Auction Ends: Apr 15, 2010 11:59 PM EDT
The Jewel Heart online auction opens at 7 a.m. on March 15, 2010
Jewel Heart is a not-for-profit educational and cultural institute whose doors are open to all. Its purpose is to transmit the essence of Tibetan Buddhism in an authentic and accessible way. http://www.jewelheart.org.
Jewel Heart is headquartered in Ann Arbor, MI with chapters throughout the U.S. as well as Europe and Asia. His Holiness the Dalai Lama inaugurated Jewel Heart Headquarters in April 2008.
Jewel Heart provides guidance and practical methods to anyone interested in spiritual development as well as to those who wish to engage in Buddhist practice.
In addition, Jewel Heart supports many humanitarian and cultural activities. These include:
-Financial support for young Tibetan lamas training in monasteries-in-exile in India. It assists future Buddhist teachers to continue the work of preserving Tibetan Buddhism and culture and assures that many Tibetan Buddhist lineages will remain available.
-Financial support for Kongpo Province schools, a poor rural area where children have little to no access to education.
-Financial support for the Namling County Schools Project which builds schools in remote, underserved areas. The project promotes literacy, teaches Tibetan language and culture and enables Tibetans to compete and survive in greater China.
-Financial support for Jatson Chumig Welfare School in Lhasa, a non-profit, charitable institution run by Tibetans for handicapped, orphaned and destitute children. The school trains students in traditional Tibetan arts & crafts so that they may become self-supporting.
-Financial and logistical support for artists engaged in traditional Tibetan arts as well as tours of Tibetan sacred music & dance.
-Sponsorship of Tibetan art exhibitions and fairs.
-Outreach activities for the Tibetan community in North America.
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About Gelek Rimpoche
Gelek Rimpoche is the founder, President and spiritual leader of Jewel Heart.
Born in Lhasa, Tibet, in 1939, Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche was recognized as an incarnate lama at the age of four. Carefully tutored from an early age by some of Tibet’s greatest living masters, Rimpoche gained renown for his powers of memory, intellectual judgment and penetrating insight. As a small child living in a monk’s cell in a country with no electricity or running water, and little news of the outside world, he had scoured the pictures of torn copies of Life Magazine for anything he could gather about America. Now Rimpoche brings his life experience and wisdom to both the east and the west.
Among the last generation of lamas educated in Drepung Monastery before the Communist Chinese invasion of Tibet, Gelek Rimpoche was forced to flee to India in 1959. He later edited and printed over 170 volumes of rare Tibetan manuscripts that would have otherwise been lost. Rimpoche was also instrumental in forming organizations that would share the great wisdom of Tibet with the outside world. In this and other ways, he has played a crucial role in the survival of Tibetan Buddhism.
He was director of Tibet House in Delhi, India and a radio host at All India Radio. He conducted over 1000 interviews in compiling an oral history of the fall of Tibet to the Communist Chinese. In the late 1970’s Rimpoche was directed to teach Western students by his teachers, the Senior and Junior Masters to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Since that time he has taught Buddhist practitioners around the world.
Rimpoche is particularly distinguished for his thorough familiarity with modern culture, and special effectiveness as a teacher of Western practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism. Recognizing the unique opportunity for the interface of spiritual and material concerns in today's world, Rimpoche has also opened a dialogue with science, psychology, medicine, metaphysics, politics, and the arts.
In 1988, Rimpoche founded Jewel Heart, Tibetan Buddhist Lrarning Center. His Collected Works now include over 32 transcripts of his teachings, numerous articles as well as the national bestseller Good Life, Good Death (Riverhead Books 2001) and the Tara Box: Rituals for Protection and Healing from the Female Buddha (New World Library 2004). Rimpoche is a U.S. citizen and lives in Michigan.
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Jewel Heart thanks you in advance for your donations and your participation.