A Wonderful Opportunity to Help Build a Stupa

A stupa is a concentration of blessed and sacred objects, contained within a structure in an auspicious place.

As Buddhists, two of the most effective practices we can engage in on the path to Enlightenment are to accumulate merit and to purify obscurations. A stupa is an ideal setting to effectively engage in both of these activities. In Chatral Rinpoche’s A Brief Summary of the Benefits of Building, Circumambulating, Prostrating to, and Making Aspiration Prayers at a Stupa, he quotes the Buddha as saying,

“A stupa (is) the vajra essence of all Tathagatas (Enlightened Ones)…(A stupa is) consecrated by the secret essence of all the mantras of the Tathagatas…Whoever pays reverence and honors (a stupa) will eventually achieve the unexcelled and completely perfect state of enlightenment…All Tathagatas will bless the entire area that surrounds the place the stupa has been built in.”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had such a powerful monument to our highest potential here in the United States─a stupa as awe-inspiring as the great Boudhanath Stupa in Nepal? (above) Well, fortunately, there is a collection of people from around the world with pure compassionate motivation working on just that─the Maha Bodhivastu Stupa in the beautiful Hudson Valley of New York. (model on the right) Best of all, we have the incredibly fortuitous opportunity to help build this

stupa ourselves! Chatral Rinpoche quotes the Buddha as saying,

“If you make a stupa with your own hands, you will be able to purify your body even if you have committed…inexpiable sins.”

Engaging in the virtuous activity of building or supporting the construction of a stupa will also create enormous amounts of merit, which can propel us forward on the path to Enlightenment. The Maha Bodhivastu Stupa is prophesized by the high Oracle of Bhutan, Druk Chokyong Tsimar as a sacred structure that will benefit countless beings at this crucial moment in world history. The project is supported by many holy beings around the world. I strongly encourage you to join us in building it. The Stupa will be a focal point for our collective efforts to restore peace and harmony on the earth.

To learn more, please visit www.bodhivastu.org.

For more on Chatral Rinpoche’s teachings, please visit www.compassionateaction.info.

Sikkim: The Land of Vast Blessings and Kind People

I spent the last five days in an amazing place filled with extraordinary blessings of both the spiritual and the natural environment variety. It also happens to be a land of kind, honest people. Despite my white skin, I was never once a target for con artists or thieves. Shockingly, every taxi driver and store keeper I met in the country gave me the low, local price without any bargaining required. I came here for an annual festival called the Bumchu Tuchen (Meaning the “Water Vase festival.”).

The vase was given to people in the area in the 8th century by Guru Padmasambhava, founder of Tibetan Buddhism, and it has the magical property of filling each year on its own with nectar-like water despite being emptied the year before. At midnight on the first full moon of the Tibetan New Year, the vase is brought out from its secure location within a monastery called Tashiding in West Sikkim and the water level is checked. If there is very little water in the vase, it is believed that the year will be filled with drought and poverty. If it is more than half full, it is believed there will be natural disasters such as floods and bad storms. If it is in the middle, it is believed the year will go smoothly. After the level is announced, the vase is emptied into a large tank and mixed with water from a nearby sacred river. A crowd of 7,000 to 10,000 people then lines up patiently for the next 10 hours to receive some of the water, which is believed to be powerful nectar created magically by Guru Padamsambhava.

I went with a few friends I met up to the Tashiding hill at 8:30 p.m. and joined the throngs of Buddhists camping out and lining up for the ceremony.



The full moon shone brightly and magic was unmistakably in the air. Families from far and wide came to the monastery with blankets and a mat, and waited for the special moment when the vase is brought out and the nectar is distributed. I stayed until 1:30 a.m. and then went home to get some sleep and join the queue later on when it would not be quite so long.



When it came my turn, I walked into the monastery and touched my head to the ancient vase for a blessing.

The nectar was poured into my hand and also in a small bottle I brought along and I walked past hundreds of masters praying in unison. I then spent the next two days on the hill with a friend I met from Germany, meditating in several sacred caves and feeling the tangible power of the blessings Padmasambhava brought to the place 1,200 years ago.



