Report by Victoria Fong
Background
The Guhyasamaja Center is a Buddhist meditation center that is located in the Washington DC metro area. The center is dedicated to the practice of Tibetan Buddhism. It was established under the spiritual direction of Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche in 1994 as part of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition, which is an international non-profit organization that was founded in 1975 by Lama Thubten Yeshe, a Tibetan Buddhist monk. When it first began, what is today known as The Guhyasamaja Center was a small study group part of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition. At the time, private homes and some small rented spaces were used to hold classes and gatherings. As the study group began to gain students and members, the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition determined that it was necessary to procure a more permanent, larger location. With the financial support of its growing community, the Guhyasamaja Center was able to establish its first meditation hall in 2013, located in Fairfax, Virginia. Today, The Guhyasamaja Center is one of more than 160 FPMT centers worldwide.
The Guhyasamaja Center follows the Tibetan Gelug tradition of Lama Tsongkhapa, and is of the same lineage as His Holiness the Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso. The Gelug School is the largest of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Founded by Je Tsongkhapa in the 15th century, this tradition integrates the methodical study and practice of the sutras and tantras as transmitted by Je Tsongkhapa and his successors. The Gelug School is based in part upon the older Kadam lineage which derived from the teachings of Jowo Je Atisha. The central teachings of the Gelug School are Lamrim, based on the teachings of Atisha, and the systematic cultivation of the view of emptiness.
Services
The Guhyasamaja Center offers a wide variety of classes and other activities to both Buddhists and non-Buddhists in the Washington D.C. Metropolitan area. Buddhist philosophies and techniques are used as the foundation for all the activities offered, but most classes and events are in fact open to anyone who wishes to participate, and simply seek to “offer skillful methods to anyone looking to bring peace into daily life”. Some of the introductory classes offered are “Meditation 101,” “Mindfulness: Meditations to Benefit Daily Life,” and “Buddhism in a Nutshell”. The center also sometimes offers a “Meditation for Kids” class designed especially for children ages 7 and up. These classes are designed for anyone who is exploring an interest in Buddhism, whether they have an interest in converting to the religion, they just want to know more about the religion, or they are simply interested in learning more about mindful, peaceful life practices.
The center also offers many intermediate and advanced opportunities to study and practice the Buddha’s teachings in greater detail for those already familiar with Buddhism. Teachings are offered on topics such as karma, bodhichitta and emptiness, tantric initiations, and meditation retreat, just to name a few. The center also holds celebrations for the major Tibetan Buddhist holy days.
For those who find that they cannot make it physically to the center, the center offers many classes online.
In addition, the center has activities and events outside of classes. The center occasionally hosts events such as a Dharma book club, movie nights, and other social gatherings, offered both in person and online. There is also silent meditation time available before some classes and events.
Financial Support
The center is run entirely by volunteers and with donations from any patrons and community members. The center has a strong belief in making their classes, events, and other activities accessible to all, so they offer all Dharma teachings on a dana basis. Dana is a Sanskrit word meaning generosity. Offering all their teachings on a dana basis means that the teachings are offered free of charge. The center is still able to run with a solid financial support from patrons, because they emphasize that along with offering teachings on a dana basis, they also are consistently offering community members and patrons an opportunity to practice dana themselves, by making donations to the center. On their website, they list suggested donations by each event and class description. They emphasize the idea that members and non-members alike should give if they are able to do so, in order to practice generosity and keep the center running.
Teachers
In Mahayana Buddhism in particular, much emphasis is placed on the teacher-student relationship. At The Guhyasamaja Center, they take pride in having extremely qualified teachers who are able to maintain and foster this valued relationship.
All center classes and other teaching events are led by qualified instructors who follow the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition policies concerning teachers and facilitators. Per this policy, resident teachers of FPMT centers are approved and appointed by Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Other teachers must be registered with FPMT after having received a certificate of completion for one of FPMT’s more comprehensive educational programs. Additional criteria, such as the completion of meditation retreats and other studies with Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche, are also part of the process of becoming a certified FPMT teacher. Facilitators who meet FPMT criteria to lead introductory classes are approved by the center. In addition, unless otherwise noted on the website, any guest teachers teaching at the center follow the Tibetan Gelug tradition of Lama Tsongkhapa and are also registered as teachers by FPMT.
