Together we have built a beautiful community.
We have continued to meditate and study throughout a most difficult year. Now we need your help to continue.
Giving Tuesday is today! Please don’t forget to make a year-end contribution to support the work of Pema Khandro, Ngakpa International and its projects – Dakini Mountain and the Buddhist Studies Institute. We need your support, your donation can make a huge difference in helping these projects flourish.
WE NEED YOUR HELP!
The pandemic has had a drastic impact on our finances. Dakini Mountain, our budding retreat center, as well as our membership both suffered serious losses. For the safety of our community, we cancelled all in-person events, including our summer retreats. This would have been the main source of support for Dakini Mountain and for our operations. In response to the crisis catalyzed by the pandemic – our goal is to raise $350,000 for our Year-End Fundraiser – to ensure that our projects can continue.
Despite the challenges of the global pandemic, we have continued to offer service, with even more programs than in previous years. Our goal was to provide comfort, practical tools, community connection and the reprieve of dharma study to help our friends weather these tough times.
In 2019
We offered 261 retreats, classes and trainings.
161 of these were free.
Over $20,000 in financial aid was given.
In 2020
We offered 304 retreats, classes and trainings.
248 of these were free.
Over $25,000 in financial aid was given.
This expansion of our programs was met with responses from all over the world, our community has grown and flourished in this pandemic year. To continue to provide this service, we need your help!
Throughout all these programs we have offered Tibetan Buddhism in the context of today’s world with an emphasis on the following:
- Making Buddhist education accessible through online classes and by creating a robust portfolio of live online classes and a rich online library of recorded teachings.
- Promoting gender equality through teaching about women in Buddhism, making all gender identities welcome and giving equal opportunity for leadership and participation.
- Promoting embodiment of compassion by teaching empathy skills, self-care and healing of trauma.
- Speaking out against colonialism and ethnic, racial and gender bias.
- Respecting diversity within Buddhism and promoting the value of open mindedness, healthy boundaries and cooperation.
- Promoting awareness of the body mind connection and natural healing methods to support healthy life and successful Buddhist practice.
- Having clearly stated ethics and zero tolerance of abusive behavior.
I invite your support for this Giving Tuesday to keep this school and its programs growing.
PLEASE CONSIDER AN URGENT GIFT TO OUR EMERGENCY FUND!
The Dakini Mountain Emergency Fund is our plan to sustain our retreat center and our operations through this year of the pandemic. We are optimistic, as we hold onto our retreat center, not only as a sound investment for the school but also for the days when we will be able to gather in person again. In order to make it to that time, we will need your help to make it through the pandemic.
- If a hundred friends donated $300 today we would be able to complete to the fire clearance at Dakini Mountain. You can help by clicking here.
- If a hundred friends donated $500 today we would be able to keep our operations going through the next two months of the challenging winter of the US pandemic. Please donate by clicking here.
- If three hundred and fifty friends donate $1000, we will have met our total fundraising goal and the Dakini Mountain Emergency Fund will be a success. Since the community we serve is much larger than this, this goal is reachable! Please give by clicking here.
Ngakpa International is a non-profit organization. To keep our volunteer run organization here in the U.S. we run two centers, keep lawyers, accountants, bookkeepers, three staff, insurance, permitting and many other legal expenses, technology and equipment costs and so much more. We have only been able to continue to meet all these expenses for the last twenty years through the generosity of individual donations. But this year, due to the drastic effects of the pandemic, donations are more important than ever. We ask for our friends and members to help us continue our service and sustain our programs for another year.
YOUR DONATIONS ARE TAX DEDUCTIBLE!
Here are some more ways to express your support on this Giving Tuesday:
- If you are not already, Become a Member at $12 per month.
- If you are already a member, consider increasing your monthly contribution.
- Make a one time donation. Large or small, one time donations add up to more Buddhist teachings for more people.
- Donor Rewards. Without large individual donations, Dakini Mountain will not make it through the pandemic. Take a look at these remarkable Thankgas (Tibetan deity art) available as donor rewards.
Thank you! May your generosity bring great good karma to you and life changing teachings to more and more beings.
Best wishes!
Janak (he, him, his)
Ngakpa International/Buddhist Studies Institute
www.ngakpa.org
janak@ngakpa.org
P.O. Box 2396
Nevada City, CA 95959
USA
P.S. If you wish to make your donation by check, please make it payable to Ngakpa International and mail to the above address.
Ngakpa International is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit EIN 68-0529687 and all gifts are tax deductible as allowed by law.
LATEST NEWS
Meditation Instructor Training
Our robust Meditation Instructor Training launched last month and is now in its third module. The combination of self-paced classes and online learning culminates in over 150 hours of training. It is currently being attended by 15 people from 8 countries.
100 Days of Practice
This year has had its challenges, reminding us all that learning to self-regulate and return to calm and clarity are crucial skills. In support of our world-wide community, we are offering a daily free meditation class – in the 100 days of practice. It is not too late to join! Come on the days you can or come every day.
Thanks to Pema Khandro’s teachings and thanks to so many leaders and volunteers in the community this 100 days of practice will continue every day through the winter.
And its Free!
Register here to join 100 Days of Practice.
WINTER SCHEDULE
Meditation Mondays for Members will continue to be offered throughout the month of December.
A White Tara Meditation has been added on December 21st led by Dr. Satya during the regular Meditation Mondays for Members time slot.
Wednesday December 16th is Lama Pema Khandro Rinpoche’s Birthday. We will host an online fundraiser and year-end celebration that evening. Stay tuned for more details. In lieu of birthday gifts, Pema Khandro’s birthday wish is for donations to the Dakini Mountain Emergency Fund. Click here to make a gift.
There will be no Wednesday Night classes on December 23rd and 30th due to the Holidays. Wednesday night classes will resume on January 6th with Vajrayana Training.
Winter Pramana Study
Valid Cognition Course with Geshe Sonam
Thursdays Mornings for One Hour Starting December 10th
8am San Francisco / 11am New York / 4pm London
What is Valid Cognition?
What are reliable Ways of Knowing?
Study Buddhist logic and epistemology to understand how mind knows, (in Sanskrit, Pramana or in Tibetan, tshad ma) and identify how wrong knowledge causes cyclic suffering. This is the study of a classic text on Valid Cognition, the Pramanavaritika, translated into English by Geshe Sonam.
To register – email info@buddhiststudiesinstitute.org
Geshe Sonam
Following his more than twenty years of intensive monastic studies on the five major treatises of Buddhism, and upon clearing all the six successive years of examination, in Jan 2019, Geshe Ngawang Sonam was formally conferred the highest degree of Geshe Lharampa [Traditional degree equivalent to PhD in Buddhism] by Gelugpa Monastic Seat of Learning [Gelugpa Monastic University]. In Nov. 2016, His Holiness the Dalai Lama called him to work in His Office, and presently he works there as a translator and a Buddhist scholar. Geshe Ngawang Sonam’s first book ‘In the Footsteps of Siddhartha’ was published in 2010. His translation of Shantideva’s work Bodhisattvacharyaavatara is going to print very soon. Alongside his office work, he also finds time to teach and attend conferences with modern scholars and scientists as a speaker.