Projects
In addition to the spiritual life and teachings, the Drukpa order is also involved in explicitly humanitarian projects, such as the worldwide Live to Love movement. According to H.H., the reason and goal of this movement is the following:
„Tibetan Buddhist masters and theirs followers have always been perceived as a closed community, showing very little engagement in public life. The idea behind Live to Love is to encourage us to turn towards other people and beings, irrespective of their faith, their nationality and their cultural background. I would like to stress that Live to Love is the philosophy of our order.“
Based on the ideals of charity and human dignity, the key objectives of Live to Love are:
- • Provide medical facilities and medical care,
- • Provide education facilities and educational support,
- • Environmental preservation,
- • Preservation of cultural heritage
- • Animal welfare
- • World wide gender equality
The realization of this philosophy in practice can only be briefly outlined here.
The Drukpa order developed, built and runs the Druk White Lotus School in Ladakh, India. The goal of this school is to provide children with a modern education based on the regional culture of Ladakh and to prepare them to lead independent, happy and productive lives. Furthermore, the Druk White Lotus School is well known for its ecological architecture. In 2002 it won the World Architecture Award for the “Best Asian Building”, the “Best Education Building” and the “Best Green Building”.
The Druk White Lotus Clinic or Druk Pema Karpo Clinic in Nepal aims at offering much needed care to the local community of Swayambhunath and Sitapaila incorporating both traditional and modern medicine..
The Drukpa order also promotes the education of female practitioners. In this context, the Buddhist nun Tenzin Palmo has been given the title of “Jetsunma”, which means venerable Master“, by His Holiness in February 2008. It is a great honor for a nun to be awarded this title which recognizes her spiritual achievements as a nun and her efforts as founder of the Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery in promoting the status of female practitioners in Tibetan Buddhism.
Under the guidance of His Holiness, first important steps for a better education of Buddhist nuns could already be achieved. The aim is to provide nuns with the same opportunities as monks. To achieve this, the nuns learn the Tibetan and English language as well as some computer skills. Furthermore, they are taught the basics of hygiene, a healthy life, medical care and Kung Fu. The nuns are also prepared with occupational skills, such as running a café or a business and they take on responsibility for the maintenance of their nunnery, the temple and the stupa.
His Holiness explicitly encourages women to take on responsibility for intercultural humanitarian projects of the Drukpa order.
