Dear friends,
Welcome to a brief digest of some good news from Merigar East. After months of preparations and fundraising, we successfully launched the initial phase of our Gönpa Renovation!
First of all, thank you so much for your support so far!
Your generosity and collaboration is immensely appreciated, and about to present concrete result. Looking back, admittedly, it was not easy to imagine a project of this scale easily come to life. Still, thanks to Migmar Tsering’s and Oliver Leick’s ceaseless encouragement and some exceptionally generous donors we’ve passed the point of no return.
The works auspiciously started on the anniversary of Buddhas birth, attainment of enlightenment and Parinirvana. The workers, under the coordination of our Geko, have insulated the buildings walls from the rising ground humidity, repair the damage to the walls, paint the outer part of the wooden ceiling and coat the façade with a new silicate plaster. In other words – we’re cutting off the walls to get rid of mold and salt stains inside the Gönpa while giving it a new, improved outer coat to resist the elements for many years to come.
The next phase will take part from 25th July to the 17th of August. It will consist of decorative inner and outer paintings, with Tibetan motives, under the coordination of Migmar Tsering.
We are looking for artists – volunteers!
We already have 7 artists who registered to decorate the Gönpa, wishing to learn about Tibetan art from Migmar. We need you too! If you are skilled in painting or willing to support the works by cooking, cleaning and practicing together, you are welcome to participate! Apply by sending us an email and telling us about your motivation. We will host you here.
Practice retreat with Oliver Leick
Between August 8 – 14 we will also have Oliver Leick, SMS instructor, guiding us through teachings and practices to enhance the merit generated through this action.
Morning: Introduction to meditation
Why it is helpful to understand and apply the practice of meditation?
We start with reflecting on the Four Awarenesses by which we understand that we need to become aware of our “three doors” of Body, Speech and MInd.
After having gain an understanding of the basic requirements like generosity, morality, patience, perseverance we will apply practices for developing meditative stability.
Afternoon: explanation and practice of application of discriminating wisdom
In order to make our gain knowledge about meditation stable and to eliminate doubts, we will engage in the aspects of wisdom derived from meditation, also by discovering the absence of self-nature in the person.
Finally we will discover the four applications of presence.
For practitioners only:
Odzer Chenma practice, Contemplation, Long Practice of Green Tara, Guruyoga of White A, Practice of 25 Spaces.
Support the campaign
We still need financial support to complete the works. We need to cover the costs for the travel and stay of the volunteers. We wish to be fully transparent in the investments we made. So we wish to call for IDC members to participate in Merigar East’s General Assembly to discuss our process.
Please donate as much as you can! Every bit counts!
You can see the detailed calendar of events and practices here.
Merigar East Gakyil
