Quick links in this edition:

Restore Shechen Frescoes!
Teachers’ News
Two Nunneries
Eco Group Grows
Reconstruction of Monks’ Quarters
Sixth Three-Year Retreat
2019 Monastery Events Calendar
Breaking News in Hong Kong
Other Links

Restore Shechen Frescoes!

The Tsering Art School graduates and senior students are now engaged in a major painting project – Restore Shechen Frescos! They are beginning to repaint the murals in the Shechen Monastery Temple that were destroyed by the 2015 earthquakes.

As Matthieu Ricard explains:
The frescos at Shechen Monastery in Nepal were painted in the 1980’s by two of the best artists of the time under the attentive supervision of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.

These frescoes were quite unique as they were the only existing murals that depicted great masters of the Eight Chariots of Tibetan Buddhist lineages. This includes the four main schools (Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu and Kadam/Geluk) as well as the traditions of Jonang,
Cho and Shije, Kalachakra, Shangpa Kagyu, and Urgyen Nyengyu. The main teachers of each tradition are depicted as central figures, with surrounding salient features of their lives. During the 2015 earthquake, the main temple of Shechen monastery was so badly damaged that the walls had to be taken down and rebuilt. Despite all efforts, the frescos could not be saved. However, they had been documented in detail and the photographs can now be used to draw and paint these precious frescos again, retoring them to what they were before. This is indeed a most important work that will contribute to the continuity of the authentic artistic tradition of Tibet.

The restoration is a major undertaking with an anticipated cost of $120,000. Your gift will support the painting of new sets of frescos, based on the originals, and painted in the Karma Gadri style of Eastern Tibet.

You can help by sponsoring the painting of an individual figure of a teacher or deity (ranges between $250-500), or a panel with many
figures ($6000), or a whole wall ($35,000).  – We need your support to fulfill this vision. 

We will soon have a link to a page where you (or a group of friends) can choose the lineage/figures you would like to sponsor.

For more information or to let us know what lineage or figure you’d like to choose, you can contact us at  – shechen@sprynet.com

Teachers’ News

Rabjam Rinpoche has been
spending a lot of time in Nepal, traveling to remote places to teach and give blessings. He recently was invited to remote Jumla and its environs to consecrate a newly built stupa, meet the local lay
communities, and give teachings and advice. Many of the monks at Shechen Monastery come from that region of Nepal and Rinpoche was able to meet their families.

He also performed the opening ceremonies for the Shechen three-year retreat at Namo Buddha and is working with the monks in Baudha on reconstruction plans. In December, Rabjam Rinpoche will lead the 9th year of the Shechen Bodhgaya Seminar.  In the spring, he will confer
the empowerments from the entire collected writings of Rigzin Jigme Lingpa, as well as the complete oral transmission of the collected writings of Patrul Rinpoche at Shechen Monastery in Nepal.