Stray dog menace has become a very serious issue here in this settlement. The population of the stray dogs has seen rapid increase in the past four five years. Consequently, the incidence of dog bites and attacks by ferocious dogs is on the rise, which has raised a big concern about the safety of the residents of this community. For long time, a strong need to curb the menace of stray dogs was felt. To this end, we extended all possible support to the Animal Birth Control (ABC) and Vaccination Project undertaken by AFFACTION INDIA-Chennai. The name AFFACTION stands for Animal Five Freedom Action.

Vaccination Project

Stray Dog Being

We provided facilities and service both in terms of man power and other necessary things required to ensure the success of this project. Dogs particularly the stray ones were caught and vaccinated against rabies, parvovirus, hepatitis, distemper, leptospirosis, parainfluenza and other infectious diseases. Most importantly, the female stray dogs and cats were sterilized. This project was a huge success. It is hoped that such projects will be undertaken at our place for years to come in the future too and that our monastery will be able to make similar contribution towards such activity.

For Communal Harmony
At the request and invitation from Dr. Ambedkar Foundation which is engaged in carrying out the programmes and activities for furthering of Dr. Ambedkar’s idealogy and spread his message of social justice to the masses, the monks from our monastery are sent on regular basis to participate in the function hosted every year on Dr. Ambedkar’s day at Dharwad. The monks offer prayer at the function and sometimes give teaching on topics such as Four Noble Truths at the function.

Typical Class in the monastery:

Over 2500 monks including Tibetan, Indian, Bhutanese, Nepalese, Taiwanese etc studying and practicing Buddhism here are taught by about 35 Buddhist masters that the monastery produced. Each teacher has about 50-60 monks under his care. The Buddhist Philosophy classes are held in the afternoon every day between 2 p.m to 5 p.m.

Dr. Ambedkar Jayanti:

Monks representing our monastery took part in the Ambedkar Jayanti held in Dharwad. The monks offered prayers and gave talk on the basic principle of Buddhism “Love and Compassion” at the event. Such festival offers a great opportunity for our community to interact with local people and to promote communal harmony.

Week Long Discussion on Madhyamika (Middle Way Buddhist Philosophy:

Discussion for various classes is held from time to time. All the students in this three-year course on Madhyamika must took part in the discussion held from June 18th through 25th June. The monastery organized the discussion for the Madhyamika classes in order for the students to get the opportunity to clear up all their doubts and clarification on the topics that they found vague. This, the students claimed, is one of the best platforms where all the students particularly the weaker students get exposure and benefits most.

Rites and Rituals:

Rites and rituals are very essential activities of the monastery. Monks gathered in the prayer hall to perform rites and rituals at the request of faithfuls to help them ward off the ill-effects of negative energy, subdue negative force, and for improvement in health and financial condition. They are also performed to promote world peace and for helping people cope up with sufferings caused by natural calamities. The monastery took upon itself to perform rites and rituals once every month especially dedicated to the stable health and long life of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Seminar on Fundamental Consciousness

Five-day long seminar on “Fundamental Consciousness in connection with the Philosophy of Mind only school” was held in the monastery commencing from 18th December 2018. The seminar is intended to help the senior monks from ‘Middle Way’ and above classes get deeper understanding of how our mind works on the basis of Philosophy of Mind only school. The seminar was presided over by the abbot, deputy abbot, disciplinarian and chant master of the monastery.

The Winter Religious Festival

This religious festival is also called Ngamchoe Choera which began on the sixteenth day of the tenth month of Tibetan calendar. This festival went on for fifteen days. During this festival the abbot of the monastery taught in the evening debate sessions while debate on ‘Epistemology’ carried on during the day time. The monks who were selected as answerers for the forthcoming Inter monasteries winter debate meet did a debate tour as answerers for all the class debates.

Meditation Programme

In this world of hectic schedule, work pressure and time constraint, stressful life and tension became quite a common thing in almost everyone’s life. To cater to the need of the large number of people in tackling and preventing stress and tension in life, the monastery allowed its meditation centre and the programme to be availed not only by its monks but also by all the interested lay people. A few senior volunteer monks were appointed to teach the techniques of Buddhist meditation. The programme is open to all and is free. This programme has proved tremendously beneficial to many non-Buddhists as well in dealing with day to day stressful life and in achieving peaceful mind.