The Tashi Delek Project
PLEASE CONSIDER SHARING your abundance with a Tibetan brother through the charity projects of Tara Dhatu.
Those of us watching the unbelievable violence, oppression and terror perpetrated by China onto Tibetan people are often sad and hopeless. This is a small way we can help people who have been directly hurt by these events, and help them find freedom to practice their religion.
Refugee monks would be very grateful for your support now. Only $15 per month
Tibetan refugees have suffered the loss of their homeland and many are separated from their families. They have all made the extremely grueling trek over the Himalayas, to escape the Chinese oppression and live free in India. With little means of support, many of them live in extreme poverty and are grateful for the compassionate assistance of others. They are very hardy, well organized people and have made incredible progress in India with what is given to them, establishing large settlements and huge colleges.
In Tibetan custom, acts of generosity engender tremendous blessings in the life of the donor --- the ripple effect of your kindness will touch the lives of many.
Above is a photo of Geshe Lotze, a senior teacher, and some of the 50 monks he teaches. Ser Je, the monastery they are part of, houses over 5000 monks. They are currently in great need of general donations.
The Tashi Delek Project
is one of several projects sponsored by Tara Dhatu, focuses on sponsoring monks located in a South Indian refugee camp in Bylakupe. Most of these young people have arrived here after great sacrifices, in the hope of obtaining an education and practicing their Buddhist religion. Most came across to India as young children.
Tara Dhatu's Charity Committee is actively seeking volunteers and donations to provide young people with educational opportunities and the chance to grow up free to practice their religion and honor their culture. Your support allows monks to devote their lives to spiritual practice and assists elders in maintaining their dignity and Tibetan traditions. We invite you now, to support this work of bringing benefit to so many in such great need.
Amara Karuna and Lobsang Phuntsok, a monk she is sponsoring.
Sponsorship: (minimum One-year Commitment) $140 one time payment, using checks or credit cards, or you can set up a subscription for monthly payments using paypal. Only $12 per month!
This is ideally a long-term commitment, so that you develop a meaningful relationship with your sponsored monk. Financial support is encouraged for the duration of the monk's education. However even one year is helpful. The sponsor will receive biographical data of the monk, occasional letters and greeting cards. Correspondence and visits from the Sponsor are welcomed.
Your donation supplies them with food, housing and education for one year. You are encouraged to create a personal relationship with them, and they will offer special prayers for you. Many of them are separated from their parents and your caring attention means a great deal to them.
General donation for Special Projects:
Is a contribution given without the long-term commitment of a sponsorship. It helps meet day-to-day needs of the mentioned projects and will be used where the need is greatest. One project they really need help with now is replacing the roofs of their homes which were damaged in the recent monsoons. Any amount is appreciated.
MONKS SEEKING SPONSORS
When you have chosen a sponsoree, please email your choice to Amara Karuna, the project Chairperson,
at tashidelek at mindspring.com
To view those who have already found sponsors, go to FOUND SPONSORS
About House 114 and the teacher Geshe Lotzun,
A moving personal letter from a sponsor
Dear Friends,
In the the state of Karnataka in Southern India, in the village of Bylakuppe, are located Sera Jey and Sera May Monasteries, two of the monastic universities of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. These monasteries are made up of many small sangas. One of these sangas, House #114 at Sera Jey, is the home of forty monks from the region of Kham in Tibet. Dear Geshe Lotzun has lovingly guided the young monks who live at this home since 1959, when he fled Tibet in the first wave of refugees.
Tara Dhatu pilgrims first visited House # 114 in 1999. For many of us this was our first time with Tibetan Buddhist monks, as well as our first experience in a Tibetan Monastery. I will never forget the afternoon our big bus drove into Bylakuppe! Two young monks, Tenzin, who is Geshe Lotzun's translator, along with Kunsong Tsering, were waiting for us. They jumped aboard our bus and took us through the village to House #114. As we got off the bus we were greeted by all the monks, as well as Geshe Lotzun. A huge parachute hung from the trees to make a shelter for the chairs and tables they had set up for us. Malas were waiting on small tables for each of us, and as we sat down, we were served our first taste of Tibetan butter tea, and later wonderful Tibetan food.
