Charitable Activities

Twenty years ago, Lama Zopa Rinpoche established the Puja Fund as a way to sponsor ongoing prayers and practices dedicated to the success and longevity of the entire FPMT organization. One puja that Rinpoche advised was particularly important for FPMT is the Extensive Most Secret Hayagriva Puja. 

Every month, on the Tibetan 29^th day, the Puja Fund sponsors about 40 of the most senior monks of Sera Je Monastery, who specialize in the practice of Most Secret Hayagriva, to offer the Extensive Most Secret Hayagriva puja (Hayagriva Tsog Kong). This is an all day puja with an elaborate torma offering and extensive prayers and meditation. Please rejoice that twelve months of sponsorship for this monthly puja was just offered to Sera Je. 

The Puja Fund makes a small offering to the 40 monks who perform the puja; offers breakfast, lunch and dinner; and covers the cost of extensive torma offerings (pictured above) for the puja.

Every Tibetan 29th day, you can remember that there are over 40 monks performing the Extensive Most Secret Hayagriva Puja as they have for over twenty years. You are welcome to contribute to this ongoing offering which benefits the entire FPMT mandala of centers, projects, services, students, volunteers, benefactors, and all beings. 

You can learn more about the ongoing activities of the Puja Fund, or FPMT’s other extensive charitable activity. 

IMI Sangha members at Maitreya Instituut, Loenen, Netherlands, July 2015. Photo via IMI on Facebook. A Merit Box grant provided support for IMI Sangha to attend the teachings with Lama Zopa Rinpoce at Maitreya Instituut.

With a special thanks for all those who submitted or helped coordinate Merit Box offerings over the past year, it’s time to rejoice! A new set of 14 Merit Box grants have been awarded for 2015. Disbursements will be sent out this month to support a number of Dharma endeavors.

Here are some highlights of Merit Box grants awarded this year:

• One grant provided support for IMI Sangha (FPMT nuns and monks) to attend the retreat with Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Maitreya Instituut Loenen, Netherlands in July.

• Buddha House, an FPMT center in Australia, is building statues of Ganapati and the 16 Arhats following Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice. The project will be partially funded by their forthcoming grant.

FPMT Europe regional meeting group photo, Maitreya Instituut, Loenen, Netherlands, July 2015. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

• FPMT Europe will receive much-needed support to further the coordination efforts between their very active regional and national offices. There are 50 centers, study groups, projects and services in Europe, including long-term retreat centers and two centers offering the FPMT Masters Program!

• A grant was awarded to Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive for the publication of Lama Yeshe’s Gyalwa Gyatso teachings given at a course in Italy in 1983. They will be transcribed, edited and prepared into a print book and ebook for interested students around the world.

Dr. Thupten Jinpa speaking at Maitripa College in May 2015, the first event of the Mindfulness and Compassion Initiative, Portland, Oregon, USA. Photo courtesy of Maitripa College.

• At Maitripa College in the USA, grants have been awarded for two projects. One will fund the need for expanded shelving to house the immense collection of texts bequeathed to the Maitripa Library by their dear late professor, Buddhist scholar Dr. James Blumenthal. 

  The second grant will be applied for the development of a new Mindfulness and Compassion initiative. Yangsi Rinpoche, president of Maitripa College, comments, “This initiative is a major development towards incorporating the advice given to Maitripa College by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in May 2013. We are so grateful to be within the FPMT family. We recognize that the Merit Box grants are a result of incredible generosity from every angle, and we are so appreciative for the awards we received this year.”

Eight other great projects will also receive funding support through the Merit Box Project. Please see the complete list of grants here!

Becoming a Merit Box practitioner is easy! Order a free Merit Box kit for your altar, and start making offerings throughout the year into your Merit Box. Collection for the 2016 grants will take place from December 2015 through March 2016. Please contact meritbox@fpmt.org with any questions or requests.

The young children of Central School for Tibetans are offered a healthy vegetarian meal for lunch every day, offered through the Social Services Fund.

For the second year in a row, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, through the Social Services Fund, offered US$8,242 for lunch for all of the young children attending the Central School for Tibetans in Bylakuppe, South India.

In addition to this same offering last year of daily lunch, in April 2013 Rinpoche also offered US$30,000 for the complete renovation of this school’s kitchen. The children are offered a healthy vegetarian lunch that is prepared on-site in the renovated kitchen.

Please rejoice in this incredible offering which benefits young Tibetan children and their education. 