I then went to several 400 year-old monasteries in the area and enjoyed Himalayan and rhododendron flower views. Sikkim is an amazing place, and I am very grateful for my time there and for the kindness of the people I met.

Tibetan Buddhist Protection Cords

For the vast majority of the past 10 years of my life, I have told people with all sincerity that the cords hanging around my neck, which contain the blessings of several living Buddhas from the Himalayan region, are my health insurance. The effectiveness of my “policy” has been tested several times, from a high speed bike accident on the Manhattan bridge (the other bike involved smashed into pieces, but neither of us sustained an injury) to climbing slippery dead trees in a lightning storm to hang prayer flags at a New York meditation center. The cords seem to be quite effective at protecting me from danger.

The protection is provided by a sacred knot that is prayed over and blessed by a high master and worn around the neck of faithful disciples. One of my main protectors was an amulet that contained the protection cord knots of the major living Buddhas of my tradition, such as HH Chatral Rinpoche, HH Trulshik Rinpoche, HH Taklung Tsetrul Rinpoche and HH Dodrubchen Rinpoche. I wore this amulet along with the highly coveted “sungdi nakpo” of the late HH Minling Trichen Rinpoche every day for the past five years. The sungdi nakpo is a black compilation of 9 knots that was blessed by a living embodiment of Guru Padmasambhava (the 2nd Buddha and founder of Tibetan Buddhism). Its protective powers are renowned throughout the Himalayan region and I still meet people today who swear by them and wouldn’t trade them in for $1,000,000 cash. Another cord that I have worn every day since 2004 is a medallion containing the sacred image of HH Chatral Rinpoche on one side and Guru Padmasambhavha on the other side. It was given to me and personally blessed by HH Chatral Rinpoche himself. One time, a Tibetan man asked to see it and wanted badly to keep it himself, on account of how hard it is to meet with HH Chatral Rinpoche and how powerful the blessings and protection of the medallion are. His friend had to pry it out of his hands in order to return to me.

During the 1950’s and 60’s, the Tibetan resistance army from Kham (eastern Tibet) was very famous for their protection cords and amulets which reportedly made them impervious to harm. Even the Chinese soldiers began to believe in them and the power of the cords was feared even more than the fierce soldiers themselves. At night, a Tibetan soldier would hide his protection cord and amulet, which were far more valuable than any weapon could be, in case he was captured by a Chinese soldier.

I had the good fortunate to go to the home of HH Chatral Rinpoche last month and make offerings. In return, I received a new protection cord from him, which I will cherish for the rest of my life. This week, my protection cord collection grew quite a bit, not through my initiative, but through circumstances attributable to fate. First, I met with a Buddhist lama friend of mine who was a student of HH Dudjom Rinpoche. He gave me a rare blessed object on a protection cord that he says he rarely gives out and asked me to keep the details a secret.

A few days later, I met him again to take a day trip and he said he felt we should visit Lama Tsering Wangdu Rinpoche, a highly realized Tibetan Buddhist master. The experience was amazing, complete with many profound blessings and a special three-in-one protection cord that he only gives out in special circumstances. The first of the three is a special kind of 9-knot sungdi nakpo that provides protection against nine types of dangers, in the tradition of the Tibetan Buddha Padampa Sangye. The second is a special Guru Padmasambhava protection group of knots that he said he prayed over for several months. The third is an amulet with a double vajra on the front and a special mantra on the back, filled with many sacred protective substances.

With all of these protection cords working for me, I many never need health insurance again!

All of these recent blessings led to some exciting news: that I received a Journalist Visa for Bhutan. That means I will be able to spend 10 days in this amazing country. Normally, that is not possible for income-less people like me because a Tourist Visa entails a minimum of $2,500 in fees for 10 days (not including transport to the country) My total expenses will be a fraction of this. For this good fortune, I sincerely thank all the masters I have met and Guru Padmasambhava for answering my prayers.

