offerings. 

The whole community has come together to rebuild the large stupa in Thame.

Recently, a grant was offered toward a large stupa being built in Thame in the Solo Khumbu district of Nepal to replace one that was destroyed in the 2015 earthquake. The new stupa, which will stand nearly 44 feet tall with a base measuring 56 feet across, will be larger than the one which previously stood on the site and is utilizing all the materials from the original stupa. Many villagers helped over a two day period to move the stones of the destroyed stupa to the new one. A wonderful collaborative effort. 

All of the materials from the destroyed Thame stupa were utilized in the rebuilding of the new one.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche was born in the Mount Everest region of Thame, located very close to Lawudo which was the home of his previous incarnation known as the Lawudo Lama. Many Kopan monks are from Thame including one of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s attendants, Ven. Tendar.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche translated Padmasambhava’s Instructions on Offering to Stupas which explains numerous benefits of prostrating to, circumambulating, making offerings to, and offering service to, stupas. 

“All those who rejoice in the stupa will generate every single quality of a buddha in their mental continuum.” — Padmasambhava’s Instruction on Offerings to Stupas

The Stupa Fund has thus far offered a total of US$249,071 toward the completion of this stupa and another disbursement of funds will occur as the project progresses. Progress on this stupa is due in large part to the kindness and effort of Ven. Tenpa Choden, Kopan Monastery’s manager, who is overseeing this entire project with such enthusiasm in order to actualize the stupa which is expected to be completed at the end of 2018. 

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. 

Lama Rinpoche visiting Lugsung Samdupling Home for the Aged and Disabled in Bylakkupe, India.

In recent years, thanks to the kindness of generous donors, FPMT has been able to invest more resources into taking care of the elderly Tibetans living in India. Recently Lama Zopa Rinpoche visited elderly homes in southern India, giving teachings and blessing the residents. 

Rinpoche visiting seniors at Hunsur Home for the Elderly.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche giving a lung of OM MANI PADME HUM and explaining the benefits of reciting this mantra at Lugsung Samdupling Home for the Aged and Disabled in Bylakuppe, India.

Over the past two and a half years, US$1,642,115 has been offered from the Social Services Fund and Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund to assist schools, elderly care and other social projects.

FPMT Charitable Projects is honored to support the homes of the eldest and destitute Tibetan refugees. You can show your support by making a donation to the Social Services Fund. 

New vehicle for the Lugsung Samdupling Tibetan Settlement’s recycling program.

The Social Services Fund offered a grant to Lugsung Samdupling Tibetan Settlement in Bylakuppe, India for investment into a recycling initiative which will raise money for the elderly home located on the settlement. The grant paid for a recycling truck, worker uniforms and salaries for two, fuel, and repairs for the vehicle. 

The truck operates six days weekly picking up garbage from around the settlement and then sorts out materials suitable for recycling. This program brings in extra income to the elderly home which is home to approximately fifty elderly Tibetan refugees. The settlement itself is made up of seven villages or camps scattered at different locations with average of thirty families in each camp. The settlement was established in 1960 with the help of the Indian government with an initial population of 3,000 settlers. This settlement is one of the biggest Tibetan refugee settlements in India.

The Social Services Fund has previously invested in the elderly home located on this settlement and will continue to do so as funds are acquired and need is identified.

FPMT Charitable Projects is honored to support the settlements of Tibetan refugees. You can show your support by making a donation to the Social Services Fund. 

Some of the young nuns of Tashi Chime Gatsal Nunnery,

Since 2009 sponsorship has been offered to the nuns of Tashi Chime Gatsal Nunnery, Nepal.

Funds have been offered to complete two 100 million mani retreats (100 million recitations of the mantra OM MANI PADME HUM) every year. In addition to the 100 million mani retreats, offerings are made to cover the cost of food for all during this period as well as an offering for a qualified geshe to stay during the retreat in order to give lamrim teachings. Additionally, a grant was offered to the nunnery for much needed new accommodation in 2014.

Extensive water bowls offered by the nuns of Tashi Chime Gatsal Nunnery.

