"Ampitheatre of the Redwoods"

Stupas, Vajrayana Foundation

Drawing: Matt Welsh

On aptly named 'Eureka Canyon Road' in Santa Cruz, California is the Pema Osel Ling Retreat Center- the 'Ampitheatre of the Redwoods.' Set within the epic landscape of the redwood Forest, Pema Osel Ling serves as an exquisite, and eco-friendly, retreat center as well as a creation under the work of the Vajrayana Foundation. Founded in the late 1980's by Lama Tharchin Rinpoche, the Foundation works in the vein and lineage of the Nyingma school.

The stupas at Pema Osel Ling have been constructed in the form of a mandala and in the style of the eight traditional stupas.

Source: The Vajrayana Foundation

A Kagyu Landmark in NY State

Source for all images:

Source: Kagyu Thubten Chöling Monastery website

Founded in 1978 by Lama Norlha Rinpoche, just a couple of years after his arrival in the States Kagyu Thubten Chöling Monastery is located in Wappinger Falls, New York.

The first dharma center in North America to offer a traditional three year retreat for serious and dedicated students to train in the Kagyu lineage, Kagyu Thubten Chöling is one of the oldest dharma centers in North America and certainly among the very first Tibetan Buddhist monasteries to be established on the continent.

The center also serves as mother Monastery to:

Kagyu Drupgyu Chödzong (D.C.)

Kagyu Shenpen Tharchin (VA)

Kagyu Puntsok Gatsal Chöling (VA)

Kagyu Samchen Chöling Dharma Center (VA)

Kagyu Gyurmey Gatsal Chöling (Key West, FL)

Kagyu Tashi Chödzong (Coconut Grove, FL)

Kagyu Shedrup Chöling (El Portal, FL)

Kagyu Trinley Kunchab (Watertown, MA)

Kagyu Osel Chödzong (NH)

Kagyu Samten Chöling (Barrington, NH)

Kagyu Osel Chöling (Westfield, NJ)

Kagyu Dakshang Chöling (NYC, NY)

Kagyu Dzamling Kunchab (NYC, NY)

Kagyu Pende Kunchab (Red Hook, NY)

Kagyu Samdrup Chödzong (Greensboro, NC)

Milarepa Drakmar Kyung Dzong (Arden, NC)

Milarepa Osal Chö Dzong (Tallahassee, TN)

Kagyu Palchen Chöling (Montpelier, VT)

Kagyu Tarjay Chöling (Lima, Peru)

Kagyu Drupgyu Chöling (Cusco, Peru)

Kagyu Gempel Chöling (Quebec, Canada)

Source: Kagyu Thubten Chöling Monastery website

Southernmost North American Stupa in Progress

From the last post on a center in Hawai'i, back to the continental USA and to the southeastern extremity. The state of Florida is host to a number of Vajrayana dharma centers. Today's focus is Kagyu Shedrup Chöling, founded by Ven. Lama Norlha Rinpoche, who immigrated to the States in the late 70's and founded Kagyu Thubten Chöling Monastery in New York State. The teachings at Kagyu Shedrup Chöling are very diverse and address several levels of technique and skill. Kagyu Shedrup Chöling's resident teacher is Ven. Lama Karma Chötso, who has also devoted her time as a Professional Volunteer Chaplain for Hospice Care and has performed Buddhist death rituals for deceased, among many other services.

Kagyu Shedrup Chöling stupa project will ultimately result in the southernmost stupa constructed in North America, an interesting point for the entire energetic network of stupas on the continent.

Stupas have a long history and tradition of serving both as symbolic representations of the Buddha's enlightened mind, as spaces for circumambulatory movement and meditation and tributes to precious teachers. They also have an additional and incredibly interesting dimension of 'acting' on and with the environment. It is a type of construction that sees form as infused with energy as the elements and with the ability (and often necessity) of interacting with them.

Kagyu Shedrup Chöling's blog, South Florida Kagyu Stupas, notes:

"The treasure vase is a Tibetan tradition that goes back to the time of Guru Rinpoche, who gave specific instructions on how they were to be made and their purpose. These vases can help balance the environment and promote healing of all kinds. Here in South Florida the basic elements of earth, water, fire, air and space are all out of balance. These vases are part of the reason the stupas will be balancing them and will help avert negative forces of all kinds -- storms, wars, etc."

Treasure Vases

Source: South Florida Kagyu Stupas Blog

It appears that as of late, the foundation is being set and the stupa construction is in motion. Check out Kagyu Shedrup Chöling's blog for visuals and to watch the process unfold.

