Manlha Institute

19/1 Chinggis Avenue 2nd Khoroo Sukhbaatar district

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Zasep Tulku Rinpoche has advised Gaden Relief Projects to build Manlha Institute (Medicine

Buddha Healing Centre) in Mongolia’s fast-growing capital city Ulaanbator. In recent years, due to

global warming and other unseasonal weather, Mongolia’s nomadic peoples have lost millions of

their livestock. Sheep, goats, horses and camels have perished in the recent zuds, the bitterly cold

Mongolian winters where temperature fall to minus 40 degrees.

Every year more people are selling what remains of their herds and relocating permanently to the

capital city in search of new opportunities. However, people are having enormous problems in this

transition, struggling to adapt to their new lives in the city.

Because of social problems like environmental pollution, poverty, physical illnesses, depression,

alcoholism and family violence, Rinpoche has suggested that Ganden Relief help set up a teaching

and healing institute where people could come and receive training, blessings, healings, counseling,

and also receive medicine and other support. The majority of Mongolians are still Buddhist. It is

traditional for families and their members to go to their lamas to ask for and receive their help.

Manlha Institute will focus on the following initiatives (in order of priority):

1. To train young Mongolian monks and nuns in how to become teachers of Buddhist Philosophy

and Lam Rim.

2. To train young Mongolian monks and nuns to become puja masters. Puja rituals include those

associated with Medicine Buddha, White Tara, Green Tara, Haryagriva, Dakini Singhamukha and

Black Manjushri.

3. Zasep Rinpoche will supervise healing through mind and mental spirit retrieval; the bringing

back of one’s life force having been diminished from abuse of drugs or trauma. Zasep Rinpoche will

oversee rituals such as La Gug and Tse Gug.

4. To teach Tibetan Buddhist and other methods associated with caring for the dying and to

perform Powa transferring mind into the Pure Lands at the time of death.

5.Bringing Mongolian and Tibetan doctors to practice traditional medicine such as acupuncture

and moxa techniques.

6. On an annual basis convene and conduct a community-based White Mahakala Prosperity Vase

Blessing Ceremony.

7. To perform Buddhist wedding ceremonies for the community.

8. To offer food to the poor on special days according to the lunar calendar.

Zasep Tulku Rinpoche first visited Mongolia in the Fall of 2003 to reunite with his spiritual mentor

and old friend, Guru Deva Rinpoche. Guru Deva Rinpoche was born in Ordos in Inner Mongolia.

Guru Deva returned to Mongolia in 1991. He worked tirelessly for over 50 years rebuilding Tibeto-

Mongolian Buddhism in the nation state of Mongolia until he passed away at the age of 100 in

2009.

Zasep Tulku Rinpoche set up Gaden Relief Mongolia Project to raise fund for the restoration of the

infrastructure of Amarbayasgalant Monastery in Selenge Aimag. In June 2004 GR set up a pure

artesian water well, hiring a Korean firm to drill the well. This project required in excess of

US$11,000. Since the time the water well was constructed, the monks as well as the increasing

number of visitors to Amarbayasgalant enjoy fresh water. More importantly, the hygiene and

health of the resident monks has improved.

Since 2004, Zasep Rinpoche’s Australian students and friends have made donations. These include

fleecy lined jackets for each of the monks, medicine, books as well as a range of other teaching and

learning materials.

Zawa Damdin Rinpoche was the Abbott of Amarbayasgalant Monastery before relocating to

Delgeruun Choira to begin the difficult next task of reconstructing another monastery destroyed

during the socialist era. Delgeruun Choira is a half-day’s drive south of Ulaanbator. Having

relocated in 2004, and initiating the reconstruction of the essential infrastructure where monks

can once again live and learn, in 2007 Zawa Rinpoche commenced a 3 year 3 month retreat which

he will complete in July 2011. Zawa Rinpoche will be Mongolia’s first Rinpoche to complete this

mandatory long retreat in the Gelukpa system of monastic training since the cessation of socialist

rule in1992.

Gaden Relief also raised funds to assist with the rebuilding of Delgeruun Choira. Major

contributions include raising funds internationally to assist with the rebuilding of the Manjushri

Temple and purchasing a Kobota generator to power the building tools.

Gaden Relief’s Mongolia Project 2004-20101

Rinpoche here is giving blessings to children who were

suffering from nightmares. Photo taken in 2008.

Catherine Pleteshner has been a Gaden Relief volunteer in

Mongolia every summer since 2004. In 2004 she installed

an English-language teaching and learning library of

resources at Amarbayasgalant Monastery. In 2005 she

taught English to Delgeruun Choira monks as well as to

children from the local Delgertsog Sum for 3 months and

in 2008 she again taught English in the local primary

school at Tsagaankhirkhan in Zavkhan Aimag. Photo

taken in 2008.

Zasep Rinpoche is giving the Chod Initiation in Ulaanbator

in 2008.

Sea Buckthorn berries (Hippophne rhamnoides) are show

here. These are considered both medicine and food. Juice,

jam and oil can be made from the berries. They contain

lots of vitamins as well as having lots of other medicinal

properties. They grow in Mongolia, Tibet and Russia.

1 All photographs courtesy of Zasep Rinpoche.

These children live in one of the orphanage houses that

Gerelt Mur is supporting. Each house has house parents, a

husband and wife couple who look after the children.

Photo taken in 2009.

In 2007 Zasep Rinpoche and his Canadian friend John

Huizinga bought 10 large solar panels from Beijing in

China and transported them personally from Beijing to

Ulaanbator, after which John spent more than 2 months

living at the monastery. He personally set up a very

efficient solar system for the entire monastery. Monks

were provided with lighting in their gers, so now they

could study without damaging their eyes. The central

main ger now also had light which enabled larger numbers

of people to gather and do pujas. This cost more than

US$10,000 dollars. Jon Huizinga donated not only 2

months of his time, but also covered all of his own

travelling and other expenses. John’s family also

generously offered and supplied the entire monastic

community with halogen lamps.

A photograph of one of the poor ger districts in Ulaanbator

Mongolia in which Manlha Institute will be situated.

Through Gaden Relief, from 2004-2010 Zasep Rinpoche’s students from Australia, Canada and the USA have

made donations to purchase other important things that were needed at particular times in the new

monastery’s rebuilding process. One of Gaden Relief’s other projects involves giving funds to Damdin Gerlee’s

NGO Gerelt Mur to purchase gers (the Mongolian word for yurt) for single-mother households in Mongolia.

Zasep Rinpoche and Gaden Relief wish to purchase land for Manlha Institute in Ulaanbator. We are planning

to buy one acre of land in one of Ulaanbator’s poorer ger districts. One acre of land will cost around

US$35,000.

It is important to have a statue of Medicine Buddha as a symbol and object of veneration. We would like to

purchase a statue of Medicine Buddha, Tara and Chenrezig. Zasep Rinpoche would like to do fund-raising for

Manlha Institute. If you would like to give a donation for this project please approach Rinpoche personaloy

during his current Australian Teaching Tour. Those of you who live in Canada and the US, could send your

donation through Ganden Relief (through gadenrelief.org).

Zasep Tulku Rinpoche

6 December 2010

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