You can learn more about the Social Services Fund and its various beneficial offerings or keep up on news and updates from this fund. 
https://fpmt.org/projects/fpmt/social-services-fund/

It takes a tremendous amount of food and collective work to offer 8,300 meals every day to the monks of Sera Je Monastery.

Every day of every year the Sera Je Food Fund offers breakfast, lunch, and dinner to 2,500 monks studying at the Sera Je Monastery. An additional 800 monks join for breakfast every day. Offering this requires a tremendous amount of food and collective dedicated effort. For example, in addition to many other ingredients, approximately 65,900 pounds of rice are needed for daily lunches and dinners and 1,300 pounds of tea are required for breakfast for one year. 

Over the Winter, the food fund increased the normal offerings by approximately 25% for lunch and 50% for dinner due to the Winter Debate held at Sera Je and attended by the best Buddhist scholars of the great monasteries. During this time the Sera Je Food Fund provided food for over 1,000 monks.  This was also a time for school holidays for Sera Je School and most of the 800 young school monks also joined for meals.

The main additional expenses incurred by the food fund over the month of February was the dried food which is distributed to 2,610 monks for 12 days over the Losar holiday. 

Expenses of US$916 were also needed over February to renovate and repair the cold storage room in the food fund’s kitchen.

Sera Je monks help prepare meals for 2,500 in the Sera Je Food Fund kitchen.

Offering food to the monks of Sera Je Monastery, and others during special events, is possible due to the kindness and generosity of many. If you would like to contribute to to this daily offering of 8,300 meals, you are welcome to offer any amount to the Sera Je Food Fund. 

• US$10: Provides three vegetarian meals a day to one monk for one month
• US$120: Provides three vegetarian meals a day to one monk for one year
• US$780: Provides three vegetarian meals a day to all 2,500 monks for one day
• US$5,460: Provides three vegetarian meals a day to all 2,500 monks for one week
• US$280,000: Provides three vegetarian meals a day to all the 2,500 monks for one year

You can learn more about the Sera Je Food Fund:
https://fpmt.org/projects/fpmt/seraje

Explore FPMT’s many charitable projects and social service activities:
https://fpmt.org/projects/fpmt/

The monks of Sera Je Monastery offering puja.

Each year on Chokhor Duchen (commemorating Lord Buddha’s first teaching) the Puja Fund sponsors pujas and offerings all over the world dedicated to success of the entire FPMT organization. The practices are offered by up to 15,650 monks and nuns. This year Chokhor Duchen falls on Monday, July 20. 

The Prajnaparamita (short, medium and long versions) will be recited by the monks of Gyurme Tantric College, the entire Kangyur will be recited by Kopan Nunnery, extensive offerings will be presented to Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s gurus and holy objects in India and Tibet, among many other virtuous activities, prayers and pujas which have been advised by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. 

Some of the 15,650 Sangha who will be doing prayers on Chokor Duchen.

You are welcome to participate in all of this beneficial activity by mentally offering or rejoicing in these practices on July 20 and rejoicing that 15,650 monks and nuns will be doing these prayers, remembering that they are all “pores of the guru” and thus extensions of our teachers.  Lama Zopa Rinpoche has explained:

Making offerings to the Sangha is a way of collecting unbelievable merit because all the sangha are the pores of the Guru. They are all disciples of the same Guru – His Holiness the Dalai Lama. By offering to pores of the Guru one collects more merit than offering to Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, as well as numberless statues, stupas. If you offer with the recognition that they are the Guru’s pores then that is an unbelievable way to collect merit. When you offer to many Sanghas who have the same Guru then you are making offerings to that many pores of the Guru. So this is the easiest way to collect skies of merit by offering. By offering even just one candy, flowers or even one grain of rice to a statue of Buddha or even a visualized Buddha you collect skies of merit but here it is much more powerful than offering to the 3 jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha) as well as all the statues, stupas and scriptures existing in all directions, so no question if offering to really the same Guru’s disciple. These benefits should be understood so that when you make offerings to the Guru’s pores you think correctly. This is the best business.

If you would like to make a donation toward the meritorious activities being sponsored by the Puja Fund on Chokor Duchen, you can do so by offering any amount you are able. 

The Puja Fund was established by Lama Zopa Rinpoche to provide resources for continuous pujas dedicated to the long life of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and to the success of all the FPMT centers, projects, services, students, benefactors and those serving the organization in any way. You can learn more about the Puja Fund, or FPMT’s other extensive charitable activity. 

