For many years I have been involved in various charitable projects, but the main ones at the moment would be the the LKPY Habits project for children and youths, which is particularly beneficial in Mexico, but also in the rest of the world.  For a long time I have given to the Kopan nunnery (and monastery) and their new gompa with brand new accommodation blocks.  I also support sick monks in Sera Monastery, South India.

Last year, 2010, Choeding Rinpoche asked me for help with His monastery in Pokhara as there were young monks from the mountain and so we sponsored 12 monks to enter the monastery.  Through kind donations we also sponsor three young children to attend school.   Within this document you will find a description of those projects all of which are dear to my heart and very beneficial.

Choeding Rinpoche and Pokhara, Nepal.

I recently visited Pokhara and once again had the pleasure to meet Choeding Rinpoche, one of the last great born in Tibet Masters.  Rinpoche has fourteen new monks from the mountains of Nepal and needs help with their upkeep.  It costs a $1 per day for each monk for their food, medicine, robes and tuition.  $365 per year.  If you feel moved to offer something, please donate through this site, using Paypal and I will definitely make sure your kind donation reaches Rinpoche and the monks.  Once again, thank you.

Sera Jhe Monastery Sick Monks

When the Tibetan people were forced to leave their country due to the invasion from China, they had to re-establish monasteries in South India, which has a very hot climate and is difficult for acclimatisation. As a result of the poor conditions, heat, poor food etc. some monks get sick. A few years ago, Khen Rinpoche Lama Lhundrup asked me to support a sick monk in Sera and since then I have been involved. If you feel moved to support this type of project, please give whatever you can.

Khachoe Ghakyil Nunnery, Kathmandu, Nepal

Khachoe Ghakyil Nunnery is located below Kopan Monastery near the sacred Buddhist town of Boudhanath in Nepal's Kathmandu valley

I have been friends with the nuns for over 25 years now and have seen the nunnery grow from around nine nuns living in a small building at Kopan Monastery, to having their own nunnery and developing their monastic programme.

Khen Rinpoche has taken a lot of time and energy to make sure the nuns receive exactly the same education as the monks. Right now there are nearly four hundred nuns, but the potential is for 1,000. The new main gompa is finished structurally but will take a few more months for the interiors to be completed. Before finishing the gompa, Khen Rinpoche decided to start building more accommodation, as the nuns are sleeping in unhygienic and cramped conditions.  Then a new dining room and kitchen.  I have given my financial support to the nunnery for many years and I now ask you to also help, even if it is a small amount, it doesn't matter, what matters is the willingness to help.

In 1982 Lama Yeshe invited the first nuns to join Kopan monastery and study with the monks, quite a revolutionary proposal at that time.The nunnery was officially founded in 1986 under the direction of Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, and in 1994, 80 nuns moved into their own premises.The nunnery is now home to some 390 Tibetan Buddhist nuns from Nepal, India and Tibet.
Kopan Nunnery Documentary (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KiORYZIZdA)

Study programme

Traditionally, ritual arts and scholastic study have been a prerogative of Tibetan Buddhist monks, with their ordained sisters receiving little or no training in these areas. In Khachoe Ghakyil Nunnery, however, this is not the case.

The nuns of Khachoe Ghakyil Nunnery have had the doors of the classical Buddhist education opened to them.They are provided with highly trained scholars to teach them, and are now instructed in classical Tibetan debate, the performance of ritual musi, the creation of sand mandalas, and other ritual arts.

Not surprisingly, once given access to scholastic training, the nuns have shown an intense determination to excel in their studies.They take part in the complete study program alongside their brother monks from Kopan. Their studies include Tibetan and English language, mathematics, philosophy, meditation, debate, rituals, chanting and art, along with other teachings and practice of the Buddha. Their goal is to become qualified Dharma teachers so that they may teach others, and to become economically self-sufficient.

Kopan has already established a geshe study program (the geshe degree is the monastic equivalent of a Doctor of Divinity). And the nuns at Khachoe Ghakyil are enrolled in thisprogram - one of the few nunneries in India and Nepal to offer such an opportunity to their nuns.This is an especially welcome development! Every year selected nuns now participate in the annual one month debate, in which several nunneries challenge each other in debating skills, with the venue being rotated amongst the various nunneries every year.

New Buildings

Due to the constant influx of new nuns, the nuns at present live in extremely cramped conditions. Plans have been drawn up for building a new hostel of 100 rooms at the cost of US$4500 each room. The construction also includes a new gompa, as the present structures are far too small. Later, a new dining hall and classrooms will need to be built.

Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche has advised that the main deity statue in the gompa should be thousand-armed Chenrezig (Avalokiteshvara), 18 feet high. The cost of the statue is US$57,000.

Some funds for the new buildings have been received through the generosity of donors. Still, a lot more is needed. We invite you to help with the finances for the new buildings, or donate to the Chenrezig statue, with as much or as little as you would like.

The LKPY PROJECT

(This photo was taken after a teaching in Vera Cruz University, 2011)

LKPY (Loving Kindness Peaceful Youth) Projects for children, youth and adults.  Basically this is taking all the principles of Buddhism and then removing the Buddha and Buddhism from those principles. We are teaching the very essence of Buddhism, the way Buddha would have taught. This removes the barriers that people may erect from their culture or their religion and it enables us to build a healthier, happier society. Our aim is to benefit others to help them to be happy. Funds are needed for various needs within Mexico and other countries, for example textbooks, training teachers and inviting overseas teachers for training programmes.

Values are often talked about, but how deeply do we really understand what values or principles mean? When understood correctly, applying them is the next challenge. All over the world people are facing difficult times, war, inequity, shortage on resources, high consumerism... on a smaller scenario, each person faces challenges in their community either work, school or family. Sadly, it seems as if we were thinking about those difficulties without connecting them with the values that we know are worthy. In other words, we fail to understand that values are the solution to the difficulties we experience.

The guidelines we offer can produce a meaningful and happy life and have the potential to assist us in facing life's challenges with a different attitude, in a different light, with more resources. While most parents have to work in places where the application of high moral values does not have a 'natural' place, children are constantly being left to their own devices (tv, school, friends) to learn values and principles. Though they may not have the wisdom to choose cleverly between what habits and attitudes to adopt and which ones to refuse.

Thus, sharing the Habit Groups both with adults, children and teens becomes not only relevant but it seems as there is no better moment that the one we are living now.