Report written by Srija Upadhyay.
INTRODUCTION
Established in 1999, Ewam International is a religious and educational nonprofit organization with sites throughout North America and Asia. According to their mission statement, Ewam International “aims to cultivate spiritual awareness in the west and throughout the world” via the teaching and spread of Buddhist tradition—specifically, the Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism. Worldwide, Ewam International has sites in Nepal, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and India. In the US, the organization has sites in New Mexico, California, and Montana. This page will focus on The Garden of One Thousand Buddhas situated in the Jocko Valley of western Montana, as the author incidentally visited that site in August 2025.
The site of focus, The Garden of One Thousand Buddhas, is not only a Buddhist center and home of the Ewam Buddhist Institute, but also a public botanical garden. Its location and design was revealed as a treasure by the garden’s founder. This site is located in the Jocko Valley—near Missoula, Montana—where the Rocky Mountains are visible and many native plants, trees, and flowers are planted around its premises. Buddhist texts posit that one thousand Buddhas will take birth, reach enlightenment, and teach others how to achieve liberation from samsara. As such, The Garden of One Thousand Buddhas contains one thousand buddha statues—as its name implies—but it also holds one thousand stupas arranged in a circle around a large figure of Yum Chenmo or Prajnaparamita (the Great Mother), who is the manifestation of the perfection of wisdom. The buddha statues are hand-cast and each stupa possesses an image of Tara, a female deity. The arrangement of these architectural elements is reminiscent of the eight-spoked dharma wheel: A major symbol in Buddhism that recalls the eight-fold path to enlightenment. Ewam International puts forth that the garden’s purpose “is to bring about positive transformation within those who visit, in response to the negativity that abounds in the world today.”
FOUNDER: GOCHEN TULKU SANG-NGAG RINPOCHE
Gochen Tulku Sang-ngag Rinpoche (1953– ) is the founder of Ewam International sites worldwide, as well as their spiritual director. He was recognized to be the reincarnation of Gochen Tulku—one of the twenty-five heart disciples—when he was around three years old by Kongtrul Lodrö Rapel. As aforementioned, the location and arrangement of The Garden of One Thousand Buddhas was a treasure that appeared in a vision when Rinpoche was quite young and was revealed later in Rinpoche’s life when he was teaching the dharma in Montana. Rinpoche is descended from the Namchak lineage, a practiced lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. The Ewam International website describes Rinpoche as “an outstanding meditation master and scholar… [and] also a master stupa builder.”
During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Rinpoche was arrested for practicing Buddhism and was imprisoned for nine years. There, he studied various aspects of Buddhism under multiple tutors, including Lama Karma Zangpo and Tulku Orgyen Chemchok. Among the things they taught him were compassion, the nature of mind, and bodhichitta. In prison is where it was revealed to him that all things depend on mind; upon this realization, his suffering ceased. When practicing Buddhism was no longer considered a crime, Rinpoche and the other lamas were released, and Rinpoche traveled with Tulku Orguen Chemchok to Lhasa to continue studying under him.
Rinpoche then spent the next period of his life traveling and dedicating himself to various retreats, ultimately devoting himself to a ruler in Bhutan, Khyentse Rinpoche. Rinpoche was under the eye of Khentse Rinpoche for fifteen years; after the latter’s passing, Rinpoche was entrusted with the task of journeying to Tibet to collect certain teachings and rare texts. During these travels, Rinpoche visited numerous institutions—mostly Nyingma institutions—to make offerings, offer supporting funds, and forge connections. (Since Rinpoche mostly visited Nyingma institutions when traveling across Tibet, it is presumable that is why Ewam International also follows Nyingma tradition.) Rinpoche later oversaw the construction of several stupas across the United States, including in New Mexico, California, Arizona, and New York—culminating with the creation of The Garden of One Thousand Buddhas of of Ewam Sang-ngag Ling, who is the Bodhgaya of the United States.