Center classes are taught by qualified instructors with diverse backgrounds and years of experience. Currently, among these instructors are a Tibetan Buddhist master and former abbot of Gyumed Tantric college, a clinical psychologist and Buddhist practioner of more than twenty-five years, and several other dedicated members of the monastic and lay Buddhist community.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche
The center was established under the spiritual direction of Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche in 1994 as part of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche is a Tibetan Buddhist scholar and meditator who has been the spiritual director of the FPMT for over thirty years. His vision is vast and includes the proliferation of many charitable and beneficial activities. One of the projects that is the among the most important projects to Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the Maitreya Project. The project includes plans to build two large statues of the future Buddha, Maitreya, in Bodhgaya and Kushinagar in India. Rinpoche also cares greatly about The Sera Je Food Fund, which is an organization that offers three vegetarian meals a day to all 2,500 monks who reside at Sera Je Monastery in south India. Rinpoche also supports Animal Liberation events around the world, at which creatures, large and small, are freed from immediate harm and blessed each year– the current total number of animals liberated is over 200,000,000. Rinpoche is also dedicated to fulfilling the wishes as a whole of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in any way possible.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche was born in the Mount Everest region of Thami in 1946. He was recognized soon afterwards by His Holiness Tulshig Rinpoche and five other lamas as the reincarnation of the yogi Kunsang Yeshe. At the age of ten, Rinpoche was taken to Tibet to study and meditate at Domo Geshe Rinpoche’s monastery near Pagri, until the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1959 forced him to leave Tibet for the safety of Bhutan. Later, Rinpoche went to the Tibetan refugee camp at Buxa Duar, West Bengal, India, where he met Lama Yeshe, who eventually became his closest teacher. In 1965, the lamas met their first Western student, Zina Rachevsky. They then traveled with her to Nepal in 1967 where they began to teach more Westerners.
In 1970 Rinpoche founded, sponsored, and built Kopan Monastery and Nunnery in Nepal. There are now approximately 400 monks and 400 nuns residing and studying there. In 1971, Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave the first of his famous annual lam-rim retreat courses, which continue at Kopan to this day.
Rinpoche has established a number of free schools in India, and Mongolia, as well as a school offering western education for the monks and nuns at Kopan Monastery and Nunnery. In 1999, Lama Zopa Rinpoche sponsored the building of Idgaa Choizinling Monastery in Ulaanbaatar Mongolia, a Mongolian branch of Sera Je Monastery. Rinpoche also established the very first nunnery in Mongolia and continues to make tremendous efforts to bring Dharma to Mongolia. In 2010, Lama Zopa Rinpoche received the prestigious Polar Star certificate from the Mongolian President in recognition of Rinpoche’s contribution in reestablishing the Dharma in Mongolia, as well as for his contribution to a variety of social projects.
Rinpoche has a desire for FPMT to eventually build 100,000 stupas and prayer wheels around the world to ease the creation of merit, and in this way contribute to world peace. Rinpoche has already sponsored the creation of many holy objects around the world including eleven prayer wheels, forty-eight stupas, and fifteen statues of Padmasambhava. He has also created thangkas for different centers around the world to display and make offerings to on special occasions, and has written the Prajnaparamita sutra in gold that is to be placed in the heart of the Maitreya Buddha statue in India.
“Why have we established the FPMT? Why are we establishing these facilities all over the world? I think we are clean clear as to our aim – we want to lead sentient beings to higher education. We are an organization that gives people the chance to receive higher education. We offer people what we have: the combined knowledge of Buddha’s teachings and the modern way of life. Our purpose is to share our experiences of this. We know that people are dissatisfied with worldly life, with the education system and everything else; it is in the nature of our dualistic minds to be dissatisfied. So what we are trying to do is to help people discover their own totality and thus perfect satisfaction.”
-Lama Yeshe
Je Tsongkhapa
The lineage founder, Je Tsongkhapa (1357–1419) was a famous teacher of Tibetan Buddhism whose activities led to the formation of the Gelug school. He is also known by his ordained name Lobsang Drakpa, or as Je Rinpoche.
Tsongkhapa heard Buddha’s teachings from masters of all Tibetan Buddhist traditions, and received lineages transmitted in the major schools. His main source of inspiration was the Kadampa tradition, the legacy of Atisha.
Based on Tsongkhapa’s teaching, the two distinguishing characteristics of the Gelug tradition are the union of sutra and tantra and emphasis on the step-by-step graduated way to enlightenment along the three principal aspects of the path (a genuine wish for liberation, generation of bodhicitta, and insight into emptiness).
In his two main treatises (lam rim chen mo and sngags rim chen mo), Tsongkhapa sets forth this graduated way and how one establishes oneself in both the sutric and tantric paths.
Works Cited
Foundation for the Protection of the Mahayana Tradition. FPMT Inc., n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2016. <http://fpmt.org/>.
The Guhyasamaja Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2016. <http://guhyasamaja.org/>.