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* TUSHITA NEWS * TUSHITA NEWS *
TUSHITA NEWS * TUSHITA
NEWS * TUSHITA NEWS
*
Welcome to Tushita
Meditation Centre's news page for late 2008 / early 2009.
It's been a vibrant time!
We hope you enjoy hearing
about the goings-on up here on the blessed hill,
just click on any of the topics below for all the info...

In October
2008, the Tushita ship got a new captain!
After 5
years as Director, Drolkar McCallum sailed off for adventures new and
Lama Zopa
Rinpoche once again demonstrated his incredible insight by appointing our
wonderful new Director, Linda Lowry (pictured left).

Drolkar (pictured right) oversaw the fund-raising, planning and actual
rebuilding of our main Gompa and made an invaluable contribution to
Tushita’s
future. We wish Drolkar and her husband Gelek all the very best for
their new
life in Canada.
Linda has made an amazing start, renewing our Tara
Statue Sponsorship programme, planning
our new accommodation block, and opening dialogues with our neighbours
to share practical advice about how to make Tushita more
environmentally
friendly. A major project that she will be developing in the coming
months is a
scheme to harvest rainwater, hopefully easing our chronic water
shortage. Tushita is very glad that you're here, Linda! |
| Lama
Zopa Rinpoche visits Tushita |
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March
11th 2009, the "Day of
Miracles" in the Tibetan calendar. We started the day by heading down
to
the main temple in McLeod Ganj to attend the one-day teaching by His
Holiness the Dalai Lama, accompanied by 50 students from the
"Introduction to Buddhism" course that had finished the previous day.
After spending a few hours with His Holiness, we arrived back
at
Tushita to find Lama Zopa
Rinpoche drinking tea in the garden,
Day of Miracles indeed! It was the start of an amazing month of
teachings and adventures.
Rinpoche
arranged for a number
of extraordinary events to happen during his time
at Tushita; 1,000 candle offerings, initiations, refuge ceremonies for
new students. One evening he even arrived with a briefcase full of
relics!! (wider picture below) A few days after his arrival, he performed an Incense
Puja on the roof of his house,
dedicated to Tushita and her future stability. We were honoured (and a
little
star-struck!) that Rinpoche invited 2 very special guests, Dagri
Rinpoche
and Khadro-la,
to join the puja (pictured upper right). You can see more pictures from these events here.
Khadro-la
and Dagri Rinpoche
became regular visitors during Lama Zopa's time at Tushita, and one
night we all squeezed into our Fire Puja house for a beautiful and
powerful ceremony, with Khadro-la as the
Fire Queen! More photos can be seen here.
And
as if all this wasn't enough,
Rinpoche ended this stay in India by leading a pilgrimage to Tso Pema
(aka Rewalsar),
a small town 5 hours drive from McLeod Ganj which has a strong
association with Padmasambava (Guru Rinpoche), for Guru Rinpoche's
festival day. Even better, Rinpoche insisted that we Tushita staff
close up shop for the weekend and go with him! (pictured below,
centre).
It was an extraordinary
trip, Pujas with LZR, Dagri Rinpoche and Khadro-la by the Holy Lake and
in the Padmasambava caves high above the town, glorious scenery and so
many
blessings.
Photos of this trip are here.
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Venerable
Kunphen's Ordination
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Once
upon a time there
was an East German
receptionist called Sabine.
She proved to be a workaholic and therefore was the
perfect candidate for the role of Spiritual Programme Coordinator at
Tushita.
And so it was. After several years of organizing Tushita’s
hectic
calendar,
Sabine left for the 2007/8 winter break and returned to Tushita
transformed.
The
newly named Venerable
Tenzin Kunphen took Rabjung vows with Kyabje Lama
Zopa in Bodhgaya, and then Getsul vows with His Holiness the Dalai Lama
here in
McLeod Ganj, and was the cause of much celebration and merit-by-proxy
among her
delighted colleagues.
Happily
ever after for many
lifetimes.
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Our
beloved dog Choggu
died in October 2008. The last in
the lineage of Lama Yeshe’s famous Tushita dogs, Choggu was a
grand old lady of
16 when she died, surrounded by love, prayers and practices.
Following Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s instructions, her body was
cremated in front of
Lama Yeshe’s stupa in a ceremony presided over by
Tushita’s
Geshe
Tsering (half-brother of Lama Yeshe) and attended by Tushita staff,
sangha, students,
friends and Kalu and Nying-je, our two remaining dogs. Although we miss
her terribly, we fully expect a Perfect Human Rebirth for Choggu and
hope to
receive Dharma teachings from her in about 20 years...
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Courses,
Courses, Courses...!
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Introductory
& Intermediate-level courses, workshops and retreats have been
running back-to-back, side-by-side (and sometimes
upside
down) since February.
We started off with the Pre-Ordination
Course
(now officially a
pre-requisite for Westerners who have applied to take ordination with
His Holiness the Dalai Lama), led by Sister Jotika and the
one-course-only return of Ani Rita.
This ran parallel with Tushita’s staple Introduction
to Buddhism courses,
which
continue to
transform lives thanks to the inspired guidance of teachers such as Ven.
Jampa Dekyi, Ven.
Tenzin
Chogkyi
and Glen
Svensson.
After
leading a few
sessions during the Pre-Ordination Course, Geshe
Graham
Woodhouse returned to lead his
outstanding 9-day course "Ultimate
Truth: The
teachings of the Buddha on Emptiness
and Dependent
Arising" ,
offering experienced
students a challenging immersion in Lama Tsongkhapa’s wisdom
teachings. Geshe Graham will return to the UK soon, so this may have
been his last course at Tushita for some time.
We were so inspired by Ven Tenzin Chogkyi that we begged her to teach
and teach and teach! She barely had time to observe her breath between
leading meditations on the Ultimate
Truth
course and leading her own
Intermediate level courses, "Radical
Compassion",
"Peaceful Living & Peaceful Dying" and
"Meditations on
Emptiness", allowing many
students to continue their studies
throughout March and April. Photos from many of these courses can be
seen on our
Facebook profile.
And
making sure that all 3 of
our Gompas were filled with Dharma students, Ven.
Jampa Dekyi
and Hedwig Bakker led 2 and 3-day Non-Residential "How
to Meditate"
courses...
Phew!
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Winter
2008/9 was unseasonably
warm and dry up here in the
foothills of the Himalayas, and the lack of snow in the mountains has
given
McLeod Ganj serious concerns over the water supply for the year
ahead.
Alarm
bells were ringing at Tushita when we were forced to issue water
restrictions
to students in February, on our very first course of the year. There
were only
20 students on the course, but already we had to dip into the emergency
water
buckets in order to flush the toilets. By March we had to close off the
upper shower block, leaving just 2 bucket showers for all students,
staff and sangha on the property - generally around 80 people! Yes,
there’s a very ripe aura around Tushita... But, with some
forward
planning, resourcefulness and the practice of
patience on the part of our amazing students, we are currently able to
keep our courses running on a residential basis.
With so
many courses and retreats coming up this year, we’re
looking into all possible alternatives to help utilize our limited
water supply
efficiently in the long-term, primarily Linda’s water
harvesting
project. This
will involve the installation of a large water storage tank and
guttering system and donations
towards this project would be very welcome. Make it possible for
Tushita to keep running her invaluable residential programmes, and for
her
staff to shower more than once a week!
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| Refurbishment
of Two Gompas! |
The Main Gompa (Meditation Hall)
building may be
finished, but improvements are ongoing up here on the blessed hill.
A generous donation by a former retreatant made
it possible for improvements to be made to the Vajrasattva Gompa over
the
winter break. The rickety flooring and holey (as well as holy) carpet
that had
seen a few too many full-length prostrations were replaced by varnished
floorboards (pictured above).
The refurbishment involved a mammoth feat of engineering and elbow
grease in the temporary re-housing of Lama Yeshe's Vajrasattva statue,
done
with aplomb by Tushita staff and volunteers.
Now that it’s done, we’re happy to
say that the removal of the carpet has reduced only dust allergies, not
spiritual energy!
The upgrading continues over in the Main Gompa, where artists are
transforming the Zen-like simplicity of the plain white walls
into a more traditionally Tibetan blaze of splendour (pictured below).
The project to fill the rest of the Gompa is proceeding slowly, but we
can guarantee that any visitors who haven't been to Tushita for a few
years will see quite a difference. |