The Supporting Ordained Sangha Fund will continue to support this nunnery and the nuns residing there. We’d like to invite you to rejoice in some of the Dharma accomplishments of these sincere practitioners which have been completed in addition to the twice yearly 100 million mani retreats:

• Four nuns have completed 1,000 nyung nä retreats
• Two nuns have 700 nyung nä retreats
• Three nuns have completed 500 nyung nä retreats
• Two nuns have completed 200 nyung nä retreats
• Eight nuns have completed 180 nyung nä retreats
• Ten nuns have completed 100 nyung nä retreats
• Thirty-two nuns who have finished all nine preliminary practices
• Three nuns have completed one year deity retreat
• The nunnery has completed the following for His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s long life:
  • Padmasambhava’s mantra was recited 100 million times
  • Twenty-One Praises to Tara was recited 100,000 times 
  • The entire Kangyur was recited twice

Tremendous thanks to all who donate to the Supporting Ordained Sangha Fund allowing support to this nunnery to continue uninterrupted. 

You can learn more about the Supporting Ordained Sangha Fund and the ways it supports monasteries and nunneries.

In this drawing, a grateful millipede is saying: “Oh wow! We are all crying tears of joy because this great bodhisattva has helped us to circumambulate holy objects, and by his blessing we now have created the cause for enlightenment.”

The Sangha living at Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s residences in California and Washington State offer the practice of animal liberation every week (the Winter months in Washington State are not conducive to this practice due to the snow being too much for the animals), dedicated to anyone who is sick, dying, or having life obstacles and extensive prayers are made for the long life of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Since 2015, 602,950 small sentient beings, including worms, were blessed and liberated according to Rinpoche’s instructions. Over 60,000 were liberated in 2017. Not only were the animals saved from untimely death, they were also taken around an incredible amount of holy objects, mantras were recited and blown on them, and they were carefully placed where they could live out the rest of their life. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche carrying his “fathers and mothers” around the stupa at Aptos House, California in 2006.

On one occasion, while Lama Zopa Rinpoche was circumambulating worms around the large stupa at Aptos House in California, he located a broom to be able to carry two buckets of worms on each shoulder. Rinpoche explained, “In India when one’s parents are too old to walk then their children carry them on their back in this way. Father on one side in a basket and mother on the other side in a basket. So here I am carrying 400 of my fathers and mothers on my back.”

The Sangha in California also offer a weekly blessing of all sentient beings in the ocean by submerging large Namgyälma mantra boards into the water; and the Sangha in Washington offer charity and food to nineteen ant nests and regularly bless beings in nearby lakes with mantras and blessed food. 

Animal liberation practice is an incredible practice for anyone who has illnesses or is experiencing life obstacles. FPMT Education Services makes available many resources for those wishing to engage in this practice. Additionally, anyone who donates to the Animal Liberation Fund is directly contributing to helping save animals from the lower realms. 

Please rejoice in this ongoing practice of animal liberation which is dedicated to all beings, and specifically to those requesting prayers.

All are welcome to contribute to the Animal Liberation Fund to help ensure that our work sponsoring animal liberations around the world continues. 

The monks of Sera Je Monastery will be offered three nutritious meals a day long into the future thanks to an endowment offered in 2017.

2017 was a momentous year for FPMT Charitable Projects. In January 2017 we raised the targeted amount needed to offer Sera Je Monastery an endowment fund large enough to support the daily food offering program at the monastery (known as the Sera Je Food Fund– providing nutritious meals daily to all of the monks studying at Sera Je). The Sera Je Food Fund, an FPMT Charitable Project from 1991-2017, has offered millions of meals since its inception. At the time of this fund becoming self-sufficient it was offering approximately 700,000 meals per year, 2,900 meals per day and the annual cost was US$200,000. 

MAITRI Charitable Trust provides essential education, medical care, aid to mothers and children, animal care, and various forms of charitable service to the destitute in Bodhgaya, India.

