NWDA News

NWDA Launches Summer Funding Drive:
Please Join Those Who Make This Work Possible

The Buddhist Recovery Summit, which brought together leaders in dharma-based recovery addiction from around the world, was co-sponsored by Northwest Dharma Association.

We need your help. Like many small non-profits, we rely on donations. Unlike many others, however, that’s all we have to depend on. We have no other source of revenue, such as advertising, product sales, grants, etc. So, please give. It’s easy. Just go here. We especially appreciate recurring monthly gifts, because they help us predict our revenue. Any gift in any amount helps, because we operate on such a small budget. Most of what we do is through volunteers. Without your financial support we cannot continue to fulfill our mission of supporting the Budhist community throughout the region –…

Compassionate Action

Bhikkhu Bodhi Walks to Feed the Hungry
Set in Seattle and Portland in Coming Months

A group photo in front of Portland Friends of the Dharma, before the Portland walk started.

Northwest people are planning to walk together to raise funds for the Buddhist Global Relief organization, in Portland on Aug. 18 and in Seattle on Sept. 15. Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi, a well-known Theravada monastic and translator, 10 years ago founded Buddhist Global Relief to promote compassion in action by improving access to food for people around the world. BGR does this through direct food aid, education for children and women, projects supporting women’s livelihoods, and agricultural projects promoting sustainable farming. The organization has raised more than $3.5 million for projects in more than 20 countries, including the United States. Each…

Dharma Education

Dalai Lama and Thubten Chodron Release New Book
From Library of Wisdom of Compassion Series

In 2013 His Holiness the Dalai Lama met in Portland with student and co-author Venerable Thubten Chodron, to discuss The Library of Wisdom and Compassion series.

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, and Pacific Northwest author and Buddhist nun Venerable Thubten Chodron, have jointly released a second volume in the Dalai Lama’s definitive and comprehensive series of teachings on the entire Buddhist path, The Library of Wisdom and Compassion. The second volume “The Foundation of Buddhist Practice,” released by Wisdom Publications May 15, lays out the steps to building a strong Buddhist practice. The Library of Wisdom Compassion series promises to be one of the Dalai Lama’s most significant English-language works. Eight or more volumes in length, the series brings together decades of the Dalai Lama’s oral…

Dharma Healing, Arts

Cambodian, Lao and Thai People Band Together
To Build Temple in Lake Stevens, Washington

A monk robe-offering ceremony, symbolizing how the community supports monastic life

The members of Bright Buddhist Association, now in a converted house, are preparing to break ground for a much-larger temple complex. Nearly 400 sangha members are raising money to support the temple expansion project, on a 6-acre site north of the town of Lake Stevens, which is in turn north of Seattle. The region is largely rural with a sparse population of Asian people. The temple, the only Buddhist sangha in the area, attracts a multi-national group of Asian members including Cambodian, Laotian and Thai people, said Ven. Aggashri, one of the temple’s two monks. Reflecting the unique mixture of…

Sangha News

Tahoma Zen Monastery Plans for 1,000 Years

People doing retreat at Tahoma Monastery use traditional Japanese practice forms, such as this walking meditation around the zendo deck

The leaders of the Tahoma-san Sōgen-ji Zen Monastery, on Washington state’s Whidbey Island north of Seattle, are taking steps to keep the monastery healthy for the next 1,000 years. We’re planting of trees and building facilities to last a millennium. We’re also deepening the teaching and practice of realizing directly our original nature, at this traditional Rinzai Zen Training Monastery. The first of the important physical developments is the 77 Trees Project, commemorating founder Shodo Harada Roshi’s turning 77 in 2017. The second is the columbarium project, a building with niches where the ashes of deceased sangha members and others…