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COMMUNIQUÉ A publication of Khyentse Foundation August 2009 |
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WHO WE HELP: INDIVIDUAL AND SPECIAL GRANTS Khyentse Foundation's special grants and scholarships are making a difference around the world, from Thailand to Tibet, from South Africa to North America, from the inner city to nomadic territories. From the generous support of our donors worldwide, individuals and institutions engaged in the practice and study of Buddhism are receiving financial support to further their pursuits. Hear Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche share some of the vision of the Foundation in his latest podcast. In this issue, you will learn about three special grants to The Jonang Foundation, Mind Body Awareness Project, and Tsechen Kunchab Ling. You'll also find first-person accounts from KF grant and scholarship recipients, an update on Rinpoche’s book, What Makes You Not a Buddhist, and more. |
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Jonang Foundation Michael Sheehy's Campaign to Preserve a Lineage Mind Body Awareness Project Tsechen Kunchab Ling
FIRST PERSON Grant and Scholarship Recipients Speak About Their Experiences
NEWS
What Makes You Not A Buddhist
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MULTIMEDIA
For more, visit the KF downloads page.
Visit the often for messages from Rinpoche and updates about his teachings.
Khyentse Foundation’s mission is to act as a system of patronage for institutions and individuals engaged in the practice and study of Buddha's wisdom and compassion. In the few years of the Foundation’s existence, its support has touched thousands of lives, from Tibet, India, and Thailand to the United States, Canada, and Australia. We emphasize the study and practice of Buddhism, and our funding supports Tibetans, non-Tibetans, monks, nuns, lay students and practitioners, scholars, translators, and researchers from all the different Buddhist traditions.
In
addition to the scholarships and special grants mentioned here, we have
offered one-time or ongoing support to the following institutions:
Bir, India
Dzongsar Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö Institute Derge, Eastern Tibet
Ladakh, Northern India
Nitartha Institute Nova Scotia, Canada
North Sikkim Academy Mangan, North Sikkim
Rangjung Yeshe Institute Kathmandu, Nepal
The Rimé Foundation Translation Project Sihu Buddhist Institute Kangding, Sichuan Province, China
Thosamling Institute Library Dharamsala, India
Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center New York, USA
Vajradhara Gonpa Three Year Retreat Centre, Kyogle, Australia
Warnam Retreat Centre for Nuns Lhasa
and others...
PATRON KINGS
 PHOTO BY AMELIA CHOW By supporting institutions and individuals engaged in the practice and study of Buddhism, Khyentse Foundation is following in the footsteps of the great patrons of the past. Read about some of these patrons in our ongoing Patron King Series. We welcome suggestions for future articles in the series. Nominate a historic patron by sending us an email. |
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PHOTO OF BIR BY PAWO CHOYNING DORJI
UPDATE
  
Readers Continue to Discover Rinpoche's Words of Wisdom More Than 150,000 Copies of What Makes You Not a Buddhist Sold Worldwide.
The U.S. edition of What Makes You Not a Buddhist has sold more than 25,000 copies. This number does not include international sales figures of the 14 translations. In Taiwan, nearly 19,000 copies were sold and the simplified Chinese edition was reportedly a bestseller in mainland China with more than 112,000 copies sold.
There are more editions on the way. A Greek translation was just completed and a new English edition will be published in India later in 2009. Our International partners are:
Editora Pensamento-Cultrix - Brazil NiL EDITIONS - France
Rinpoche has donated all of his profits from this publication to Khyentse Foundation. You can always support the Foundation through our Amazon and iTunes accounts which are linked to our web site.
  
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AND THEN...
Patron King Article: The Third King of Bhutan, Jigme Dorji Wangchuck
Update on the Buddhist Literary Heritage Project New appointments and developments in translating the words of the Buddha.
Khyentse Foundation is now on Facebook. We will be posting volunteer opportunities, news, and other updates. Join us!
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DONATE ONLINE The most effective way to support Khyentse Foundation is to join the matching funds program. Every dollar you donate will be matched by a group of committed donors.Donate Now |
Thank You for Reading |
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An Infrastructure of People
In the early days of Khyentse Foundation, as the founders were deciding upon a mission, imagining the possibilities, and envisioning the future of Buddhist patronage, one of the first guidelines agreed upon was that grants would be awarded to people and their activities rather than to the construction of buildings and capital improvements. In his new audio address, Rinpoche says that "Khyentse Foundation must aspire to build the infrastructure of human power...to make people, not just buildings, not just symbolic things like statues or stupas, because at the end of the day this kind of infrastructure is the best we can offer."
Two committees, appointed by Rinpoche and the board of directors, review applications for the Foundation. Ngedup Dorje, who sits on the Special Grants Committee, says of his task,"I'm truly heartened to learn of all these wonderful projects that people have undertaken around the world in pursuit of the dharma. It makes the decision quite difficult at times because there are so many worthy candidates and we have only so much in the coffers." Last year, between the two committees, over US$100,000 was awarded.
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Partnering to Preserve a Lineage
Supporting the Jonang Foundation
Mind Body Awareness Project
Bringing Meditation Instruction into the Juvenile Justice System
This year, Khyentse Foundation awarded a special grant to the Mind Body Awareness Project
(MBA), which provides yoga, meditation and other awareness-based
practice training to incarcerated and at-risk youth. The program,
founded in 2000, is based partly on founder Noah Levine's own
experience in the Santa Cruz Juvenile Hall and is actively positioned
to become a new national model for the rehabilitation of incarcerated
youth.
