(802) 633-2384COMING HOME – 2019 Fundraising Appeal
Dear Karmê Chöling Friend,
Most of you reading this post have visited or participated in programs at Karmê Chöling. You have your favorite sit spot to soak in the beauty of the land – the pagoda in the garden, the bench by the pond, a rocking chair on the front porch or perhaps the bench at the purkhang where the body of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche was cremated. His body came home to the first land center he established in Barnet, Vermont.
Our home, what we invite you to think of as your second home, needs your support to sustain us through April 2020, the opening of our 50th year in existence. The current upheaval in Shambhala offers an incredible opportunity to fully embody the teachings. At the same time it has meant drastically reduced participants in programs, sparking a significant financial crisis for Karmê Chöling.
Karmê Chöling is asking for your help.
Each of us has our unique story for how we connected to meditation and the impact of that on our lives. When we meet new people in Shambhala, we often share our story with each other. This connects us with our heart, with each other, with the journey we have each taken and with the preciousness of these teachings in today’s world.
This post is the first of several in a series that will be shared between now and mid-October that are written to engage, maybe inform, spark memories, connect our hearts, and definitely beseech your help to sustain Karmê Chöling through April 30, 2020. Karmê Chöling needs your unrestricted donations now more than ever before as we head into our 50th anniversary as one of the oldest Buddhist retreat centers in North America.
This series of posts, called COMING HOME, weaves together the story of Trungpa Rinpoche’s determination to protect and perpetuate the dharma with a very personal story of one student’s exposure to Shambhala. It’s a story of a journey – a journey of bravery and perseverance. I hope you enjoy it.
If you are unable to give financially, we have created ways to involve friends and family who may wish to help sustain this precious place in your name. Thank you, in advance, for your consideration and generosity.
Please look for the first installment of COMING HOME on our Blog and on Facebook tomorrow.
With Gratitude,
Myra Woodruff
Karmê Chöling Executive Director
3 Comments
Take the portraits of the two sexual predators (C.T. and S.M.) off the shrine room walls and out of the facility completely. You might get more donations that way.
I would definitely donate to Karme Choling if the center were willing to offer and welcome alternatives to the “lineage of Sakyongs” which I believe to be corrupt and rotten to the core, and therefore not a lineage. I know there are hundreds who feel the same way. I love Karme Choling, and consider it a huge loss that I will never again return because of the stubborn and wrong-headed clinging to the dream of the Shambhala lineage. This stuckness and clinging is entirely antithetical to the dharma. Please wake up! If the teachings are true, they will survive.
This message is harmful to the survivors and deeply distressing. Until KCL tells the truth about the actual situation and not the fantasy of “coming home” to a postcard, the funding will continue to decrease. Wonder what it would be like to remove the portraits of the abusers off the shrine room walls.