There are 2,500 monks benefiting from the Sera Je Food Fund (3,300 for breakfast) and the annual cost is US$280,000.

In November 2014, staff at Kurukulla Center in Medford, Massachusetts hosted a presentation introducing students and volunteers to FPMT’s unique culture, structure and history.

At the end of the presentation, Geshe Tenley, who is the resident geshe at Kurukulla Center and also in the past studied at Sera Je Monastery, discussed his experience living at Sera Je before the Sera Je Food Fund was started by Lama Zopa Rinpoche in 1991 and how the offering of food positively impacted the lives of all the monks, most of whom were extremely poor and without the ability to properly feed themselves.

Geshe Tenley explained that it is very wonderful to learn about FPMT, and the unbelievable the benefits of the organization. Geshe-la explained that he also really experienced the benefits when he was at Sera Je Monastery during the time Lama Zopa Rinpoche started the offering of food to monks. Geshe-la said in the very beginning (in 1991) the Sera Food Fund offered money once a month to all the monks for their food. The monks would wait and count the days until they were able to get the money for the food because they were so very poor. The food at the time was very bad, just rice and dahl and the dahl was like water, it didn’t cling to the rice at all. The monks had almost nothing to eat. Then in the evening, even though all the monks were so hungry, they still had to study till 11 p.m. or 12 a.m. and for dinner they just got black tea and a piece of bread. They thought the bread was very delicious because they were so very hungry all the time.

Then, as Geshe-la explains, Rinpoche started the food fund enabling more monks to live at the monastery and study. From that the Sera Food Fund started and was able to offer breakfast, lunch and dinner, so from that there was such big benefit.

Geshe Tenley with Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Kurukulla Center, 2012.

Geshe-la went on to say that FPMT is a very useful organization of which we are all a part, and is now also helping schools and so much more. 

Today there are 2,500 monks benefiting from the Sera Je Food Fund (3,300 for breakfast) and the annual cost is US$280,000. 

You can watch the whole video of the presentation, Geshe Tenley discussing the benefit of the Sera Je Food Fund starting at 1 hour 57 mins.

You are welcome to contribute to this offering of food to all of the monks of Sera Je Monastery. The Sera Je Food Fund has offered over 37,379, 600 meals since 1991 and is currently offering 3,029,500 meals every year. That is 8,300 every day!
https://my.fpmt.org/donate/serajefoodfund

Kopan monks and nuns worked with several charities and individuals to distribute much needed aid to villagers in upper Tsum.

The Tsum Valley, which is located in the northern border area of Nepal close to Tibet, was badly affected by the earthquake and subsequent aftershocks that struck Nepal earlier this year that toppled homes, temples and other buildings, resulting in the death of over 9,000 people across the country. Many charities have formed to help care and provide for those in need following the destruction. Recently, several individual charities have been working together to provide aid for the Tsum region of Nepal. 

Villagers in Tsum Valley experienced extreme devastation and this aid provided to them will make a huge impact on over 500 families’ ability to survive.

Aid of tents, sleeping bags, and cash were arranged for over 500 families in upper Tsum. The monks and nuns of Kopan have helped distribute this aid from Rachen Nunnery with the help of several charities including 16 Navigators Nepal Earthquake Relief Mission and individuals including Geshe Tenzin Zopa, Geshe Tenzin Lundrup, Dhawa Gyanjen Tsumba, and others. 

Please rejoice in this incredible collective effort of generosity and kindness.

With many contributing to a collective effort of aid, over 500 families from Tsum were supported.

You can offer your support to Kopan Helping Hands so that the monks and nuns can contribute to help distribute aid to those in Tsum Valley: http://www.kopanmonastery.com/earthquake

To learn more and offer support to FPMT’s Nepal Earthquake Support Fund, which will be used for immediate relief and rebuilding: https://fpmt.org/support/socialservices/

For “Prayers and Practice for Earthquake in Nepal,” see:
https://fpmt.org/edu-news/prayers-and-practices-for-earthquake-in-nepal/

For continuing updates and news from Kopan Monastery and other FPMT centers and projects in Nepal affected by the earthquake, please visit our “Updates from Nepal after the Earthquake” page:
https://fpmt.org/nepal-earthquake/

Sixteen retired race horses were saved from death by Aquila Nera, an animal sanctuary in Italy. Photo courtesy of Aquila Nera.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, through the Animal Liberation Fund, recently offered US$1,000 toward the building of a stupa for rescued race horses in Italy. These perfectly healthy horses were slotted to be put to death as they are no longer considered useful as race horses. Due to the kindness of a non-profit animal sanctuary, Aquila Nera, sixteen horses can now live the remainder of their lives freely roaming open land, listening to mantras, and creating merit by grazing around the new stupa. 

