March 16 2014 was the Tibetan festival day of Chotrul Duchen, the full moon day that marks the end of the 15 Days of Miracles and this day is considered to be very auspicious for practice. Buddhists and admirers of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in the McLeod Ganj area (including Tushita’s staff, volunteers and […]
Rangjung Neljorma Khadro Namsel Drolma, also known as Khadro la, very kindly accepted our request to give a teaching and Q & A on Sunday, March 9th 2014. Although Khadro-la has been to Tushita many times as a special guest of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, this was the first time that she had given a full […]
Losar-la Tashi Delek! Happy Tibetan New Year! The Year of the Wood Horse began on March 2nd 2014. Tushita’s Tibetan staff celebrated with their annual capse (Tibetan breadsticks) event, making, sharing, and offering gift plates to everyone here, and to HH the Dalai Lama, whose throne is set up on the Dining Room to symbolically […]
Tushita staff and volunteers gathered together in early February to prepare the centre for re-opening – in a climate that reminded us why we have an annual Winter Break! As we braved the cold by running around getting ready, on the 15th of February there was a storm that dropped 6 inches of snow on […]
HH the Dalai Lama will confer a Kalachakra Initiationin Leh, Ladakh, J&K State, India from July 3 – 14, 2014. The initiation to the Kalachakra is one of the most important… because it takes everything into account, the body and the human mind, and the whole external aspect – cosmic and astrological. We firmly believe in […]
Dear Friends of Tushita, Autumn 2012 saw the inauguration of the main Gompa painting project which meant closing the Gompa to the public in late September, with 2 months of the season still remaining. Whilst the project has been ongoing we have tried our best to ensure that the courses could continue to run well […]
In November 2013 we launched our new-look website, the one you are reading this article on! We’re very happy with the new site, which has heightened security and features with potential for expansion of online audio-visual materials. The site was a complete re-build, so the full transition of a few elements from our old site […]
A very important project for Tushita, so Tushita can become more useful Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche (March 2010) It has been a long-term wish for Tushita to be able to improve its personal retreat facilities, to provide more supportive and conducive conditions for practitioners wishing to do personal retreat. For 40 years, our main retreat facilities […]
In October 2013, new marble plaques were installed at Geshe Rabten‘s stupa. You can see photos of these plaques above, and of the stupa today, below right. We used one of our favourite quotes from one of Geshe Rabten’s books: Buddhism is neither the strange tradition of some foreign lands, nor a method to flee […]
Monsoon 2013 started early, ended late and made its presence felt throughout. It was one of the longest and heaviest monsoons in recent memory and many other parts of Northern India experienced terrible flooding. Thankfully, the Dharamsala area, and Himachal Pradesh in general, escaped the worst of it and apart from a small land-slip at […]
When Lama Zopa Rinpoche left Tushita on the 19th of June 2013, he travelled to Triloknath, a small village in the Lahaul district of Himachal Pradesh. Triloknath is also known as Garsha Khandroling, “Land of the Dakinis.”, and has an ancient temple that houses a self-emanating statue of Chenrezig. Lama Zopa, along with Khadro-la and […]
Tushita and the FPMT’s spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche arrived at Tushita early in the morning of May 24th 2013 and stayed for a month, before leaving on the 19th of June for a short retreat in Manali. Rinpoche’s visits are always intense and full of surprises, and we’ve kept an event-by-event diary of the activities that occurred […]
On May 10th 2013, it felt like history was in the making when our three A-Frame retreat huts that were built in the mid-1970s started to be dismantled to make way for three beautiful new retreat huts to be built this autumn (the first stage of Tushita’s Retreat Hut Project, which you can read more about […]
We were very sad to learn that Venerable Lobsang Namdrol, the longest-term resident of our monastic community, passed away on January 13th 2013 at Drepung Monastery, Karnataka State, South India. He was 85 years old and had been in good health right up until his peaceful departure from this life. Ven Namdrol received his initial […]
The 2013 season began with a wonderful surprise! Our old friend David Marks (left) returned to Tushita after 4 years, and we were excited to be able to accept his offer to guide and teach here for a few months. David will be leading an extended version of our daily drop-in guided meditation sessions here every day except Sunday, from […]
We only had “Great Compassion” until we adopted “Wisdom” in October 2012, and accepted “Happiness” into our lives in February 2013… And so now we have all three, more familiarly known by their Tibetan names: “Nying-je Chenmo”, “Yeshe” and “Dekyi” – Tushita’s canine sangha! Nying-je has been our resident darling since she arrived as a […]
The two Lama Tsongkhapa Disciple statues arrived at Tushita in May 2012. Fundraising began at the beginning of 2009 and took 2½ years to complete (one of them is below left during the construction phase). The project was made possible thanks to 121 kind sponsors who supported the project. Since June 2011 we had been […]
Dear Friends of Tushita, Reflecting back on 2012 so far, the 40th anniversary year of Tushita has been so rich in Dharma and so full of activity. The season began in a series of special retreats based on Kalachakra and Highest Yoga Tantra, led by Andy Wistreich. This was an unusual beginning and immediately brought […]
Tushita’s Newsletter Magazines 2012 Two Special Guests in November November 6th 2012 was the Buddhist festival day of Lhabab Duechen (Shakyamuni Buddha’s Descent from Tushita). This is one of the four special days in the Buddhist calendar on which the effects of any positive actions are said to multiply 100 million times… As part of […]
Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s end of year visit On the 2nd of November 2011, we were blessed by the arrival of our Spiritual Director, Lama Zopa Rinpoche (and not to forget Ven’s Roger, Holly, Sangpo and Khedrup!). Since Rinpoche’s stroke in April, attempts have been made to encourage him to cut down on public teachings and […]
Hayagriva Retreat – Overview The following texts about the Hayagriva Retreat were excerpted from a letter written by retreatant Melissa Mouldin. The Most Secret Hayagriva Retreat with the amazing Lama Zopa Rinpoche and 120+ FPMT sisters and brothers at Tushita Meditation Centre in Dharamsala, India, from March 3-31, 2010 was, unsurprisingly, wonderful! For the first […]
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 […]
His Holiness the Dalai Lama being awarded the Congressional Gold Medal on October 17th in Washington DC, U.S.A. CONGRATULATIONS TO HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMAFOR BEING AWARDED THE CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL! May His Holiness have a long & healthy life and may all of HIS holy wishes be instantly fulfilled! Saka Dawa – May 31st […]