For three days we were served each meal with loving care, as they shared with us the story of their sanga, as well as their individual stories. So many dear memories come to me as I remember this first visit. The young monk, who always served us with his quiet humor, turned out to be Namkha Jigme Rinpoche. Geshe Lotzun took us one night to watch several hundred monks as they debated in the courtyards of Sera! I remember the joy of the young monks who we were able to sponsor. They hurried to their rooms to get the most precious things they had to give; pictures of their homes or families in Tibet. Only later, on my second visit, did I realize just how few their resources were. I know now they gave everything they had in the way of food and hospitality. Without reservation they shared everything, including their hearts, their trust and their love.
In the winter of 2003 I again met Namkha Jigme Rinpoche and Dorje Tsewong at Bodh Gaya, when were we attending the Kalachakra Initiation with His Holiness. It was a warm and wonderful time together, and deep friendships began to grow. Rinpoche invited me to come back to Sera Jey in the spring to teach English to the monks of House # 114. I was delighted, and with joy accepted!
I returned to Sera Jey with Rinpoche that spring, and was given my own room. I was deeply humbled that, in this small and crowded sanga, my room had been prepared with such care. The ceiling had been patched in many places to try to keep the rain out! I lived there for two months, and truly became part of the sanga family. I taught English every afternoon for two hours. The weather at these southern monasteries is hot! The monks begin each day at anywhere from 2:00 to 4:00 a.m. I usually went to sleep listening to their gentle voices as they chanted and memorized their texts, as they walked in our yard, about 10:00 p.m. each night. Their much needed rest time each day was about two hours each afternoon. I again was humbled, when I realized that the monks attending my afternoon English classes were giving up this precious time of rest to study!
Geshe Lotzun has dedicated his entire life in exile to the monks in his care. Their home, their needs, their monastic education are his heart's work. Unlike many lamas, he has chosen to stay close to those in his care rather than leave to try to raise funds for his sanga. Through the years he has been able to make small repairs to the houses to make do. Since 1959 the monsoon rains of the summers have really begun to take a toll! Most of the roofs leak badly; inner and out walls are crumbling.
Recently three new buildings were initiated. One was the first and only shower facility the sanga has ever known. That shower has been completed because of sponsorship generated by Tara Dhatu. During my visit to House #114 last winter I saw the near completion of the second building, and the beginning of the third. But there is still so very much to do. Monks are still escaping from Tibet. Geshe Lotzun welcomes all those who come to him. Most of the roofs of the monks'
rooms continue to leak. They are four or more people in each small room. There is still just one shower room with a few showers for more than forty monks. These precious monks feel a deep heart connection to us! They cherish with all their heart the letters and pictures that they receive from those of you who sponsor them. Their dedication to the dharma is awe inspiring. I believe these monastic universities of His Holiness hold the heart of Tibetan Buddhism in their hands. Their course of study is long and rigorous. Because of Geshe Lotzun's constant guidance, and the dedicated work of these monks, many monks from House #114 have attained the highest Geshe Degrees!
I can tell you that often the food these courageous students of the dharma eat and the shoes they wear, are from the help Tara Dhatu sponsorship provides each year. Last winter, when His Holiness was Teaching at Sera, I asked to stay with them for several weeks. I was immediately and joyfully told yes! Of course come! Only as I settled into my own room, did I realize that they were also hosting an additional 65 monks from Drepong Monastery for the Teachings! Their hearts open with unconditional love and they do not ever even consider turning anyone away!
Let us be inspired by their noble example and share what we have! Please join us in helping provide needed repair work, and the completion of the new buildings they so desperately need at House #114. My greatest prayer is that one day you will visit this sanga, and meet for yourself these bodhisattva souls. I have many more stories, many photos too! Please feel free to contact me. I would be overjoyed to share with you even more about House # 114!
