De-Tong Ling Buddhist Retreat, Kangaroo Island

How you can help

August 2010

Dear friend of De-Tong Ling

We've come a long way since the foundations of the Enlightenment Stupa were poured in March 2003. Our journey has just reached a major milestone. The stupa is now a functioning holy object, and looks and feels amazing. Its immediate environment already feels very special. It is a time to rejoice in what we have achieved together so far.

The journey, however, is not over. Apart from its final ornamentation, we have to make the stupa available to others so they can plant the seed of enlightenment in their minds. Offering this is a gift beyond price - and the reason Lama Zopa Rinpoche encouraged the building of a stupa in Kangaroo Island, a popular tourist destination.

Making the Enlightenment Stupa available to others means providing for their needs, like parking, toilets, safety and shelter. The plans for this have long been taking shape, and are now clearly worked out (see Completion Outline and Landscape Plan). Making those plans a reality is the next task and we need your help.

Still to do, too, is the final beautification of the stupa - offering the ornaments. These are the eight snow lions on the throne, the jewelled necklaces on the vase, the lotus flowers around the steps, the flower garland stretching from the umbrella to the top of the vase, and the final overall rendering and painting.

A beautiful statue of Sakyamuni Buddha - made by the same Nepalese craftsmen who made the rings, ghorkim and umbrella, sun and moon - is to be installed in the recess on the eastern side of the vase. The statue is now finished, with much of its cost already sponsored.

These final stages of the project, outlined above, are laid out in detail in the pages attached to this letter. We now know $60,000 will be needed to fully complete the Enlightenment Stupa ... and a lot more volunteer work as well!

In an act of exceptional generosity, we have been offered $30,000 dollars by a major donor to help us complete the project. However, the proviso is that we must match that offering with $30,000 of our own fundraising dollars.

Can you make a donation? If you offer $500 it becomes $1,000! If we can meet the challenge made by our major donor and benefit from his amazing generosity, the stupa will be opened to the public - and countless people will be able to plant the seed of enlightenment in their minds.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, the spiritual director of FPMT, will be in Australia in April next year. He has agreed to come and consecrate the stupa in late May. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to offer him a beautiful, fully completed Enlightenment Stupa? And ask him to open it to the public at the same time?

Right now we have a very special opportunity. If we can all come together once again and make this last effort to donate, for the rest of our lives we can rejoice knowing that an Enlightenment Stupa on Kangaroo Island exists, that we put it there, and that it will generate positive energy for hundreds of years.

All donations are tax-deductible. If we all pitch in, the job will be done. Making a donation is easy - just go to our brand-new web site at www.detongling.org or use the addressed envelope enclosed and the tear-off slip below.

Thank you for all you have already done for the Enlightenment Stupa and the retreat centre. It has been and always will be enormously appreciated.

Yours in the Dharma,

Kimball Cuddihy
Director,
on behalf of the De-Tong Ling Committee - and all sentient beings.

Please Donate Here

If you are unable to offer financial support, can you volunteer for a work retreat at De-Tong Ling? If so, contact the Volunteer Co-ordinator and read the section on Volunteers

The benefits of giving in this way to such a powerful object as a Stupa are immense. If merely walking around a stupa generates powerful positive karmic imprints, what need to mention the benefits of actively supporting the construction of a Stupa?