Reconstructing Heritage
The April 2015 Earthquake destroyed many things and it’s hard to know what to prioritize and what to do next – the process will most certainly take many years, involve many people and require lots of different support. A contribution that Helambu Project is hoping to facilitate lies around helping restore and reconstruct a part of the region’s amazing cultural history – namely the traditional meditation retreat centre of Drupra Drong. The reconstruction of Drupa Drong is something we believe equally important in rebuilding the homes, schools, livelihoods, and lives of the people of Helambu. It’s not something that you need to be Buddhist to support – you merely have to think about human values and traditions. The world at large and Helambu have been undergoing rapid series of changes within the past years and the earthquake is but one event in the area’s changing landscape. For better or worse, many things have been, are, and will being changed, forgotten, lost, and remade. What we need to consider for our own lives and in the lives of others things we want to nourish, grow and keep. We need to consider whether regardless of our own opinions if we think the world is a better, more rich place with traditions of compassion, introspection, and intention – all of which in many ways represent what Drupa Drong represent for us as human beings even while being rooted in a specific place, practice, and set of teachings.
How to donate
For anyone interested and able to donate, please donate through this link (will take you to another website). Only 5% of the donated amount will be deducted by our fiscal sponsor to arrange the payments, the rest of the money we raise will go directly to Meme Ngawang, the retreat Master of Drupa Drong, and be used on various reconstruction projects related to Drupa Drong, including constructing new retreat houses, religious spaces, and other basic facilities.
If you are in Nepal and would like to donate or if you would like more information about Drupa Drong or the project, please feel free to email daniel@helambuproject.org
For more information on Helambu Project Donations please visit here.
More about Drupa Drong
If the video or what is above has made you at least slightly more interested in the place, the tradition or the people, then good! Drupadrong is a traditional Tibetan Buddhist retreat centre located just above the village of Tarkhegyang in Helambu – a region just 80 km North East of Kathmandu. Yolmo, the local name of Helambu region, is believed to be a scared valley where Buddhist boddhisattvas such as Milarepa and Guru Rinpoche are believed to have visited, blessed, and practiced in. Today, Buddhist practitioners travel from different parts of the Himalayas to conduct meditation retreats for multiple years, continuing a tradition of introspection that is now several millennias old and originated with the historical Buddha. Retreatants live very simple lives in the mountain and live off less than 30 USD a month and keep to rigorous schedules – meditating around 12 hours a day, rising at 3am and finishing well into the night. This particular centre is of the Nyingma tradition of Buddhism, the most wide-spread form of Tibetan Buddhism in Nepal, and is home to many accomplished practitioners – hence the name “Village of Accomplishment,” or Drupa Drong.