Aloha and the Dharma

Over in a state I consider home in a very heartfelt way are dharma centers on the most verdant and peaceful of grounds, colors exploding amidst a gentle rustling of leaves and general serenity.

The center for this post is found on the "Garden Isle" of Kauai, tucked into the mountains on the eastern side of the island. Established by Lama Karma Rinchen in 1990 and directed by Lama Teshi Dundrup, this Kauai Dharma Center offers meditation retreats, Vajrayana Dharma teachings for intermediate students and basic Mahayana Buddhism classes. The center also contributes time and efforts to maintaining the first Buddhist stupa on Kauai. A project born from the efforts of the Dharma Sanctuary, the first Buddhist stupa in Kauai was consecrated in 2009. At the Kauai Dharma Sanctuary a central stupa, dedicated to the lineage of H.E. Kalu Rinpoche in Hawai'i, is surrounded by smaller stupas.

The stupa project in general serves as a further unifying force for Lama's who devoted energy to establishing centers and transmitting dharma teachings throughout the Hawaiian Islands.

Clicking through the slideshows at the Dharma Sanctuary's website also really gives one a sense of the lushness and spacious sense on the island surrounding the centers. The Dharma Sanctuary's main focus is the construction of Tibetan stupas globally with stupas already constructed in France, Hawai'i and New Mexico. As the Dharma Sanctuary states on their website, stupa building....

"is a spiritual technology that the Tibetans have codified over centuries and is now available to the western world....Building stupas is holy work. They only appear when all the conditions are auspicious. "

Stupa Empowerment ceremony at Dharma Sanctuary, Kauai

Source: Kagyu Thubten Choling/Kauai Dharma Center website

Sakya in the San Juan Islands

Source: Sakya Kachöd Chöling website

Over in the Pacific Northwestern Reach of the San Juan Islands is a colorful dharma center, set in a 20 acre wooded landscape and rooted in the Sakya lineage. Established in 1986, Sakya Kachöd Chöling (Vajrayana Buddhist Retreat Center) is largely geared towards the hosting and offering of various types of retreats.

Source: Sakya Kachöd Chöling website

H.E. Sakya Jetsun Rinpoche's story is a rich one, crossing nations and many roles and exemplary of an "authentic, living, women lineage holder." Under Jetsun Rinpoche's direction, this dharma center in the San Juan Islands was founded as well as Sakya Thubten Tsechen Ling in Vancouver and Sakya Decehn Ling in Oakland, CA.

Tara, Shrine Room

Source: Sakya Kachöd Chöling website

Part of Sakya Kachöd Chöling's current vision is a building expansion plan, which includes retreat huts, a dining and kitchen hall and more. Like other dharma centers through the nation, the need for expansion is supported by sustained interest in practice as well as the intent to provide right accommodation and space for those for whom this is a lifelong work.

I include several photos from the center's website on this post, letting the beauty of the center speak for itself.

Source: Sakya Kachöd Chöling website

Source: Sakya Kachöd Chöling website

Source: Sakya Kachöd Chöling website

Juniper, Prayer Blessings & Meditation in Memphis

Juniper Smoke and Prayer Blessings at Dragon Seat/ Pemo Karpo

Source: Drukden Gompa website

As beings in the Tibetan Buddhist worldview cycle through numerous (perhaps at times, countless) incarnations, so too do buildings. Even in fledgling existence, many centers have already held a myriad of incarnations in the forms of different names as well as storied pasts attributed to a building's historic uses.

Pema Karpo Meditation Center in Memphis, Tennessee was established recently, in 2005 yet has already existed also under another name in it's history- Dragon Seat Meditation Center (Drukden Gompa). Pema Karpo Meditation Center, like dharma centers worldwide, hosts regular classes, talks, meditation, retreats and celebrations.

Like many dharma centers in the U.S., Pema Karpo was made possible by the collaborative and dedicated efforts of Tibetans and Americans working in concert to bring the vision to life. In this particular story of a dharma center's beginnings, it is the figures of Candia Ludy and Khenpo Gawang Rinpoche who drive much of the tale.

It appears as well that the center serves a historical role in another way- that of being the first Tibetan Buddhist Center established in Tennessee. Referring to Khenpo Gawang Rinpoche's sentiments regarding a center here and decision to relocate to Memphis, the center's website notes:

"Because there were Western students sincerely interested in studying Tibetan Buddhism but no center and no dharma teacher, Rinpoche felt he would be the most beneficial in the Tri-State area."

