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June 2012: We are delighted to present you with new videos which help illustrate the many benefits of this project.
“A Brief Introduction to the Sera Je Food Fund” is a short introduction and overview of the project.
“The Making of Food” is 23-minute video providing a virtual tour of how the food is prepared for all 2,600 monks at Sera Je Monastery.
All Sera Je Food Fund videos can be found on our new video page on the Sera Je Food Fund web page.
June 2012: FPMT was able to send US$115,000 to Sera Je Monastery. This contribution covers the next six months’ worth of meals for all 2,600 monks currently studying at Sera Je.
Thank you to all the kind benefactors who support this amazing project and please rejoice in this incredible offering that we are able to make to the Sangha, our future center geshes and to His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
“If you offer with the recognition that they are the guru’s pores,” Lama Zopa Rinpoche said in 2011, “then that is an unbelievable way to collect merit. When you offer to many Sangha who have the same guru, then you are making offerings to that many pores of the guru. This is the easiest way to collect skies of merit by offering. By offering even just one candy or flowers or even one grain of rice to a statue of Buddha or even a visualized Buddha, you collect skies of merit. It is much more powerful than offering to the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha) as well as all the statues, stupas and scriptures existing in all directions, so there is no question if really offering to the same guru’s disciple. These benefits should be understood so that when you make offerings to the guru’s pores that you think correctly. This is the best business.”
Received May 2012: The sun is at its brightest at 9 a.m., but a soft breeze blows making the morning chilly. Hundreds of monks in their maroon robes begin to flow in, clutching a square cushion in their right hands, like someone going to the office would carry a briefcase, and a plate in their left hands. Soon the debate courtyard is full with thousands of them and before long the courtyard turns into a huge garden of red roses.
After an hour-and-a-half long prayer session, everyone scatters all over the courtyard, each looking for a debate partner. In less than a minute the whole yard is covered with monks debating in pairs.
Thousands of hands clapping together with loud voices of Dharma discussion makes it sound like the middle of India’s busiest train station. Everyone seems so enthusiastic and absorbed in debate. Amazed and transfixed by the atmosphere around me, I hardly notice that time is running. It is 11:30 a.m. when the disciplinary master signals the conclusion of the morning session.
The senior monks gradually move towards the dining hall but so many other junior ones are still fully engaged in the high fever of debate, looking so determined to prove their side of the argument.
By the time I find my seat in the dining room, many senior monks have taken theirs in the front rows as more monks make their way into the dining room. Soon the hall is filled with thousands of monks and a deep voice far in front begins to roar. I realize it is the prayer from Lama Tsongkhapa’s “Songs of Experience,” with its repeated verse: “I, the practitioner has practiced in this way. You the seeker of liberation, practice in the same way.”
As I listen to this prayer, my eyes roll over the many monks sitting around me. All of them look like they are in their thirties and forties, mostly quite skinny, the maroon of their robes a little faded, heads fully shaved, yet looking glorious sitting so calmly in concentration, perhaps contemplating the words of the prayer. Then hundreds of junior monks rush in with basins, buckets and kettles of food. It is an international marathon with Indians, Europeans, Americans, Chinese and Koreans among the procession serving the meal.
I am totally thrilled by this spectacular atmosphere, but as the serving of food begins my heart suddenly fills with a strange mixture of joy and sentiment. I am thrown back down memory lane to when Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche was emphasizing so much about the Sera Je Food Fund project, when he explained to every benefactor about its importance, and the time he put his palms together to appeal for support for the project. I recall Rinpoche working so hard to start this project and all the time and effort he took to make it run smoothly.
A part of my mind is rejoicing, “How wonderful the job Rinpoche has done! How kind he is. What an abundance of merit he let so many people create!” I cannot recall every thought that arose at that moment but it is all so emotional, hearing the voice reciting Lama Tsongkhapa’s inspirational prayer above these thoughts as my heart is moved more than ever with rejoicing and admiration. Then my heart explodes with extraordinary faith and tears begin to roll down my cheeks, silently slipping under my spectacles. I come to realize only when a drop falls into my rice bowl. By then my voice has turned soft and I find myself crying uncontrollably. Perhaps people around me start to notice.
By now, rice, dhal and a piece of fruit is served to each monk in the hall and food offering prayers begin. I sense unconditional appreciation and profound dedication in every monk throughout the offering prayer. Everyone begins to eat. For me, it is the most delicious dhal and rice I ever tasted. Silence is unbroken while thousands of monks empty their bowls, but I cannot finish my share as the feeling of admiration for my guru’s extraordinary deed makes me constantly emotional.
Soon with dedication prayers completed, all the monks leave their seats making way for the juniors to clean the place. I have no choice but to leave with the remaining food left in my bowl. As I walk out I notice a group of old monks, mostly in their seventies and eighties, some crippled with stick in right hand and a bowl in the left.
