“Let’s Unite Our Strength and Capacity”

At Dzamling Gar in Tenerife we are about to enter the second phase of the Project, the phase in which work on the houses of the individual Gars is carried out. But more than that it is a moment in which all the Gars themselves need to step into the Project and get involved.

Many people who haven’t been there may think that Dzamling Gar is just another Gar in Spain. But we don’t need another Gar in Europe – we already have Merigar West. The idea is that now we are building a Global Gar, otherwise there is no reason for it.

The most important question now is how can we build this Global Gar Project? The answer is that the Gar has to be managed and created according to a global vision arising from the International Dzogchen Community, just as Chögyal Namkhai Norbu wrote in the Dzamling Gar Song:

“Dzogchen Communities, unite all your strength and capacity.

Happiness is present. Unite your strength and capacity.

Happiness is present, all is manifesting self-perfected…”

Now is the time for us all to unite our strength and capacities and think how we can make Rinpoche’s vision real.

I can understand that entering into this project is, for most of the Gars, not an easy task since we know that most of them are facing financial burdens and having to contribute to another Gar is an additional one. But we are asking people to contribute not only with money but with ideas, with involvement, with commitment. Now is the time to think about how to build the idea of the Global Gar, the Global Community. As members of the International Dzogchen Community we should all be aware of this.

Many of us have been able to travel to different Gars, many people know each other and there are good relationships between us, but we have never worked on a global project. And none of us really knows how to do it. So it’s not only that we need some financial help, we need the Gars and the members of the Community around the world to step in and become more pro-active.

We have started to do this work through our website presenting different campaigns about how you can support Dzamling Gar. At the moment we are thinking about the peer to peer strategy, getting people to talk about the Gar and spreading our ideas because we need capacities and skills.

One of the main points that we would like to bring to people’s attention and ask for their collaboration is designing fundraising strategies. One of the ideas related to the part of the project concerning the Gönpa and medical centre was to apply to some foundations for funding. In addition, we are planning to set up a lottery with the winning prize being accommodation for 2 or 3 weeks in Tenerife while the Master is there and part payment of the flight.

One of the problems we are facing at the moment is how we deal with local regulations seeing as people are coming from 12 Gars from different places around the world. For example, some people from one of the Gars thought that they could come and do some particular work in their house, but unfortunately with the building regulations in Spain, it was not possible. So we are considering some common regulations regarding sharing utilities, working together in the same area and also local regulations and, together with the IDC, we will be drawing up a draft of some basic common regulations that we should all respect.

Another factor that we are concerned about is the fact that this Gar has quite high maintenance so if we don’t manage to make some profit on activities, it may be a difficult task to maintain it. This is something we need to think about together.

We invite people to visit Dzamling Gar ALSO when Rinpoche is not here because when the Master is here activities are more focused on what takes place around him. But it is also very interesting to visit when the Master is not here. One of our ideas is to arrange courses during these periods, for example, language courses, courses that attract people but are not specifically related to the teaching because the Gar has to be alive when Rinpoche is not here. So we have to think about – and this is interesting – how to survive integrating with local people, doing something that is also useful for the people who live around the Gar because we have had a very nice response from the local authorities.

We started with a very successful Spanish course which was mainly for the Gakyil members and the Geko and the Community so that they could communicate in the local language and now we are thinking about setting up intensive courses in the summertime, in, of course, Spanish, possibly in English or other languages. There are a lot of people in the International Community with skills in different fields and we invite them to collaborate with us.

So as you can see all of this is a work in progress. For now we warmly invite people to click on our website to see what is going on, to come and start to get involved just as in the Dzamling Gar song, when Rinpoche repeats:

“As soon as possible, in a relaxed manner, come to Dzamling Gar!”

The people on the Gakyil and working at Dzamling Gar are young people with a young vision. There is a good feeling, good cooperation and people are very committed to how we can cooperate to create this vision which is something new for all of us.

When Rinpoche decided that Tenerife would be home to the Global Gar it was because he felt that many favourable conditions are manifesting on their own and this is true because some things are easier and more relaxed than in other places. That is the base.