-Pemo Karmpo Meditation Center website

Stupa of Enlightenment

Next to neighboring Vietnamese Temple, Chua Pho Da

Constructed in 2003 by Ludy's coordination

Source: Drukden Gompa website

The Dharma as the trunk.....

Anyone interested in how spiritual centers might serve as models for small community living, particularly those centered in the arts, would probably find interest in numerous examples of dharma centers. Like the very basic analogy of a tree, these center's main purpose, the trunk, is the practice of the dharma, while their activities branch and flower into numerous other engaging activities that allow the dharma to be further cultivated in earthly and community works.

Tsogyelgar Dharma Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan is one such example. Extensive garden work, art projects, a poetry program in the making....a historic preservation program in the works in the form of the rehabbing of a barn (a beautiful red structure that can be seen on Tsogyelgar's main page), a 35 foot tall stupa constructed on the grounds (and a smaller one in the works) and a stunning and extensive Tantric Buddhist mural.

Constructed in 1998, the Dorje Trollo Stupa at Tsogyelgar is filled with many sacred and precious items including 500 sacred texts of Tibetan yoga.

"The stupa is constructed according to subtle ritual that empowers its form and structure."

Source: Tsogyelgar website

Source for images: flickr, Tsogyelgar

I've been chewing on ideas to write about relating to sangha (common term for Buddhist community or association) and the practical spirit cultivated in sanghas which can be seen as an exemplary model for communities of all types. More to come on the Dharma and the Sangha, stay tuned.....

Karmê Chöling

Pictured are the 7th Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche & the Karmapa at Karmê Chöling in 1980

Source: Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche Biography

What was Tail of the Tiger in the seventies is now the beautiful and spacious Karmê Chöling in Barnet, Vermont. One of the first Buddhist retreat centers in North America, Tail of the Tiger figures in many retellings of Tibetan Buddhism's early days of growing practice on the North American continent.

Some aspect of my mind just softly explodes when I first focus in on a particular state or region and then hone in on a particular center. I suppose it's naive that in doing so, I believe I will acquire singular focus of what I am going to write about. Having never visited most of these centers, I am left with visual impressions I find on the web as well as my own reveries about the landscapes they are set in. In the case of a center like Karmê Chöling, the history is only a few decades old- but well, so am I! And in those few decades there are so many stories to be told. One single post can hardly do justice....Not to mention that while the center is a few decades old, the teachings are several centuries in the making.

So if I appear to be perfunctory or absurdly brief when I post about a center with an obviously rich history, it's typically a case of realizing the abundance of information that exists about some centers and choosing to take care before I attempt to write in depth. In many cases, they are centers to which I will return. Karmê Chöling, formerly Tail of the Tiger, is one such center.

This place holds an important role in the historic network of Tibetan Buddhist centers in the United States and is incredibly picturesque to boot. Originally purchased by a group of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche's students in 1970, this center operated as Tail of the Tiger until 1974, when it received it's current name, Karmê Chöling.

Shambhala Day

Source: Karmê Chöling blog, February 2010

Sakya Monastery in Seattle

Source: Wikimedia Commons, author- Sakya Monastery

Tucked into the story of Sakya Monastery in the neighborhood of Greenwood, Seattle, is also the story of adaptive reuse of a historic structure whose original purpose served an entirely different religious group. The colorful building that now houses Sakya Monastery was originally constructed in 1928 as a Presbyterian Church. Sakya Tegchen Choling center, founded in 1975 in other locales in Seattle, acquired the building in 1974 which later became the current incarnation of the center, as Sakya Monastery.

It's often interesting to see the historic cycle of spaces occupied by dharma centers. What mingles in the presence of active Tibetan Buddhist teachings in many dharma centers across North America are clear echoes of American architectural history and many other stories to be told. I am reminded of the third Tibetan Buddhist center in the US that I visited- Karma Triyana Dharmachakra in Woodstock, New York. At the time (2005) vast progress had been made on the beautiful new temple- but there also sat Meads Mountain House, which had served the Center for some years and whose rustic interiors I regret having not delved into and explored in more depth....

But staying on topic and in the realm of the Emerald City, Sakya Monastery itself has, in the past few decades, built a history of it's own. Scores of pages have been written on the relationship of media and the publicity of Tibetan Buddhism in the West and popular movies have certainly been at the forefront of this. Sakya Monastery was featured in the 1993 production Little Buddha, which tracks a fictional plot of a group of Lamas seeking the incarnation of one of their teachers which takes them to, among other places, the key location of Seattle in their search. As with other prominent films centered on a Tibetan Buddhist themes, Tibetan monks and lamas themselves were cast in critical roles.