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Losar
(Tibetan New Year)
festivities in McLeod Ganj were
considerably more low-key than usual this year, in response to renewed
violence and oppression by Chinese authorities in Tibet during 2008,
Year of the Beijing Olympics.
Instead
of the customary dancing and fireworks, Tibetan
welfare groups
appealed to local residents to mark the New Year by praying for their
country-folk, and candle-lit processions and public hunger strikes were
held to
draw international attention to the plight of Tibet.
2009
is also the 50th
anniversary of the
Chinese invasion of Tibet, and there will be events and exhibitions
throughout
the year, centred around the Tibet Museum at His Holiness the Dalai
Lama’s
Temple complex.
Despite the traumatic events associated with the anniversary,
His Holiness made a point of remembering the unbelievable generosity
and
sacrifice made by his host country, at
significant risk to its own national
security,
in sheltering Tibetan refugees. On March 31st 2009, the 50th
anniversary of His arrival into exile in India, His Holiness spent the
day in Delhi offering prayers in places of worship of all the major
religions in India (photos here),
while a banner at the
Main Temple simply read
“Thank You, India”.
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Spring brought
several esteemed visitors to Tushita. One March afternoon as we were
cleaning the Gompa floor, the call went out " Tenzin
Palmo
just drove
up!!!". We dropped rags and picked up Katags and ran out to greet her,
a totally unexpected but utterly delightful meeting. The Pre-Ordination
Course
was on a tea-break at the time so POC leaders Sister Jotika and Ani
Rita were able to catch up with Jetsunma before she sped off again (pictured below).
Having such great teachers resident nearby is one of the incredible
things about living in McLeod Ganj.
Another visitor who got the population of Tushita rather worked up was
Richard Gere, who came up for a brief meeting with Lama Zopa
Rinpoche one day. Richard found time to have his picture taken with
our Manager, Ruth (below right).
This visit happened to coincide with
the
check-in of an "Introduction to Buddhism" course, so 40 students,
brand-new to Dharma, lined up to wave goodbye to our movie star guest.
A memorable event for both them and
Richard Gere?
And finally, Bhikshuni
Thubten Chodron gave two
teachings on "Getting to Know your Mind"
on the 17th and 18th
of May. She is an old friend and annual guest teacher at
Tushita,
and as always we always had a Gompa packed with enquiring minds. Just
another hectic, stimulating, inspired week on the blessed
hill!
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Many Thanks to all students, teachers, residents, local staff and
visitors
who have made the
first half of 2009 such a rich time at
Tushita.
Particular thanks to
Ruth, Rae, Peter and Hartmut for the
photos.
Stay tuned for more
Tushita News, and in the meantime...
MAY ALL BEINGS BE
HAPPY!
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