Improvements to the Great Stupa for World Peace

Ways You Can Contribute to This Fundraiser

Great Stupa for World PeaceThe Great Bön Stupa for World Peace in Valle de Bravo, Mexico, was consecrated on December 4, 2010. Now, Ligmincha Mexico has a program to improve the retreat center and also allow groups and individuals to generate merit by sponsoring a series of new stupas.

The Great Stupa is a spiritual center for the Ligmincha Mexico sangha and the international community. It also is home to Mexico’s two resident lamas, Lama Kalsang Nyima and Lama Yungdrung Lodoe. Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche has said, “This stupa is a place where everybody can come to learn and heal, a place where it may be possible to have experiences for spiritual development and for the soul to grow.”

His Holiness the 34th Menri Trizin in Valle de Bravo this summerTonpa Shenrap, founder of the Bön tradition, described the purpose of a stupa as carrying the teachings through time as well as helping individuals in the present: “To teach future generations, and because it is necessary to purify defilements and perfect the accumulation of merit, establish a chorten to act as a support for devotional prostrations and circumambulations.” Creating stupas, maintaining them and being in their presence are all ways of accumulating merit and purifying negativities.

Stupa plans
Smaller stupasLigmincha Mexico’s fundraising project will create 33 stupas circling the Great Stupa. Four large stupas will be almost two meters (six and one-half feet) tall, and 29 of them will be one and one-half meters (almost five feet) tall. The proceeds also will fund the building of new dormitories for people who want to stay onsite for retreats or come to the stupa for personal retreat.

Dorm room renderingTo date, this fundraising project has been a great success. Only one large stupa and one small stupa remain unsponsored. The large stupas can be sponsored for $28,500 (US) and the small stupas for $5,700 (US). The smaller stupas’ cost is equal to 108,000 Mexican pesos, an auspicious number. Even if you cannot visit the Great Stupa or one of Ligmincha’s other stupas around the world, you can directly participate in their creation by donating to this project. If you cannot sponsor the full cost of a stupa, any amount will be most appreciated.

Sponsors will have their name, or the name of someone they wish to memorialize, placed on a bronze plaque on the stupa. Ritual items will be placed inside each stupa as a part of their consecration.

To contribute to this project, you can make a donation to Ligmincha International. In the comment field please write “Great Stupa” so that we can direct the proceeds to this program.

You can see what this project will look like when finished in a rendering available here.