Orphanage and elder center

In 1999 Khenchen Prachhimba Dorjee Rinpoche started an orphanage and a shelter for older people near Jewo monastery in Tibet. At that point there were 30 children and 10 older people. These children and elders did not have any family to provide for them, and there was no support for them from the government. Rinpoche started fundraising activities to provide food and shelter for them. He also made arrangements for the children to receive basic education including Tibetan and Chinese languages, and meditation. In addition, older people interested in meditation received practice instructions from Rinpoche, and have been spending their days in meditation and yoga practice.

Over the last ten years the orphanage and the shelter for elders have been growing in size. Currently, there are 146 children, seven to eighteen years old, in addition to 30 older people between sixty and eighty years of age. It costs about $10 per month to provide food for the orphans and older people. To make the orphanage and elder house more sustainable, Rinpoche, together with his students and a local business man in Tibet, came up with an initiative to purchase yaks for the orphanage and elder center. In 2008 this developed into Dharma Tara Yak Farm, currently including 42 yaks. The yaks provide milk and milk products which are an essential part of the Tibetan diet. This cuts back the monthly cost of food in about a half and makes the orphanage and elder center more sustainable in the long run. Importantly, the yaks are taken care of in the traditional humane way, and are not killed for meat.

Together with funds for basic needs, the main fundraising priority at the moment is housing for the orphans and older people. Most of them are currently housed in tents, often suffering frost bites and sickness in the harsh climate of Tibet. The estimated cost of the facilities for orphans and elders is $100,000. In June 2008, Rinpoche and his students in Arizona have established AWAM foundation , a non-profit organization incorporated in the state of Arizona, USA, to help raise funds for the orphans and elders. Tibetan Yoga Center aims to support the activities of AWAM Foundation. Please contact Tibetan Yoga Center or AWAM Foundation directly if you would like to contribute to these worthy efforts.

Yoga retreat center in Tibet

From the times of the founder of Tibetan Buddhism - Padmasambhava - there have been two traditions of meditation practice in Tibet - the monastic lineage and the lineage of yogis. While the primary purpose of the monastic lineage was to provide institutional support for preservation of teachings, the yogic tradition focused on swift progress in meditation practice, often coupled with unconventional ways of life. Certainly, both monastic and yogic traditions have been indispensable parts of Vajrayana Buddhism, but the yogic lineage has not received a lot of attention and support in the current era. There are virtually no centers for yogis in Tibet.

To revive the yogic tradition, Khenchen Lama Rinpoche's heart-felt wish is to establish a retreat center in Tibet at a location, where a yogi retreat center stood back in Padmasambhava's times. At this historic site in Khamtod, Sangye Yeshe - one of Padmasambhava's heart disciples and the previous incarnation of Khenchen Lama Rinpoche - spent nine years engaging in meditation and teaching of Anuyoga to his disciples. Many yogis experienced the highest fruition of their practice at this sacred site by achieving rainbow body. Following this tradition, Rinpoche's aspiration is to build a retreat center where the most serious practitioners of the yogic tradition would be able to bring their practice to fruition. He envisions s retreat center for about 300 yogis and yoginis who would be able to engage in deep retreat practice lasting from one week up to 9 nine years. Khenchen Lama Rinpoche gave the center a name commensurate with its aspirations - Wosel Dorje Nyingpo Ling - Land of the Heart of Rigpa. The assessed cost of building the retreat center is approximately $300,000. Tibetan Yoga Center strives to contribute to this unique project. Please contact us if you would like to learn more about ways to support this cause.