Support the Amitabha Temple in Nepal

Ayang Rinpoche is establishing an extraordinary temple and retreat center in Nepal. Located on a mountain top overlooking the Kathmandu valley, it is designed like a great mandala. The main temple, dedicated to Buddha Amitabha, is surrounded by 15 others and a retreat center. The temple and its facilities will be open to lay visitors as well as Buddhist practitioners of all paths.  Details about the temple layout and the rituals planned for visitors and retreatants are available here.

Much of the main temple’s structure is now finished and you can see pictures of it on our website and on facebook. However, the wall and ceiling murals and the many statues required, as well as the retreat section, still remain to be funded. Approximately USD$750,000 is needed. Rinpoche is appealing personally for everyone with devotion to Buddha Amitabha to contribute as generously as possible to this project, which will long outlive all of us and will provide inestimable benefit to multitudes. Individual statues and wall paintings can be sponsored for amounts from USD$50,000 to USD$50. Donate now.

 Special message of support for the Temple and Retreat Center from His Holiness 17th Gyalwa Karmapa
“I encourage all people with the wish to make the illusory life meaningful to give generously in accordance with your individual abilities, like the example of raindrops that gathered together can fill an ocean.”
 

Sponsor a Retreat Cottage in Nepal

The retreat section around the temple will consist of 64 retreat cottages. These will bring the great benefit of intensive retreat practice to all Buddhist practitioners – lay and ordained, men and women. Anyone who sponsors a retreat cottage for USD$15,000 can do personal retreat for up to 40 months. Groups wishing to become sponsors or donors are warmly welcomed to do so, and will be entitled to retreat time at the Center on a pro rata basis. Couples jointly sponsoring a cottage may stay at the Center at the same time using separate cottages. Donations of any amount are most welcome and donors will receive credit towards retreat usage of a cottage.

For donations of US$5,000: 50 weeks of retreat time
US$1,000: 8 weeks retreat time
US$500: 3 weeks retreat time
US$200: 1 week retreat time

For more information about the planned ritual activities at the Center, details on the benefits of sponsoring a retreat cottage or to make a donation click here.

Support Rinpoche's Clinic and Boarding School in Tibet

This summer, the Amitabha Foundation again sent a team to Ayang Rinpoche's birthplace area in Tibet. In 2004 we began visiting Rima, in Eastern Tibet (Kham) at Rinpoche's request, to try to help improve childbirth conditions and to reduce maternal and infant mortality. Since that time we have been able to build and equip a clinic, provide training for local health care professionals, and purchase an ambulance for transporting pregnant women to the nearest hospital, 3 hours from the village. We have also been supplying clean birthing kits and training families how to have safer childbirth.

This year we also responded to enormous new needs in the community resulting from the series of devastating earthquakes which struck the area in April 2010. The clinic is still usable, but it will need structural repairs. We will need to hire a new doctor and identify women to train as midwives. While the construction has been funded by grants, we continue to support ongoing expenses of salaries, medicines, supplies and training from individual donations, since this is a private clinic.

In addition to the clinic, we have also been supporting a village boarding school and the 133 nomad children who attend. This year we bought three large tents for the school, since the buildings had been badly damaged. With donated sponsorship money we purchased 40 new desks and benches and bilingual books for the library and supplemented the salaries of three part-time teachers and three cooks.  See our 2010 Trip Report and a Photo Book about the school made by the older children.

To make a US tax-deductible donation click here.  Donations may also be made through Amitabha Foundation organizations in other countries.

Amitabha Foundation Website

Ayang Rinpoche Website

Ayang Rinpoche on Facebook