Pemako Building Lukhang and Murals Donation Fund
Bringing the Yoga Murals and Innermost Practices of Tibetan Buddhism to America
During the 1600's, the Great Fifth Dalai Lama envisioned a three-storied temple that became a place of meditative retreat for successive generations of Tibet’s supreme spiritual and temporal leaders. Dedicated to the elemental forces of Nature that that Tibetans call lu, the Lukhang Temple houses a series of wall paintings that guided the Dalai Lamas in the highest practices of Tibetan Buddhism, including Tsalung Trulkhor, ‘the yogas of channels and winds’, Tummo, ‘the yoga of vital heat’, and the Dzogchen practices of Trekchö, ‘cutting through’, and Thögal, ‘leaping over’.
Through the Lukhang Initiative, MMC seeks to re-establish the Lukhang Temple at Pemako Retreat Center in southern California, complete with life-size, digital reproductions of the Lukhang Murals, which support the transmission of practices for realising the fullest capacities of the human mind and body. As His Holiness the Dalai Lama has stated, the Lukhang Murals “show the practical ways in which the body and mind can be transformed and attain a state of omniscience.”
In its entirety, the Lukhang Temple forms a three-dimensional maṇḍala representing the integral harmony of humanity and the cosmos. Recreating the Lukhang in America will serve to preserve advanced meditative and yogic techniques that were once hidden even from initiated Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns. Yet as His Holiness the Dalai Lama stated in his introduction to Ian Baker and Thomas Laird’s book, The Dalai Lamas Secret Temple: Tantric Wall Paintings from Tibet, published in 1999; “I believe that these paintings can be a source of profound inspiration even for those who have had no previous exposure to Tibetan Buddhism.”
It is our sincere hope that supporters will find inspiration in His Holiness’s words and contribute generously to this unprecedented project to recreate the Lukhang Temple and its Murals on American soil.
“Never hoping to benefit ourselves alone,
We vow to engage in the Great Way on behalf of others . . .
In order to constantly fulfil the needs of beings,
May we quickly and easily attain the stage of Buddha.”
The First Dalai Lama, 1391–1474
Thögal Visions illustrated in the Lukhang Murals. Credit – NDS.
Thank you once more.
May All Beings Be Truly Happy and May They Be Free of Suffering.
For contributions of more than $5,000 please contact MMC Treasurer directly by email at treasurer@mindfulnessmeditationcenters.com
