Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Dhardo Rimpoche was a great lama who came out of Tibet in the early fifties. After some years as abbot of a monastery at Bodhagaya he turned his attention to the needs of the many children of poor tibetan refugees who were beginning to flood over the high passes of Tibet seeking refuge in the Himalayan town of Kalimpong. He established a school for these children and dedicated the greater part of his remaining years to the maintenance and development of the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Cultural Institute as the school was called. He struck up a friendship with an english born monk Sangharakshita who at that time was also living in Kalimpong. Sangharakshita took the Bodhisattva Vow from Dhardo Rimpoche and in later years spoke of how, based on his personal observation of Rimpoche, he had come to the conclusion that Rimpoche was a living Bodhisattva. One whose life is totally dedicated to the benefit of living beings.

After Rimpoches' death in early 1990 , Sangharakshita received some of his ashes. Some years later he took a portion of the ashes to New Zealand where they were ritually installed in a beautiful seven metre high stupa which members of the Triratna community had built high on a ridge on the retreat land they had purchased in 1993 through a combination of loans and gifts of money ; Sudarshanaloka [meaning Land of Beautiful Vision]. 

Inspired by Dhardo Rimpoches' presence at Sudarshanaloka through the medium of this stupa on the Coromandel Peninsular in the North Island of New Zealand, I have offered to try & raise £60,000  over the next year for the Trust which looks after this place of retreat.

Paying off one of the centre mortgages early will release valuable annual income to support a suitably qualified Order Member to concentrate on significantly expanding the current retreat programme.

THE AIM is to reach  more people in New Zealand and beyond, sharing with them the precious gift of the Dharma, amidst the elemental beauty of  the Sudarshanaloka landscape.

Please help me reach this target by giving now through this page or pledging to raise £200-£500 or more by October 2012.

If you make a pledge you can deposit the money you gather as you go along via this page or give it all in one go when you have reached your personal pledge target.

(& just so you know)...in  NZ  fund-raising efforts by the Trust are focused on ongoing improvements to facilities on the 240 acre site which will enable a full retreat programme to be run.
Visit ; http://sudarshanaloka.ning.com/  to get a glimpse of the place and the people involved in the Sudarshanaloka mandala.

If this is the first time you have donated money through Just Giving I want to assure you that it is a simple, fast and totally secure means of doing so. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to theTriratna Development Fund, clearly tagged as being for Sudarshanaloka. They also make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. All donations from this page going into the Triratna Development fund will be held there until the fundraising deadline is reached in November 2012. Arrangements will then be made to transfer all the money raised to the Sudarshanaloka Trust for the purpose for which it has been given.

You can visit my blog to read more in depth why I am raising funds for Sudarshanaloka.

I hope you will join me in this and give now or make a pledge.

Thank you

Sanghadevi