In love and service, Susanne Bell
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About Tara Dhatu:
An international organization dedicated to empowering and uplifting humanity through the sacred arts. IIt is a vehicle for the spread and practice of the Dance of the 21 Praises of Tara, choreographed by Prema Dasara. Since 1985 the dance has traveled throughout the world. A series of videos have been made and the organization has grown to sponsor workshops and trainings in the Tara Dance and other Dharma Dances, offering celebrations, pilgrimages of citizen diplomacy, and an array of Charity Projects seeking to benefit the Tibetans-in-exile. http://www.taradhatu.org/
ABOUT TARA DHATU CHARITY PROJECTS:
Since 1986, Prema Dasara has been providing financial support to a small group of Tibetan refugee nuns in India. With the creation of Tara Dhatu and its nonprofit status, the organization began to take on the task of directing funds to several groups of nuns and Tibetan families in need. In the Fall of 1998 Tara Dhatu began a full scale charity outreach program and created the Charity Projects Committee.
The vision and scope of this work has expanded greatly following the 1998 Tara Dance Pilgrimage to India and Nepal. There the delegation made connections with schools, nunneries, and organizations housing families and senior citizens.
They have been working with the Tibetan Children's Village finding sponsors and generally trying to support their situation.
If you would like a video about the School for Orphans,
edited by Anahata Iradah, they have a batch on sale right now...
"Other's Before Self- A Village of Compassion". That money too supports the work. Write to <ciara108@compuserve.com> for the video
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Sharp rise in Tibetan refugees risking trek to India (AFP)
by Uttara Choudhury
DHARAMSALA, India, May 1 (AFP) - The influx of Tibetan refugee children to India this year has more than doubled in what refugee centre workers here say is a clear sign of increasing Chinese oppression.
Nawang Norbu, deputy director of the Reception Centre for Tibetan Refugees in the northern town of Dharamsala, told AFP that 1,500 children below the age of 13 had arrived in India in the four months to April.
"In the past years, the four-monthly average has been 500-600," he said. "There has been a very sharp jump recently. Our reception centres in India and Nepal have been flooded."
Norbu pointed out that many died while undertaking the gruelling
three-week trek across the Himalayas on foot and muleback, "so there must be something that forces these children to take such risks".
"It breaks my heart to see the tiny ones walk in petrified and drooping with exhaustion," he said. Tenzin Chokey, researcher at the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, said the new arrivals spoke of heightened repression.
"There is a constant stream of refugee children pouring out of Tibet to escape violent repression. The figures refute Chinese claims of providing job opportunities and education for Tibetan children."
The ones who make it to India are sent by the refugee reception centres to study in a Tibetan residential school in Dharamsala run by the administration of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.
"We keep them for roughly two weeks till they get their strength back. They all enjoy an audience with the Dalai Lama before being sent to the refugee schools," said Norbu.
Pasang Tsering, a 28-year-old father-of-three, who arrived in Dharamsala Thursday from a remote Tibetan village in Derge county in Kandaze, said he and his wife carried their younger children."We carried the younger two boys. But my oldest seven-year-old son walked on his
own. I only picked him up when he stumbled in a bad patch of snow," Tsering said with visible pride.
"We gave all the money we had to a guide and joined a group of 40 people trekking to India through Nepal. We started our journey three weeks ago. I wanted my boys to get an education. I can't read."
Tsering explained that he also undertook the dangerous 1,000-1,300
kilometer (625-810 mile) journey because he had no money to pay his dues to the Chinese authorities for breaking the two-child norm in Tibet.
"I was always scared back home about the fines. When I see our god-king (Dalai Lama) I will finally know peace."Meanwhile, Tsering's seven-year-old son Chamba Tondhay said he was "very excited" about his audience with the Dalai Lama.
"I will ask him for his picture and a pair of spectacles. Policemen took away the picture I had of him."
According to refugees like Tsering, Chinese authorities ransack homes of Tibetans during "surprise checks" looking for altars, Buddhist scriptures and pictures of the Dalai Lama.
"They want to wipe out those who have sympathies for independence," said Tsering. "There were no Chinese people living in our area so we had no schools, electricity, roads or hospitals."
Many of the refugee children require urgent medical aid upon arrival in India and it is a common sight among the Tibetan community in Dharamsala to see people with amputated fingers or scarred faces as the result of severe frostbite.
"The arrivals really step up between November and March because the Chinese cannot really enforce security in the thick snow," said Chokey.
"It is our exiled government's policy to give them an education here and then ask them to go back to Tibet," she added.