The horses at Aquila Nera can now live out the rest of their lives enjoying the open space and creating merit. A new stupa being built will allow them more opportunity to generate positive karma and purify negativities. Photo courtesy of Aquila Nera.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche was extremely pleased to hear about the work being done for these animals. In a letter to managers of the sanctuary, Rinpoche praised their efforts:

Thank you for your letter informing me about your project saving horses.
Seeing the photos I think it’s really great, the horses look happy and are
enjoying. I am especially very happy with your idea of building a stupa for
them to circumambulate and generate lots of positive karma. It’s a cause for
them to meet the Dharma so that sooner or later they can be free from the
oceans of suffering forever and achieve the peerless happiness of
enlightenment.

I need to especially thank you and all your family who help them, who help
the horses to purify their negative karma created since beginnings time and
help them achieve peerless happiness. So for these reasons I am extremely,
extremely happy with what you are doing.

Although these retired race horses are perfectly healthy, they were slotted to be put to death due to them no longer being considered valuable. Photo courtesy of Aquila Nera.

You are welcome to offer any amount to the Animal Liberation Fund so that offerings such as this can continue. 

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has given extensive advice on how to benefit animals. 

You can watch a video of Lama Zopa Rinpoche blessing these horses in Italy. 

His Holiness the Dalai Lama arriving at the Main Tibetan Temple at the start of ceremonies honoring his 80th Birthday in Dharamsala, HP, India on June 21, 2015. Photo/Tenzin Choejor/OHHD

An important priority for FPMT is offering long life pujas every year for our immeasurably precious teachers: His Holiness the Dalai Lama and our Spiritual Director, Lama Zopa Rinpoche. All FPMT centers, projects and services as well as many FPMT students contribute to these annual pujas.

A long life puja is a ceremonial long life offering to the spiritual teacher. This practice is done to request the spiritual teacher to live a long life for the preservation of the Buddhist teachings and the happiness of all living beings. Many enlightened beings such as Buddha Vajradhara have taught the complete Buddhist path to enlightenment according to the needs of individuals. In order to sustain the Dharma in the world for a long time and to benefit beings, the lamas incarnate as ordinary people. The lama serves as representative of all the Buddhas, benefiting others in ordinary form, as stated by Vajradhara:  

In the degenerate times, I will abide in the form of the spiritual master.
With the aim of benefiting sentient beings,
I will abide in ordinary forms.

Additionally, in early 2014, Lama Zopa Rinpoche translated this special quote from the Stainless Sky Sutra into English:

Ananda, the Tathagatas do not appear to the sentient beings, but the virtuous friend completely appears and reveals the Dharma and plants the seed of liberation; because of that, cherish the virtuous friend as more special than the Tathagatas. 

The tradition of offering the long life puja became prevalent in order for individuals to accumulate merit through sincere respect and devotion toward the guru, to create the cause for the guru to live long, and to help Buddha’s teachings proliferate.

Monks dressed in ritual costumes during the long life puja ceremony for His Holiness the Dalai Lama at the Main Tibetan Temple in Dharamsala, HP, India on June 21, 2015. Photo/Tenzin Choejor/OHHDL

Lama Zopa Rinpoche traveled to India to attend the long life puja offered to His Holiness the Dalai Lama on June 21, 2015, and on behalf of the entire FPMT organization, Lama Zopa Rinpoche made offerings to His Holiness the Dalai Lama during the elaborate long life puja. The long life puja offered was also in honor of His Holiness’ 80th birthday, and marked His Holiness’ actual birthday according to the Tibetan calendar.

Please rejoice in this offering and also in His Holiness’ 80 years of life tirelessly benefiting others.

You are welcome to contribute any amount to the Long Life Puja Fund for His Holiness the Dalai Lama, from which FPMT contributes to a long life puja being offered to His Holiness every year. 

You can learn more about the Long Life Puja Fund or other ways to support our lamas through the Lama Zopa Rinpoche Bodhichitta Fund. 

Recent efforts of Kopan Helping Hands have been in the Dolakha District in Northeast Nepal. This district has been most affected by the earthquake and is very difficult to obtain access to. Photo courtesy of Kopan Facebook page.