I go up to one of them whom I know and ask why he needs to come all the way when he can send one of his young disciples to fetch food for him.
He gives me a toothless smile and answers: Eating in the Sangha assembly means not only sharing the food but sharing our merit by making it greater, making our merit stronger, and dedicating for the happiness of all sentient beings. It is also to rejoice in the great deeds of Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche and all the benefactors of the Food Fund. He puts his palms together every time the name of my guru was mentioned. He keeps saying that coming to the Sangha assembly is never troublesome to him when he thinks of what wonderful karma has been created by those who have made this food offering possible.
I feel so much joy to see for myself the immense benefits that Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche and his disciples worldwide have brought to the entire Sangha assembly of Sera Je Monastery through the Food Fund Project!
Written by Geshe Thubten Jinpa, November 28, 2011. Edited by Ven. Tenzin Tsultrim April 4, 2012. Gently edited for inclusion here.
February 2012: Dried food was distributed to about 2,550 of our Sera Je monks! No, not to celebrate Valentine’s Day but because our main kitchen will be closed during the coming two weeks Losar (Tibetan New Year) holidays.
Each monk received 2.5 kg of rice, 4 kg of flour and 0.5 liter of cooking oil. In total, we have distributed 6375 kg of rice, 10,200 kg of flour and 1275 liters of cooking oil!
A BIG Thank You to all the Sera Je Food Fund sponsors!
August 2011: Cherok Lama generously sponsored a new bread-making machine for the Sera Je Food Fund kitchen. This was offered on the occasion of his Rik-Chung ceremony in August of last year.
This new machine has reduced the need for kitchen helpers (who are all monks studying in the monastery) by 50%. This means that these monks will have more time for their studies and practices!
Please enjoy this short video of the bread-making machine in action.
On the first day it managed to produce more than 800 loaves of bread for the day’s lunch in two hours, and again in the afternoon, 1,200 loads of bread for next day’s breakfast! This is a great improvement for the Sera Je Food Fund kitchen.
We also thank Cherok Lama for offering US$13,000 for a new refrigerator for the Sera Je Food Fund kitchen.
108 Yaks: A Journey of Love & Freedom, a 30-minute documentary, follows the project from its origins, from Geshe Jinpa receiving Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice to save the yaks, to the 19-day expedition driving the yaks across the Himalayan range of northeast Nepal to their remote sanctuary in the holy valley of Rolwaling.
November 2011: During Thanksgiving 25 turkeys were bought and liberated at Buddha Amitabha Pureland in Washington State.
October 2011: When Rinpoche heard how hundreds of thousands of animals in Nepal would be sacrificed during Dashain (a yearly, 15-day Hindu religious festival), Rinpoche immediately started to check what prayers and pujas should be done to help all the animals have a good rebirth as well as to help those who perform the sacrifices. Rinpoche then requested over 10,000 Sangha members from the three great monasteries and many other monasteries and nunneries to do extensive Medicine Buddha puja as well as nyung näs with strong dedications for all animals that are killed, especially those being sacrificed during Dashain as well as for those who do the killing. The cost of all the pujas was over US$15,000, which Lama Zopa Rinpoche and students sponsored.
June 2011: The Animal Liberation Fund donated US$25,000 to liberate two million lives, dedicated especially for the health and long life of Lama Zopa Rinpoche. This animal liberation was organized by Amitabha Buddhist Centre in Singapore.
August 2010: A US$5,000 donation was given to the MAITRI Charitable Trust in India for their amazing ongoing work to save animals from harm.
This is the fifth year of a series of initiations given by His Holiness the Sakya Trizin at his monastery in Dehradun, India. This is a rare and utterly precious opportunity to receive the entire collection of initiations from His Holiness the Sakya Trizin called Wangya Norbu Tangwa (Garlands of Jewels of Hundreds of Initiations).
The Preserving the Lineage Fund offered breakfast, lunch and dinner to more than 800 Sangha (including about 65 Gelug lamas) attending these most critical initiations, as well sponsorship of His Holiness the Sakya Trizin’s household and attendants.
An elaborate long life puja for His Holiness the Sakya Trizin is part of the event and offered at the end of the teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Preserving the Wangya Norbu Tangwa has become a matter of urgency as the lineage of the initiations had completely died out in the Gelug tradition. Initially, Rinpoche with other Gelug lamas, including Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche, received the first half of these initiations from His Eminence Chobgye Trichen Rinpoche in 1991, but age and poor health stopped him from giving the transmissions in their entirety.
January 2012: Tenzin Ösel Hita visited Sera Je Monastery and made a point to check out the Sera Je Food Fund kitchen.
