These links jump to a specific item, or scroll down for all the news of 2012 events at Tushita.
- Courses
Visits by Lama Zopa Rinpoche - Special Guests
- Sombre Losar
- Water Shortages
- Gompa refurbishment
- Farewell
- Tushita’s New Director
- Our Latest Nun!
Courses, Courses, Courses…!
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!
Lama Zopa Rinpoche visits Tushita
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.
Special Guests
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 April. 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!
A Sombre Losar, February 25th 2009
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’.
Water Shortages
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!
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.
Goodnight Choggu
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…
Tushita’s new Director
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!
Venerable Kunphen’s Ordination
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.
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…