Josh and Diana Cutler’s India Trip March 11- April 7, 2009 Attending Translators’ Conference We started our trip by attending a translators’ conference sponsored by Khyentse Foundation. It was held at their Deer Park Buddhist Center in Bir, Himachal Pradesh, India. Over a five-day period the fifty translators conceived a plan to translate the entire Tibetan Buddhist canon and the Tibetan commentaries over the next one hundred years and named it the Buddhist Literary Heritage Project. For pictures and a blog by Wisdom Publication’s David Kittelstrom go to: HYPERLINK
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Following up on TBLC-Sponsored Projects While in Bir we made a quick visit to Dolma Ling, a nunnery near Dharamsala, to see the progress on the debate court for which TBLC had recently given some financial support. Following this, we traveled to Sarnath (near Varanasi) to visit with our teacher Loling Geshe Yeshe Thabkhe and work on a TBLC project to publish a new Tibetan edition of the Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment (Lam Rim Chen Mo). Finally, we went to Karnataka State in the south of India where TBLC had two projects. In Mundgod TBLC had recently sponsored a project to install fifty solar-powered streetlights at Drepung Monastic University, which includes Gomang and Loseling Colleges, as well as at the nearby Rato Monastery and Tsechen Do-Ngag Choling Sakya Monastery. In Bylakuppe TBLC had made a donation to Tashilungpo Monastery’s endowment to support the monks’ meals. Making a Pilgrimage The final portion of our trip also included our personal pilgrimage in Karnataka State to fifteen monasteries and two nunneries of the four Tibetan Buddhist traditions. We had learned from our teacher and TBLC founder Geshe Ngawang Wangyal the Buddhist custom of laypersons making offerings to the monks and nuns as a way to gather merit [positive energy]. We have found this custom to be a good way to make a connection with each of the monks and nuns as well as to encourage them when they see Americans taking an active interest in their lifelong dedication. As in previous visits to the monasteries, we made offerings of a meal and a little individual money to the assembled monks (this time at Gomang and Loseling Colleges and Tashilungpo Monastery), and requested their prayers for our families and the families of all TBLC members and friends. At the temples of the other monastic institutions we said prayers and gave donations. We took the pictures below during this final part of our trip.