Other beneficial grants offered in 2017 from FPMT Charitable Projects include:

• A grant was offered through the Social Services Fund to MAITRI Charitable Trust that will assist with providing essential education, medical care, aid to mothers and children, animal care, and various forms of charitable service to the destitute in Bodhgaya, India.
• The Holy Objects Fund offered grants toward the creation of large holy objects around the world including: a stupa for Tenzin Osel’s teacher Geshe Gendun Chomphel who passed away in 2016, prayer wheels for a Tibetan settlement in Bylakuppe, and the 28 ft x 6.5 ft umbrella of the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion, Bendigo, Australia, which will contain embossed mantras advised by Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

Children of Sagarmatha Secondary School engaged in prayer.

• A grant was offered from the Social Services Fund for the complete rebuilding of Khumjung Gompa, Nepal, after destruction from the 2015 earthquake rendered it unusable. Approximately 4,000 local sherpas live in the area and about 300 households share this gompa for religious festivals.
• A grant was offered through the Social Services Fund to Sagarmatha Secondary School in Chailsa, Nepal for the operating budget of the school which currently serves 120 young students.
• The Puja Fund offers up to US$100,000 annually to 15,650 ordained Sangha who make substantial prayers and perform pujas and practices dedicated to the well-being of all and to world peace. Gold, saffron, precious paint and highest quality brocade are offered to the main holy objects in Nepal, India, and Tibet.

These are just a few examples of the many grants offered in 2017. Please stay tuned for the release of FPMT International Office’s Annual Review which will contain more information on 2017’s incredible year of charitable giving. 

You can keep up on all of the grants being offered through FPMT Charitable Projects and get involved in supporting us in 2018.  

Scaffolding level 6 of the Great Stupa of Universal Compassion. Photo provided by Ian Green.

The Great Stupa of Universal Compassion is an FPMT project near Bendigo, Australia which, once completed, will be the largest stupa in the Western world. The Great Stupa is the final home for the largest gem quality Jade Buddha in existence.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has advised on the benefits of building stupas: 

“We can build stupas to inspire people without even teaching Dharma. However many hundreds and billions of years the holy object lasts, it continues to liberate many sentient beings every day, freeing them from the lower realms, causing them to actualize the path, liberating them from samsara and bringing them to enlightenment. After we die, even if we are in another universe, in the hell realms or a pure land, wherever we are, the stupa that we built or helped to build, is continually benefiting sentient beings. It is incredible how we can continually benefit sentient beings by building a stupa.”

Ven. Lobsang painting the arch inside the north end of the gompa within The Great Stupa. Photo provided by Ian Green.

The Great Stupa will serve as a major domestic and international tourist attraction and is designed to last over a thousand years. Due to the kindness of others, the Holy Objects Fund recently issued a grant to this impressive stupa project for the 28 ft x 6.5 ft umbrella which will contain embossed mantras advised by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. The umbrella will be handmade in Nepal out of copper and gold plated. This grant is also for the finalization of the first phase of construction which is projected to be completed in April 2019. According to chairman Ian Green there is still decades of work to be done before the stupa is entirely finished. After the first phase completion decorations will be added to each level and then work on the main gompa and eighty (approximate) shrine rooms will commence.

Please rejoice in the progress of this truly inspiring holy object project. You can keep up on The Great Stupa’s progress and support its completion. 

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. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche at long life puja, Kopan Monastery, December 14, 2017. Photo by Bill Kane.

A long life puja was offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche on Thursday, December 14, on behalf of the entire FPMT organization. Kopan monks, nuns, and November course students filled the main gompa at Kopan for the puja, which was also broadcast live over the internet. The long life puja came at the end of the fiftieth month-long lamrim course with teachings by Rinpoche at Kopan.

Umze Geshe Sherab leading the long life puja for Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, December 2017. Photo by Bill Kane.

At the end of the long life puja, Ven. Roger Kunsang, CEO of FPMT and assistant to Rinpoche, gave a special thanks to Rinpoche on behalf of all the students for teaching fifty of these courses. Ven. Roger also recognized how the courses have resulted in the establishment of FPMT Dharma centers in 39 countries. He also thanked Rinpoche for “the many, many more lamrim courses and teachings to come.” Rinpoche was then presented with a large Buddha statue and thangka.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche with the statue offered to him at the end of the long life puja, Kopan Monastery, December 2017. Photo by Bill Kane.