Sakyapandita and Tsechen Kunchab Ling
KF Supports an Ambitious Translation Project The
fourth of the five founders of the Sakya Order, Sakya Pandita Kunga
Gyaltsen Palzangpo (1182-1251) was a prolific writer and a great
thinker who was primarily responsible for the transplantation of the
ten major and minor sciences from India to Tibet. Toward the end of his
life, he was invited to China and became the teacher of the Mongolian
Khan, converting the warlike emperor to Buddhism. His influence there
planted the seeds that caused Tibetan Buddhism to later flourish in
Mongolia. He lived during a fascinating and important period in the
development of Buddhism in Tibet and Mongolia.
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| IMPRESSIONS: FIRST PERSON |
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Clarifying the Confusion Khyentse Foundation grant recipient Dr. Alexander Berzin is the driving force behind the Berzin Archives. In 2008, nearly half a million people visited the site, accessing more than 1.5 million written and audio items. The website, which is free of charge, is a major multilingual educational tool that presents extensive glossaries of Buddhist terms, as well as information about the four traditions of Tibetan Buddhism and much more. In March of 2009, Dr. Berzin attended the Khyentse Foundation Translation Conference, “Translating the Words of the Buddha,” in Bir, India.
To meet this need, I have developed a comprehensive system of translation terms that correspond to their Tibetan definitions. The [Khyentse Foundation] grant will help in adding more references. It will also help to finance the writing of computer programs to extend the data management system that generates the website to enable it to handle larger amounts of data for larger glossary files. A Spiritual Autobiography Brought to Light Heidi with her daughter, Clara Choetso. PHOTO BY TSULTRIM LAMA
Heidi
Nevin received a Khyentse Foundation grant to translate the spiritual
autobiography of Kathok Khenpo Ngawang Palzang (Khenpo Ngagchung), with
the blessings of her lama , Chatral Rinpoche.
Heidi studied Tibetan language in Darjeeling, India from 1996-8 and
remained in India and Nepal following Chatral Rinpoche until 2003.
Later, she taught Tibetan in the San Francisco Bay Area for two years
and worked as a translator for the Jnanasukha Foundation. She and her
husband Tsultrim and their daughter Clara Choemtso, who is 2 years old,
live in Corvallis, Oregon.
When Kyabje
Chatral Rinpoche gave me his blessing to translate his root guru’s
autobiography into English, he warned that the text “consists entirely
of essential spiritual instructions (gdams ngag) and therefore must be
translated without a single error or else everyone's sacred commitments
will be impaired.” He also cautioned against mistaking the many
personal and place names mentioned throughout this magnificent work.
With these grave risks in the forefront of my mind, I am proceeding
with utmost care to ensure an accurate, high-quality translation. The aim of
this project is to present to the English-speaking world a translation
of the astonishing spiritual autobiography of one of the greatest
Nyingma masters in recent history, Kathok Khenpo Ngawang Palzang
(1879-1941). Also known as Khenpo Ngagchung, his life story reveals the
full glory of the Nyingma school in general and the Longchen Nyingtik
tradition in particular. Its translation will represent a significant
contribution to the authentic transmission of Tibetan Buddhism to the
West. Khenpo
Ngagchung’s pithy advice to disciples and his own exemplary life will
be a tremendous source of blessing and inspiration for anyone who
aspires to follow an authentic teacher and apply him or herself
correctly to the path of Dharma practice. Khenpo Ngagchung portrays
every facet of a disciple’s experience, from seeking and following a
genuine master to the subtle meditation experiences of a highly
realized practitioner. I extend my
heartfelt gratitude to Khyentse Foundation for helping to fund this
project. This generous support brings me closer to realizing my goal of
offering the complete translation to the English-speaking world. I
sincerely pray that all who form a connection to this precious text may
draw inspiration from the sublime life of Khenpo Ngagchung and follow
in his footsteps on the path to perfect enlightenment. May it be auspicious!
The Making of a Scholar
Nisheeta with HH the Dalai Lama.
I
feel extremely fortunate to have received this scholarship by Khyentse
Foundation in order to study Tibetan language and Tibetan Buddhism.
Tibetan is very sacred. It was created for the purpose of establishing
a complete and thorough system of Buddhist education in Tibet, just as
Sanskrit was the language of Dharma in India.
Being
an Indian, I feel even more enthusiastic and thrilled to study this
language because the Tibetans have been able to preserve a very rich
tradition that we Indians have unfortunately lost. I rejoice at the
efforts made by the exiled Tibetan community in India. They have worked
and continue to work very hard to preserve the Buddha Dharma.
Each semester at Sarah College has been quite significant for me. In 2008, I focused mainly on reading Tibetan. I picked up books by the Dalai Lama, pechas [Tibetan books], and with the help of a dictionary, tried to read them all the time. After five months of working on this, I was able to read Tibetan Buddhist texts quite well. I was fortunate to attend His Holiness's teachings Dharamsala from August to October of 2008 and at Sarnath in January of 2009 where I was able to understand his teachings without a translator for the first time.
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KHYENTSE FOUNDATION
P.O. Box 156648 | San Francisco, CA 94115 | phone & fax: 415.788.8048
info@khyentsefoundation.org | www.khyentsefoundation.org
THE COMMUNIQUÉ is a publication of Khyentse Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by
Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche in 2001 to establish a system of patronage that supports institutions and
individuals engaged in the study and practice of the Buddha’s vision of wisdom and compassion.