The Pluralism Project (Diverse Buddhist Communities Make a Home in Washington), quotes a December 2003 article in The Daily:

"In 1960, drawn by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, and by the help of the UW Tibetan studies program, the only program of its type in the United States, Deshung Rinpoche, or 'Precious One' to his followers, moved his family to Seattle. Rinpoche worked with the Tibetan studies program for three years... Rinpoche’s congregation gradually outgrew a number of locations, from Ravenna to Capitol Hill to the U-District. Eventually, the large step was taken to buy the old Presbyterian church in Greenwood and convert it."

The white stupa outside the monastery is in honor of the late Ven. Dezhung Rinpoche. Dezhung Rinpoche arrived in Seattle in 1960 after forced exile from Tibet, and rooted here. Sakya Monastery is currently led by H.H. Jigdal Dagchen Sakya. It maintains the tradition of the school of Sakya, but, like many other centers, is non-sectarian in it's approach to offering a wide range of teachings from all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

Source: Flickr: Stupa, HE Deshung Rinpoche - The Saint of Seattle

Zuni Mountain Stupa

Zuni Mountain Stupa

Source: zunimountainstupa.org

Here in southern Alabama, it's been pouring buckets all day, pools of water swarming in the roads and dark clouds swathing the sky. However, in the site of today's virtual visit, the early May temperatures are crisp, bright blue, sunny Spring days.

Grants, New Mexico is where the next trek takes us. In the Northwestern quadrant of this Southwest state, a stupa sits. A stupa with the expressed purpose of "subduing negative forces." The style of the stupa itself, Duddul Chodten, translates and is dedicated to this expressed purpose.

The act of building with the intent of a structure to interact with the matrix of spiritual and locational energies is certainly not unique to Tibetan Buddhism. I am reminded of a story I heard during my early prodding into the concepts of Feng Shui, an art and practice which is carefully considered not only in home design and layout in certain regions of the world, but also actual planning of new and prominent architecture.

I don't recall all the details, but as this particular example goes, a major office building was slated to be built in an urban area in China. One particular obstacle perceived was the positioning of the building near a hilly area that was known to be the residence of a particular dragon spirit. Constructing a many leveled office building in this particular location would, according to certain experts, obstruct the path of the dragon, thereby bringing ill energy to the levels of the building that previously was it's path of movement.

The solution: allow for a large central hole in the middle of the building to pave the dragon spirit's path. Building and layout with regards to harmony with the environment takes on an entirely new level when such notions are brought to the plan. And harmony, in this sense, implies not only ushering forth 'good energy,' but a keen awareness of the flow of local elements and a will and ability to confront and compromise with aspects of the landscape or general atmosphere that, if ignored, could prove to be disruptive.

Zuni Mountain Stupa was, as far as I can tell, not constructed with the intent to allay or pacify any local land deities in this particular region of New Mexico. Yet it is the first stupa I have read about whose specific purpose involved dispelling "negative forces." Certainly, many of the other stupas across the globe, intended to be a monument and circumambulation point for enlightenment, have as their structural and spiritual intent, the very same purpose. The act of 'enlightenment' itself involves a dissolution of delusion, negative thought and energy- all of which obstruct and dissuade one from any goals of enlightenment, regardless of spiritual persuasion.

Bhakha Tulku Rinpoche is the spiritual director for the Zuni Mountain Stupa, which was consecrated only months ago. Also known as Ösel Khandro Duwi Ling- The Gathering Place of the Dakinis, Zuni Mountain Stupa is a project in the wings of the Vairotsana Foundation, of which Bhakha Tulku Rinpoche is a founder.

Vairotsana Foundation's website states:

"We are building this stupa in the Zuni Mountains at a time when extreme negative conditions proliferate on our planet in order to help remove those obstacles and to generate the blessings of healing, peace, and enlightenment for all beings, in every direction, in every way."

In my own project of tracking these different Tibetan Buddhist architectural developments in the USA, it is clearer to me more than ever before that we all subscribe to different means of responding to current societal and planetary conditions. If you have read this far along, perhaps you as well see the importance and role that various architectures play in the human effort of confronting and resolving certain dynamics at play. Prayer is certainly among the ways. And the role of the stupa offers exactly that- active prayer space.