From their website: “The name Ewam (‘Eh-wam’) itself brings together the two Sanskrit syllables for wisdom and compassionate methods. Actualizing the union of these two is the goal of all Buddhist practice.”
ANNUAL EVENTS
Sangwa Yeshé Drubchöd: Nine-day group practice led by Sang-ngag Rinpoche in front of the large statue of the Great Mother of Wisdom at the center of The Garden of One Thousand Buddhas. Sangwa Yeshe means “secret wisdom”, as it is a spiritual treasure (terma) entrusted to Yeshe Tsogyal and one of the twenty-five heart disciples and only uncovered in 1716. Drubchod signifies “great accomplishment ceremony”, which is a group form of deity practice meant to awaken true nature. This event is open to those at all levels/skills of practice as there are explanations and instructions throughout the endeavor.
Bodhicitta Monlam: Offering of 100,000 bodhicitta prayers in front of the large statue of the Great Mother of Wisdom at the center of The Garden of One Thousand Buddhas. The purpose of this event—the International Prayer Ceremony—is to increase the world’s merit, bring about peace and happiness, and free all sentient beings from suffering. This event is free and anyone is permitted to attend.
Tibetan Cultural Festival: Celebration with music, traditional dancing, and monk debate. The Garden of One Thousand Buddhas holds this event in conjecture with the Ewam Sangha.
Peace Festival: A celebration of the creation of The Garden of One Thousand Buddhas that includes song, dance, storytelling, and community. This event is free and anyone is permitted to attend.
FUNDING
Ewam International is a non-profit organization that is open to donations. There are several ways that The Garden of One Thousand Buddhas in particular raises funds. General donations via check or online money-transfer applications are accepted in both one-time and monthly allotments. “Tsog sponsorships” are one subset of online donation that links itself to a Tibetan Buddhist practice of offering to specific deities; aspiration/dedication prayers are accepted with this type of offering. Individuals may also donate to make an offering to a specific teacher at the site. Additionally, funding for specific, ongoing projects is also accepted; at the time of writing, ongoing projects that individuals may donate to specifically include Spring Garden Maintenance and completing the Ewam Peace Pavilion. The Garden of One Thousand Buddhas also maintains a Garden Gift Shop (physical only), where locally made items are featured alongside imported items from Nepal and India.
A limited-time fundraiser that is not currently available is the Lungta Name Tag Fundraiser. Any individual who wishes to have a nametag must donate a minimum of one hundred dollars; the website explains this donation to maintaining the Buddha Garden and Prayer Flag Structure “can serve as a dedication to revive and increase the longevity, merit, capability and life force for themselves or their friends and families, or for the purification of obscurations of ones who have passed on.” As such, the name tags can enhance this message; the color of the name tag signifies what specifically is being acted upon the individual: red = magnetizing, yellow = enriching, green = wrathful/subjugating, white = pacifying the deceased.
Another limited-time fundraiser that is not currently available is the Donate-a-Prayer-Flag Fundraiser. Some context: The Garden of One Thousand Buddhas holds a periodic Lungta Ceremony, where lungta is the energy of all potentiality that is present in all sentient beings. The prayers and mantras entrusted in prayer flags are carried off and spread by the wind, where they revive the lungta that resides in all sentient beings. It is said that the more tattered a prayer flag becomes, the more its goodwill has been spread—and once it is time to replace prayer flags, the old ones are burned so the smoke from the fire continues to spread the goodwill. As such, The Garden of One Thousand Buddhas holds its Lungta Ceremony where all the prayer flags on the garden’s mound are replaced. Individuals may make donations—twenty-five USD apiece—to hang prayer flags as part of the mound, and can include a dedication or name that would be written on the flag.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF SHORTCOMINGS
The author acknowledges that the community’s constituency, particularly the numbers and demographics, was not discussed in this report. No information was found on the Ewam International website or other websites regarding this data.