Creating a Stupa of Awakening to Honor Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche

Posted on by KTD

In the Saddharma Pundarika Sutra it is said:

Walls are built from mud and bricks.
And a Stupa of the Jina* is made likewise.
Therefore, even if it is built from heaps of dust,
Whoever builds a Stupa for the sake of the Jina,
In remote places of suffering;
Even if it is made of a heap of sand
By children playing games,
(The builder) will reach enlightenment.
*the Jina –  Buddha, the awakened one

In the darkness of the world of suffering, this world the Buddha called “samsara,” Dharma shines like a light dispelling our suffering and its causes.

No place does this light shine brighter than in the faces of the great masters, who appear among us rarely to show us the Dharma Way.

Commemorating them is commemorating all Buddhas and all beings’ potential for awakening.

For us at Karma Triyana Dharmachakra Monastery, our late abbot Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche was a bright light that dispelled the darkness of our ignorance and spread wisdom and compassion everywhere it shone.

It has been six months since Khenpo Rinpoche’s passing into nirvana, and we are ready now, even in the midst of a time of global pandemic and difficulty, to create a stupa (or chöten, in Tibetan) to hold his relics and serve as a beacon and focal point for all humanity.

This past fall, hundreds of people crowded onto the east-facing hillside at Khenpo Rinpoche’s beloved Karme Ling Retreat Center to witness his cremation. This coming summer, we hope to raise a granite stupa – created to last hundreds of years – in that exact place to commemorate his life and continue his dharma activity.

What is a Stupa and What Are Its Blessings?


Those familiar with Khenpo Rinpoche’s story will know of his endless devotion to the Buddhas and his endless compassion for sentient beings, and that he expressed his devotion and kindness by creating strikingly beautiful offerings and shrines.

Khenpo Rinpoche’s stupa, to be situated at the site of his cremation in front of the Karme Ling Columbarium and Five-Buddha Shrine, will be in keeping with his shrine-building tradition.

Made of fine granite, filled with the relics of great masters of the past and Khenpo Rinpoche’s own precious bone relics, and surrounded by gardens, the stupa will overlook the stream and valley east of the retreat center – places where Khenpo Rinpoche spent hours in meditation.

We know that this place of retreat, where Khenpo Rinpoche lived and taught and dissolved into the dharmakaya, will be visited by many of his students and devotees in the future.

And in the past, Khenpo Rinpoche declared his ashes would be placed in the Columbarium and invited his students to reserve places so their ashes would rest in the Five Buddha Shrine along with his.

Now we are inviting donors to become part of Khenpo Rinpoche’s dharma activity and help us create a stupa that will bring peace and blessing to the world, avert the dangers of disease and warfare, and serve as a lasting remembrance of Rinpoche’s love.

The Jangchub Chöten (Awakening Stupa) Project

More information about the structure and symbolism of Stupas here

Stages of the Project

  • Rinpoche’s Purkhang (cremation stupa) will be disassembled
  • Land will be cleared, and paths will be laid out
  • Foundation will be created
  • Stupa (being made now in China) will be placed
  • Gardens and lawn will be created
Of these stages, the first is completed, and the second and third have begun.

What is Needed

$80,000 is needed to complete the Stages of the Project.

To date, we have collected $60,000 toward this goal.

Your donation will help us reach our goal for Khenpo Rinpoche’s Stupa Project.

How You Can Participate

We understand that with the outbreak of disease around the world, many people have financial concerns.  Donations of any size will help this project and increase virtue and dharma in our world.

Or by check to: Karme Ling Retreat Center, 315 Retreat Rd., Delhi, NY 13753. For international transfer donations, email Lama Karma Lodro at karmeling@kagyu.org.

What Are the Benefits?

With all the difficulties in the world, especially the new diseases affecting humanity, we need the presence of holy objects more than ever.

According to the teachings of the Buddha, there are endless benefits to the building of stupas.
In the Guhyasamaja tantra (one of the higher tantras) it says: “A stupa is a palace where all the buddhas are abiding. Those beings who don’t have the karma to actually see the buddhas need the holy objects of body, speech and mind – statues, scriptures, stupas – as a field for accumulating merit and virtue.” And there are 18 more benefits, including longevity, health and attainment of the goal of the dharma path – awakening. These benefits are explained here.
With this Jangchub Chöten project, Khenpo Rinpoche is giving us an opportunity to do something good and lasting, something to repay his kindness, and something to help pacify all sickness in the world.

Lift up your hearts
and be part of Khenpo Rinpoche’s
dharma activity.

May all beings benefit!

Photos courtesy Lama Karma Drodhul

 

Exploring the Mandala of KTD and the KTC's - May All Beings Benefit