NWDA News

Northwest Dharma Association 2020 Finances

The 2020 pandemic was financially difficult for Northwest Dharma Association, as was the case for many other non-profit groups. Our income remained virtually the same as the previous year, but we were able to reduce expenses primarily through the generosity of Timothy O’Brien, who declined to accept his stipend during most of his last year as NWDA administrator. Timothy’s generosity allowed us to undertake some major website upgrades, while still ending the year with $8,975 in the bank. Thank you, Timothy! With Timothy’s generosity in mind, it is our hope that others will increase donations this year and next, as…

Compassionate Action

Four Leaders Speak on Climate Change and Dharma

Climate change-caused humanitarian crises are piling up, particularly in the global south

Four presenters brought dharma and related spiritual understanding to the climate emergency, through an online series co-sponsored in the early months of 2021 by two Seattle Buddhist groups. The series, titled “Interdependence and Our Ecological Crisis,” was co-sponsored by Dharma Friendship Foundation and Seattle Insight Meditation Society. Nearly 100 people signed up for the series, which was intended to stimulate discussion and to plant seeds to integrate Buddhist and indigenous wisdom to respond to the multilayered environmental, social and economic challenges facing our shared world. The presentations highlighted people’s growing willingness to face these issues and work together towards solutions…

Dharma Education

Overcoming Repeated Obstacles, Kilung Foundation
Rebuilding Shedra Monastic College in Tibet

Dza Kilung Rinpoche on the roof of the new shedra, replacing the structure destroyed during the 2016 fire

With support from Kilung Foundation near Seattle, a new Kilung monastic college is rising in Tibet, from the ashes of a devastating 2016 fire that destroyed the prior structure. Banging, grinding and humming noises of construction ring through the thin air at 14,000 feet. With the pouring of concrete, welding of a solar cap, and creating forms for the fine detail of traditional Tibetan design, the Kilung Shedra (monastic college) will be an extraordinary structure, built to withstand earthquakes, fire and the rigors of high-altitude winters. While contractors started the 2021 building season expecting shedra completion in the fall, the…

Dharma Healing, Arts

Petals of a Lotus: A Collective Tribute Celebrating
The Deep Life of Lama Thubten Jampal Gyatso

This photo, from Jampal’s 2019 visit to the famous Tiger’s Nest hermitage in Bhutan, is the one he chose to be given to those attending his “lying in state” at Dorje Ling

Jampal Gyatso (Clark Hansen) May 15, 1947-May 14th 2021 Our dear friend and teacher Clark Hansen, also known as Thubten Jampal Gyatso, died on May 14, 2021. He gracefully coped for his last three years with increasingly difficult symptoms and challenges of ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. Jampal first took refuge with the 16th Karmapa when the latter came to the West in 1980. In that same year Dudjom Rinpoche established the Western Region of Yeshe Nyingpo, and for nine years that sangha met in various places in the Portland area. In 1989 Jampal offered his home in Portland’s…

Sangha News

New Buddha Hall Rising for Sravasti Abbey

An architect’s rendering of the Buddha Hall, overlaid on a photo of the building site

Sravasti Abbey, a Buddhist monastery in northeast Washington state, is building a long-awaited 17,000-square-foot temple and library. Buddha Hall will become the center of religious life for the resident monastic community and for thousands of guests far into the future. After a one-year delay due to the pandemic, Buddha Hall construction is expected to begin this summer. Long time coming The idea of Buddha Hall has been in the mind of Sravasti Abbey founder, Venerable Thubten Chodron, since she started the monastery. What monastery exists without a central structure for study, practice, meditation and teachings? But everything starts small. The…