Kopan Monastery and Nunnery have been actively involved since the very beginning with relief efforts for those devastated by the Nepal earthquake and subsequent aftershocks. The Nepal Earthquake Support Fund, set up by FPMT International Office at the request of Ven. Roger Kunsang immediately following the earthquake, has been offering grants to the work of Kopan Helping Hands which continues to offer ongoing aid to those in need, despite danger and difficulty. 

Geshe Thubten Jinpa continues to help with the relief efforts and keep up on updates regarding the work of Kopan Helping Hands. In a recent report, he outlined that 66 pounds of rice, cooking oil and salt was offered to families from 481 collapsed households in Dolakha District, Northeast Nepal. He reported that individuals walked twelve miles to the distribution center to collect this aid. Kopan Helping Hands was also able to offer each family 300 Nepalese Rupees for traveling expenses. 

Recently Kopan Helping Hands has been able to help families from over 3,705 households in the Kathmandu surrounding districts, offering bulk food items such as rice, cooking oil, salt and mattresses and also covering traveling expenses for the families to get the aid.

Birds-eye view of the devastation of the Dolakha District of Nepal where Kopan Helping Hands is currently focusing relief efforts toward. Photo courtesy of Kopan Facebook page.

Geshe Jinpa explains: 

“Our current major working area is in Dolakha District. It is the most affected area and road access to whole region was disrupted for a very long time after the earthquake. As soon as the road accessibility was possible the monsoon season began and the delivery of the relief became tough. We had to find the needed materials in local markets and some needed to place orders from outside the city and even from India. Things are then imported to Kathmandu in bigger lorries and shifted to the affected area. Not all destinations can be reached by road so items are transported by smaller vehicle up to where there is the accessibility of the road. Road to the villages are very primary it can be disrupted at any moment. If we have rain for a day landslides will occur everywhere and the vehicles get stuck in the mud. So we must load and unload the things, pushing and pulling of trucks is needed for every single delivery. The trucks, which carry the supply, got stuck in the landslide for two days and we managed to clear the road using another dodger. Four of our monks are stationed in one of most dangerous places since last week and they keep on work of distribution despite heavy rain and fear of landslides and flood. They have to be on the field to collect the data of affected people and find a most effective place for the distribution and called people from villages to the distribution center. Some people even have to walk for days to receive the relief materials. Our volunteer monks on the ground are struggling to make distributions swift and effective while coordinating with  local people and authorities.“

Despite all of this, Kopan Helping Hands continues to offer this much needed support to those in dire need. Please rejoice in this inspiring and courageous effort by the monks and nuns of Kopan who are working extremely hard and tirelessly for the benefit of others. 

Thank you also to all the kind donors who are helping to make this aid possible.

To learn more and offer support to FPMT’s Nepal Earthquake Support Fund, which will be used for immediate relief and rebuilding: https://fpmt.org/support/socialservices/id.

Kopan Monastery is accepting donations for their ongoing work, mention “Kopan Helping Hands” in the comments: http://www.kopanmonastery.com/earthquake

For “Prayers and Practice for Earthquake in Nepal,” see:
https://fpmt.org/edu-news/prayers-and-practices-for-earthquake-in-nepal/

For continuing updates and news from Kopan Monastery and other FPMT centers and projects in Nepal affected by the earthquake, please visit our “Updates from Nepal after the Earthquake”page:
https://fpmt.org/nepal-earthquake/

Kopan Sangha performing the pujas recommended for Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s long life. Photo courtesy of Kopan Monastery.

Every year, Ven. Roger Kunsang, Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s faithful assistant for 29 years and CEO of FPMT Inc. checks with high lamas about any pujas that are needed to be done for the health and long life of Lama Zopa Rinpoche. 

In March Ven. Roger Kunsang checked for 2015 and based on the advice received a number of pujas were arranged such as:

• Sixteen Arhats  Long Life Puja
• Namgyäl Tong Chö (One thousand sets of offerings to Buddha Namgyälma)
• Dartok Sersum
• Tse Drub

Extensive offerings carefully arranged for the pujas offered for Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s long life.

These pujas were sponsored by the Puja Fund and the Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Long Life Puja Fund and offered on behalf of the entire FPMT organization. 

Thanks to the Kopan Sangha for offering these pujas. 

May these pujas create the cause for Lama Zopa Rinpoche to have perfect health and a very long life. 

All are welcome to participate in the offering of these pujas by donating any amount to the Puja Fund or the Lama Zopa Rinpoche Long Life Puja Fund.

You can learn more about the Puja Fund the activities of the Long Life Puja Fund or any FPMT’s Charitable Projects.