Dharma Projects
Each year the Manjushri Institute of Buddhist Studies focuses on a limited
number of deserving Dharma projects that serve as opportunities for friends
and members to donate time, funds and other resources. We have recently
concluded two projects.The first raised a total of $3200 for a solar electric
lighting system at Tara Labrang, the household of young Tara Tuku at Drepung
Loseling Monastery, India. Sincere thanks are due to all those who contributed
so generously.
The second was in support of a new dormitory and assemble hall for Samlo
Khamsen at Drepung Gomang in India
that houses monks from Amdo, Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, Buryatia, and Tuva.
We met our goal of $3000 in May 2006. The last three donors of $250 each
received small 200 year-old thangkas from Buryatia, one each of Tsongkhapa,
Chenrezig and Namgyalma. Special thanks to Tenzin Thurman, Basan Nembirkow,
and Elizabeth Burkhart for their generous support. Friend of the Manjushri
Institute and Buryat monk, Yeshe Wangpo, coordinated this effort.
Funds donated to special projects are held separately from operating funds
at the Institute. Please consider participation in the projects described
below. Donations can be sent in the name of the specific project to the
Manjushri Institute at 25 North Main Street, New Salem, MA 01355.
Kalmyk Mongolian Buddhist Project
With the breakup of the Soviet Union and the restructuring of Russia,
the Kalmyk Mongolians in the Russian Republic of Kalmykia, the only Mongolian
Buddhist area of Europe, have been able to rebuild temples and once again
send young monks to be educated in the Tibetan monastic universities,
now located in India. Many of the young Kalmyk monks go to Gomang
College of Drepung Monastery in southern India.
The great Kalmyk Geshe, Ngawang Wangyal, the teacher of many of the foremost
western Buddhist scholars such as Robert Thurman and Jeffery Hopkins,
was a Geshe from Drepung Gomang. Bakshi would often tell stories to his
students of his travels from Kalmykia to Tibet and within China and Mongolia
later in his life. He came to the U.S. in 1955 and shortly after established
the first Tibetan Buddhist Monastery in the America, the Lamaist Buddhist
Monastery of America.
Geshe Ngawang Wangyal
One of his early teachers and root Lama was Agwan Dorjiev, the famous
Buryat Mongol, who reformed Kalmyk and Buryat Buddhism in the early 20th
Century and built the first Tibetan Buddhist temple in a European capital,
St. Petersburg, Russia . Dorjiev was a close associate of the 13th Dalai
Lama and for many years tried to enlist Russia to assist in the protection
of Tibet from Chinese hegemony.
Agwan Dorjiev
In memory of Geshe Wangyal and Agwan Dorjiev funds donated to this project
provide support for the monks from the Temple in Kalmykia to travel to
India and for expenses while they are living at Drepung Gomang. This project
is coordinated through Geshe Dugda, the Abbot of the recently built Syakusn-sume
Temple and Monastery in Kalmykia, and Andre Boskhomdjiev, a Kalmyk member
of the Manjushri Institute.
2006 Jamyang Foundation Project
The Jamyang Foundation supports
a network of schools for Buddhist women in the southern Himalayan regions
of Ladakh, Spiti, and Bangladesh. The education and religious training
of young Buddhist women are so often overlooked that it is imperative
that we who are able pay particular attention to their needs, work to
increase awareness, and do whatever we can to provide support.
Jamyang Foundation was created by Karma Lekshe Tsomo, the President of
Sakyadhita, International
Association of Buddhist Women.
During 2006 the Manjushri Institute of Buddhist Studies will work with
other Buddhist and educational organizations in Western Massachusetts
in an effort to raise funds and awareness. We have several events planned
during the year and will continue efforts long into the future in support
of this project.