Support Dharma Projects
Encountering the Dharma is a Precious Gift
Supporting the Dharma yields vast merit and supporting the Dharma with wisdom and Bodhichitta has more merit than filling a 1000 planets with precious jewels and giving it as a gift!
Below are some of our favorite Dharma projects in our lineage we like to support. And, if you are so inclined, you can support ACI Reno, Diamond Heart Center with your tax deductible donation as we are a Non-Profit Organization. For your questions on supporting ACI Reno, please use our contact form to inquire about ways you can donate your time, talent or financial support to ACI Reno Diamond Heart Center.
Dharma Projects Needing Support:
Asian Classics Input Project – Saving the Scriptures
The ancient Buddhist and yoga scriptures are disappearing from the world. Millions of texts were destroyed during and after the 1959 invasion of Tibet, and many others are disintegrating, unread, in libraries throughout Asia. Since 1988, the Asian Classics Input Project has saved thousands of these endangered masterpieces by combing monasteries, libraries and archives throughout Asia. After finding these texts (often the only known remaining copy), we scan them, type them into computers, and then distribute them free of charge to scholars and teachers worldwide.
Empowering Refugees
More than 100,000 Tibetan refugees fled to India in the wake of the communist invasion, and India, a poor country struggling with the needs of its own population, could only offer the Tibetans an unwanted jungle to live in. The great monasteries of Tibet — Sera, Drepung, and Ganden — were re-established there, but many refugees are still struggling to build their lives in their new country. ACIP has helped in a small but important way by providing jobs to Tibetan refugees, mostly women who are often the sole support of their family. ACIP’s input centers provide work, computer training, and community for Tibetans striving to overcome the upheaval of invasion and exile. We have stretched our original mission to include preserving the precious Sanskrit yoga texts, now rotting in humid libraries throughout India. The world is begging for the holy secrets within these scriptures, and ACIP is fighting a race against time to preserve them for all humanity.
Please Consider Supporting the Asian Classics Input Project >
Asian Classics Input Project on Facebook >
Sera Mey Monastery Food Fund
2010 & 2011: Urgent Appeal for Help
Khensur Rinpoche Lobsang Jamyang at Sera Mey Food Fund, Sera Mey Monastic University in Mysore, South India, wishes to convey his heartfelt gratitude to all the Buddhist practitioners and benefactors who, by their donations to the Sera Mey Food Fund during the past years, have made it possible for the 1500 Sangha members to continue their learning and practice of Buddhist Dharma.
Ever since Sera Mey Monastic University resettled in India, they have sadly lost most of their grass root support from the Tibetan people and have then turned to the solidarity of Buddhist practitioners in the world for their survival. Sera Mey has been indebted to innumerable Buddhist friends and benefactors who have responded wholeheartedly to Khensur Rinpoche’s appeals for help when Sera Mey went through their most severe food crises (see the list of benefactors of Sera Mey Food Fund). From Canada, USA, Europe and Asia, the support was tangible with every individual gesture speaking of a common spirit of love and compassion and a strong spiritual commitment to safeguard the monastic institution that has for so long been a place of Buddhist study and transmission of Buddha’s teachings.
The food shortage should have been resolved or at least temporarily held at bay and KR would have hoped to bring good news from Sera Mey of progress being made, of food supply becoming more stable and secure for the future. Unfortunately against all hopes Sera Mey has not been granted any reprieve. The economic and political difficulties in India have given rise to severely inflated food prices directly affecting Sera Mey food supply. The effects have been momentously devastating on the frugal budget of the monastery, which from the onset could hardly allocate one dollar of food a day per monk. Sera Mey is unable to buy enough food as the food prizes of all major staples in their basic diet have doubled and in some cases tripled. A bowl of rice now has become half its size and the same goes for a can of lentils and every other staple like oil, vegetables, etc. The hardships that the Sangha are living through are visible in the sadness of their eyes and their future now seems even more clouded with uncertainty.
Please Consider Supporting the Sera Mey Food Fund >
Sera Mey Food Fund on Facebook >
The Knowledge Base
The Knowledge Base is an ongoing project to preserve and publish the life work of Geshe Michael Roach, one on the world’s most prolific teachers of Buddhism, yoga and meditation.
Geshe Michael Roach is the first American to have been awarded the degree of Geshe, or Master of Buddhism, after more than 20 years of study in Tibetan monasteries. Over the last 30 years he has taught over 3,000 classes, and translated more than 12,000 pages of Tibetan and Sanskrit literature. His numerous books have been translated into over 30 languages, and he has trained hundreds of teachers from all over the world.
The Knowledge Base Archive currently contains over 7,000 hours of teachings by Geshe Michael Roach and his senior students in twenty-four languages, and more than 12,000 pages of original translations, books and course materials. If you were to listen to a single class per day, it would take you over nine years to hear everything!
Please Consider Supporting The Knowledge Base >
The Knowledge Base on Facebook >
The 3 Year Retreat
The Search for Enlightenment – The Retreat for Peace
Committing to the challenge of a three-year meditation retreat is an impossibly rare opportunity to explore the inner space of the mind, seek a cure for suffering, and find a repeatable path toward peace and happiness for all who seek it.
The word “enlightenment” sounds vague and mystical, but the Buddha taught that it is quite achievable by deliberately following a series of steps. The three-year retreatants have been studying and practicing Tibetan Buddhism very seriously for the last six or more years, and by going into the laboratory of solitary retreat they hope to put all their studies to practice.
Our experience of reality is largely a construct of our own consciousness.
Furthermore, our Lamas tell us that the only way to comprehend this on a gut level is to reach a level of perfect concentration (which is almost impossible to do except in a long silent retreat) and then turn our focus toward understanding the true nature of things.
Please Consider Volunteering to Serve Participants or Supporting the Food Fund for Participants >