This year, Australian nun Ven. Ailsa Cameron, a long-time Dharma editor and teacher, was appointed by Rinpoche to lead the course. Each year more than two hundred students come from around the world to attend. 

Vens. Karin Valham and Ailsa Cameron during the long life puja for Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, December 2017. Photo by Bill Kane.

Watch the video recording of the puja

You can find video recordings of Rinpoche’s teachings from the 2017 November course here:
https://fpmt.org/media/streaming/teachings-of-lama-zopa-rinpoche/lama-zopa-rinpoche-teachings-in-kopan-2017/

Offering for Lama Zopa Rinpoche during long life puja, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, December 2017. Photo by Bill Kane.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche visiting Sagarmatha Secondary School, March 2017.

For the past three years, the Social Services Fund has been offering a grant to cover the cost of running Sagarmatha Secondary School in Chailsa, Nepal. The school is located on what was once a Tibetan refugee camp and currently serves 120 young students. Thanks to the generosity of donors, support for this school continues this year. 

Children of Sagarmatha Secondary School engaged in prayer.

Kopan Monastery oversees all operations of this school as well as Thubten Shedrup Ling Monastery and the Maitreya Children’s Home, a hostel for nearly fifty children.

Childred of Sagarmatha Secondary School playing and enjoying.

Approximately US$25,000 is dispersed each year for this school. 

Other school activities currently supported in an ongoing way by the Social Services Fund:

• Offering daily food for The Central School for Tibetans, Cauvery Valley Project located in Bylakuppe, South India. This school was established in 1971 to serve the children of refugees living at Dickey Larsoe Tibetan Settlement. Twenty-four staff help educate 217 elementary, middle, and secondary students.
• Offering support to the Maitreya School for Universal Education at Root Institute in Bodhgaya, India. The school gives 200 children living in one of India’s poorest states a precious opportunity. Not only do they have the chance of a traditional education but they receive life skills of compassion, honesty and loving-kindness.
• Daily food offered to over fifty students, teachers, and young monks at Ngari Institute in the Himalayan Kingdom of Ladakh, India. The main aim of this school is to empower and enrich the poor and needy remote-area students by imparting a combined learning of both modern scientific knowledge and ancient Buddhist wisdom.

The FPMT Social Services Fund offers over US$73,000 annually to schools providing education to children of Tibetan, Nepali, Sherpa, and Indian heritage. This is made possible by all those who generously 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. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche being offered a long life puja at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, Italy, November 3, 2017. Photo by Ven. Sherab.

Every year, the Long Life Puja Fund supports a long life puja offered on behalf of FPMT centers, projects, services and students to our most kind and immeasurably precious spiritual director, Lama Zopa Rinpoche. The next puja will be offered at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, on December 14 following Rinpoche’s teaching during the one-month lamrim course.

The ritual itself is the extensive Lama Chöpa with an added request to the dakinis, a moving plea by the students for the five dakinis who have come to take away the teacher to a pure land to allow the students’ teacher to remain with them on earth.

The purpose of the long life puja is for students to purify the mistakes that occur in relation to their teacher, and to create the causes and conditions to continue to receive benefit from that teacher for a very long time. Lama Zopa Rinpoche also mentions regularly that offering long life pujas is a cause for one’s own long life. Additionally, Rinpoche offered advice in response to requests by students to help them understand how best to prolong the life of the guru, and how to avoid obstacles that can cause him sickness and a shortened life.

You can enjoy a video of moments from a long life puja offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Monastery in December of 2013:

All are welcome to contribute to this upcoming long life puja for Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Monastery. Additionally, you may download one of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s long life prayers to use at any time:

• “Bestowing Supreme Immortality” by His Holiness Trijang Rinpoche
• Long Life Prayer for Lama Zopa Rinpoche by Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drönme

The Long Life Puja Fund always 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.