De-Tong Ling Retreat Centre
Island of Bliss Void

The Enlightenment Stupa will be built at De-Tong Ling Retreat Centre on Kangaroo Island. Australia's third largest Island, Kangaroo Island lies 130 km south west of Adelaide. This Tibetan Buddhist retreat center was established in 1988 on 1200 acres of wilderness at the western end of the island.

The pure air and water of this pristine environment, the long views out to sea and the deep silence of its remote location provide ideal conditions for long-term intensive retreat.

Now in 2002, after years of careful planning, obtaining all state and local government approvals, the infrastructure for the retreat center has been built. Some retreat houses have already been finished, and site work for the stupa has been completed.

Geshe Khenpo Ngawang Damchoe  from Sydney (left)  with Kimball Cuddihy

an uninhabited island of over four thousand square kilometres, filled with life, where the largest predators on land are snakes, lizards and birds of prey; where many unique plant and animal species are evolving, and whose five hundred kilometers of coastline teems with seals and seabirds, dolphins and whales. It has not had human visitors for five thousand years. When they do finally arrive, the wildlife is quite incurious and completely unafraid."

Kangaroo Island,1803 to 1960 - a lighter human intervention

This was Kangaroo Island, when explorer Matthew Flinders came ashore in 1803. A hundred and fifty years later, by a rare chance in modern times, two-thirds of the Island still remained wilderness.

Only then a tide of clearing began to spread westwards, pushed by a decision to provide returned WW II soldiers with farms.

When the clearing finally halted in the early 1960's, vast tracts of wilderness were still untouched. The Island's eco-system also had another stroke of good fortune. Rabbits, which were decimating the vegetation understory on the mainland, were never introduced. Neither were foxes, which find small marsupials easy prey.

The land is well-suited for retreat. Nine hundred acres is in a completely untouched state, and preserved in perpetuity under a Heritage Agreement with the state government. The remaining acres had been logged only, and the vegetation there is rapidly returning to its natural state.

The air is very pure, the water also, coming from springs and catchment on the land - and it is silent, any sounds usually arising from natural causes.

The land is 3kms from the coast, and elevated, with long views out to sea and the islands in Investigator Strait.

It was blessed by Lama Zopa in 1993, when he performed practices informing and enlisting the aid of the local deities, who seem powerfully present on the land. A comment he made at that time was that the place "gives hope".

Khensur Losang Thubten Rinpoche from Buddha House performed the first Dharma activity - a fire puja - on the land in 1988, making the prophecy that "many great meditators will come here"

Lama Lhundrup from Kopan visited in 1987, giving the vital founding advice to clearly delineate lay from Dharma areas.

Beginning to establish the Retreat Centre

It was clear that the potential existed for a successful retreat centre, but that potential had to be actualised. Early years were spent finalising payment for the land, getting the necessary surveying and legal work done to create a subdivision, and completing the transfer into FPMT ownership. A temporary gompa was built, in which many group and individual retreats have been performed.

Getting the approvals from local government, state government and statutory bodies

Gaining the official approvals to develop the retreat centre was a complex process.

The first stop was local government - Kangaroo Island Council. It involved addressing the zoning provisions of the Council's Development Plan, submitting a well-thought out and substantial proposal. We befriended a town planner who worked for a major planning company in Adelaide; sympathetic, he helped minimize costs by combining a site visit with a bird-watching expedition.

It was an unusual proposal for Kangaroo Island, and didn't fit easily anywhere in the Council's current plan. With the planner's help, we were able to build a strong proposal, addressing the complex issues in detail. When the development proposal was lodged, neighbours were notified, but none had concerns. Getting involved in the local football team all those years before had been a good idea!

After some lobbying, and a successful site visit by the majority of Council members, provisional approval was given, subject to eight conditions. The most challenging conditions were gaining the approval of the Country Fire Service, and of the state government's Native Vegetation Conservation Section. Another required the drawing up of a Land Management Agreement to be affixed to the title, thus legally binding us to the commitments made in our development plan.

Overcoming obstacles to Approval

Meeting these conditions was not easy. The Country Fire Service wanted to clear vegetation for 20 metres around each building, to a height of 10 centimetres. The Native Vegetation Conservation people didn't want a twig broken, which was understandable in an area of such high conservation value.

Personal representation had to be made to the Native Vegetation Council - an independent tribunal, which had the power deny applications even from the State Government. The first appearance before them resulted in refusal, to our dismay. However, we were able to protest the decision, and request the services of a conciliator, who turned out to be very helpful.

We lobbied the Country Fire Service to scale back their clearance demands, changed the location of some sites on the proposal, undertook to restore some scars in the vegetation, and agreed to add more land to the existing Heritage Agreement.

As a result, approval was gained at a second appearance before the Native Vegetation Council. The Land Management Agreement was then completed after another year of legal convolutions. Then - at last - building plans were able to be approved. De-Tong Ling had finally come into being, and the way forward was open.

Obstacles now were the more usual ones of money, time, and energy.

Advantages of detailed planning

Despite some frustration with this process, which took well over three years, it was invaluable being required to develop a clear and detailed plan.

Coming to grips with the issues of fire and environment protection was utterly necessary. So much so, that when bureaucratic needs were satisfied, we went on to develop our own, far more detailed plan using the best of local expertise. It was further expense, but these issues had to be addressed pragmatically, rather than just accepting the outcome of two authority's tussle.

We engaged a native vegetation expert and a fire expert to walk the land together to develop a joint management plan.

The plan - what will be built?

For what did we gain approval? Our development plan envisioned 12 mud-brick or rammed-earth retreat houses, a 13-metre stupa, a group retreat building housing up to 40 people, and a large gompa.

Building plans for all the retreat houses, including four double ones, have been submitted and approved, and the engineering work has been completed for the foundations of the stupa. The first retreat house is now completely finished and in use.

Click image to enlarge

Yacca Creeks - the lay land next door

Another facet to De-Tong Ling is that a 450-acre parcel of land immediately adjacent to the centre is owned by two students of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Greg Leith and Kimball Cuddihy (currently Director).

"Yacca Creeks", as this land is known, supports the centre by way of its buildings and infrastructure. With an excellent supply of some fifteens million gallons of spring-fed water, gravity-fed to an already established and soundly fenced acre of garden area, it is hoped that high quality fruit and vegetables will be readily available to retreaters in the future.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche's support, and the current development team

The project received a boost last year after the visit of Lama Zopa Rinpoche to Australia.

He encouraged us to publicise the centre, and make the opportunity for students to build retreat houses more widely known. He also suggested the appointment of a Development Manager, and offered $5,000 towards the construction of the stupa, as well as many sacred relics from his personal collection to be placed inside it.

A team, focusing particularly on the construction of the stupa, has begun meeting. The team includes Will Abram as Assistant Director, and the Director is Kimball Cuddihy. Dale Wright is providing some artistic and conceptual input, and Anthony Hall is assisting with publicity - including brochure design and website development.

The future

In the decades to come, as the world becomes more polluted and busy, our
vision is that De-Tong Ling Retreat Centre will always remain as a place of peace and purity.

It will offer many different retreat opportunities, from an hour by the stupa to years in isolation. The quality of the centre's natural environment, uncompromised by its use, will play a role in the success of those retreats.

One day, perhaps, De-Tong Ling will produce a Buddha.