The lure of marrying an American

On Sunday, I attended a most unusual wedding. A 43-year-old California man married a 22-year-old Tibetan woman. The two had only met ten days earlier. Arranged marriages like this are typically done for immigration purposes only, but this was, by all accounts, a love marriage that happened to be arranged. The arranger was a prominent Tibetan Buddhist teacher. The woman was his niece and the man was his close disciple. The man looked just like Johnny Depp and taught meditation to juvenile offenders in Oakland. The woman was stunningly beautiful with a million dollar smile and a joyful demeanor. She was still studying at the high school level at a Tibetan refugee camp in Northern India, but spoke English with ease.

A wild, old Tibetan man officiated the ceremony with a series of prayers, mantras and well-wishes to the couple. The groom’s brother, who looked like a Madame Tussauds Wax Museum replica of Brad Pitt in his Seven Years in Tibet role, then led the couple through the exchange of vows and rings (minus the kissing the bride part, which would have been culturally inappropriate). They did cut a cake and put pieces in each other’s mouths, which was viewed with puzzled amazement by the Tibetan family of the bride.

The Tibetan word for wedding can literally be translated as “setting for drinking beer” and so, naturally, we then commenced with several hours of beer drinking and merriment. After the feast, we settled down for a series of animated games of Uno, the classical Mattel card game of numbers and colors. Luck was on my side that day, and I managed to win five games.

I have been asked to marry people in South Asia for immigration purposes several times. The first happened in 2000, when I stayed at a Tibetan refugee camp in South India. I became well-acquainted with a married Tibetan couple and their young son. We exchanged phone numbers and addresses and when I returned to the U.S., a strange letter awaited. The man had managed to get refugee asylum in the U.S., but his wife was not able to join him. The wife therefore wrote me directly to ask that I marry her so she can come to the U.S. too. She included a sexy photograph of herself as well, which struck me as a little strange considering she was already happily married and wanted to marry me only so she could be with her husband. After consulting with some people, I decided against the proposal.

When you marry someone for immigration purposes so they can come to the U.S., you invariably have to do a lot of lying, some of which is at the felony level. I have several friends who have gone through with it anyway, knowing they can divorce after five years and still help the foreigner out. To have the marriage accepted by the Department of Immigration, both parties have to go through intense grilling and scrutiny. You are sometimes asked intimate questions about the other’s genitals and sexual prowess to see if you hesitate or answer as naturally as someone who is already married. If they are convinced you are lying and don’t really know or love your supposed spouse, they may reject the marriage and send the spouse back to their home country. The American could also get jail time if their lying can be proven.
Someone I know recently arranged an immigration marriage between an American and a Tibetan girl. When the two met, they decided that they liked each other and would try it out as a legitimate love marriage. A friend of mine who used to live in the same house with them said they do a lot of quarreling, but they are still together.

Sometimes, foreigners will marry Nepali women for their own immigration purposes. My European friend has a fake Nepali wife arranged through an agent whom he has no relations with. Thanks to the arrangement, he can get a year-long Nepali visa for only $10 a month that can be renewed each year. A typical visa costs $60 a month and is only valid for 5 months. For her trouble, the Nepali girl receives a salary and can be granted a divorce when she is ready to settle down for real.

One of my friends on the Nepal program in 1999/2000 married her Nepali trekking guide after they fell in love. She moved back with him to Milwaukee, where they fell out of love after a few months and separated. Both of them later remarried and lived happily ever after in the U.S.

Many people here have an obsession with going to the U.S. to work. In their minds, it is glamorous and lucrative and as soon as they touch down on U.S. soil, they will be able to start raking it in. Most of them don’t realize that working illegally on a tourist visa can get you deported and rarely pays above minimum wage. They also don’t tend to factor in the astronomical cost of living in the U.S., which is easily 10 times that of Nepal. (You can buy a meal at a restaurant here for 70 cents and get a decent hotel room for $2.50). The airfare to the U.S. is also around 5 times the annual income for a Nepali (not an exaggeration). The success stories of “a friend of a friend” who went to the U.S. on a tourist visa and is now thriving are enough to keep the American dream alive and well in the hearts of Nepalis and keep immigration marriage requests coming for Americans throughout the Nepal.