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Celebrating His Holiness the 17th Karmapa Orgyen Thinley Dorje’s Birthday.

Our first public event since building the new retaining wall.

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Stupa Upgrade Project

Tashi Delek Dear Friends of Karmapa! 

Those of you who have been to the Karmapa’s Tashi Gomang Stupa in Crestone, CO, know how precious this monument and pilgrimage site is to the world. You also know how fierce the climate is at our breathtakingly beautiful altitude at 9000 ft.  In the order of nature, the grounds surrounding His Holiness Karmapa's Stupa have suffered dire breakdown and erosion. Some of you generously helped us refurbish the Stupa itself in 2010. We are pleased that those extensive renovations are in excellent condition. We now need your help to finish raising funds to stop the erosive breakdown and to make safe, uplift and beautify the Stupa grounds.

Our first priority is to reconstruct the extensive front retaining wall to prevent the plateau the Stupa stands on from slipping downwards. Once this wall has been built, the entire area around the Stupa needs to be repaved with flagstone set in concrete. Then we will replace the current broken wooden benches with more attractive and sturdier seating. A simple, elegant shrine table will grace the front of the Stupa.  At the same time we’d like to put a modest roofed meditation area close to the Stupa, replacing a broken bench under a tree.

Venerable Thrangu Rinpoche’s Center in Crestone has generously donated a traditional Tibetan torii gate used as part of a Tibetan exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum to our project. It is in need of some repair. Restored to its original condition it will be placed at the entrance to the stupa area to provide an auspicious formal entryway from the upper area.

The upper grounds behind the stupa and around the stairway are fragile and have been degraded by foot traffic from the hundreds of visitors we get every year. (Our Stupa is the single most visited site in Crestone each year.) This large area now needs to be attractively fenced off from visitors, a handrail installed, the landscaping restored and appropriate signage placed.

We have already raised $33,000 for this project which has been professionally estimated at $75,000. If one of the several parts of this restoration and beautification project especially calls to your heart, let us know your choice. Provided that project is still incompletely funded, we will happily honor your wish.

You can donate by PayPal at KTTG.org or send checks made out to KTTG, PO Box 39, Crestone, CO 81131.

Our thanks to you. May you progress gloriously along the path of Dharma in this year of the Earth Dog!

Love from all of us at KTTG!

Torii Gate

Current crumbling wall

Proposed Gambion wall

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Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche visits the Stupa

Thrangu Rinpoche brought rain again to Crestone--- and about an hour after a major deluge he led a large group in a lovely smoke offering ceremony. (Click on photos to see them larger.)

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Happy Birthday Karmapa

A small group celebrated HH Karmapa Orgyen Thinley Dorje's birthday, circumabulating the stupa and chanting the 16th Karmapa's guru yoga.

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Losar celebrations at the Stupa

Around 50 friends braved a cold wind to participate in a sang (smoke) offering Monday February 27. Guests enjoyed tea and cookies and a break in the weather afterwards. Khenpo Lobsang led the joyful event and encouraged everyone to express Unconditional Love this year.

Happy Fire Rooster Year! Tashi Delek!

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KTTG is sad to say goodbye (again) to retiring director Zoe DeBray. She has been an inspiring leader, initiating many projects to maintain the stupa and grounds, growing KTTG into a stable organization, and last but not least, diligently working to find a qualified successor.

Zoe says...

Seems a little silly to be saying goodbye again. I've loved this work; work that came late in my working life that was the most satisfying of any. I've felt that I could use lots of what I've been trained to do; sometimes in creative ways. Everything in life so far seemed to come in handy. I've felt enormously blessed in being a caretaker in the Tashi Gomang Stupa's life; enormously rich in the relationships with all of the people who have helped over these years. So many of you remain my dearest friends and part of this community I love.

The Blog has tracked many of the events and teachers who have come these years, beginning with Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche's visit in March 2010 when I met the Tashi Gomang Stupa for the first time. The finish on the Stupa and years of harsh climate had made cracks and bubbles on the surface everywhere. Refurbishing was our first task together as a KTTG team in 2010. It happened effortlessly, miraculously. Those first six months were among the happiest of my entire life.

I end my days of work here hiking to the Stupa. It is one of the great loves of my life. It holds the relics of those who achieved ultimate freedom and unconditional love for all; the building and then the refurbishing brought out the highest in all of us. Through the examples of those Masters, may each of us continue along the path of genuine practice.

Thanks and love to all of you, Zoe

And KTTG is delighted to welcome Rene Evenson as our new director. We're very much looking forward to working with her --- she's already coming up to speed and making things happen.

Rene Evenson has been a student of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism since the 1970s. She has held several administrative positions at dharma centers, including six years as the external affairs director at the then Rocky Mountain Dharma Center (now Shambhala Mountain Center). She comes to KTTG from the City of Fort Collins Utilities, where she spent fourteen years working with residential and small-to-midsized commercial customers.

We had a small celebration to thank Zoe and welcome Rene. In the photo, both dressed in black, Zoe is seated on the chair, and Rene is standing to her left.

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VV Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche

A large crowd, including special guest Crestone benefactor Hannah Strong, joined Thrangu Rinpoche at the stupa for a special smoke offering ceremony honoring his visit.

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EARTH DAY 2016

We celebrated a gloriously beautiful Earth Day in the San Luis Valley by practicing Lama Zoe's Earth Sadhana.

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Adzom Gyalse Rinpoche of Shechen Monastery visited the stupa and recited the Aspiration prayer of Samantrabhadra.

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Surprise Happy Visit from Lama Chodrak

Lama Chodrak visited us the week of July 12 sharing an abundant Sang offering to the Crestone community. Khenpos Jigme and Lopsang from Vajra Vidya added their exuberant spirits. David Wright took the photos.

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A beautiful warm June day for Saga Dawa. The offerings were the sweetest and most delicious smelling. Eagles flew above. Happy Birthday Buddha!

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Naga Puja and 18" snow on 9 May 2015

We have pledged to participate in Naga pujas as a way to help with the serious water problems here and in the world. Our first puja began in the worst snow storm of the year…

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Earth Day Celebrations at the Tashi Gomang Stupa in 2015 was shared by many two and four footed members of the Crestone community. The Sadhana ended with blessings given by each person to each other by presenting white katas at the end. To read the Zoe’s Earth Day Sadhana go to “Director’s Corner” on this site, scroll down and click on to the “Sadhana."

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Losar 2015 at the Stupa

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Meet our Lifetime Retreatant

Did you know that we have a lifetime retreatant who has been practicing at the stupa for many years? Read her story here. Photo: Mary Raftery with Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche.

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Ringu Tulku Rinpoche’s long awaited visit to Crestone from October 9-13th was one of the highlights of this year. His organization, Bodhicharya and Steve Winn arranged his teaching schedule here. He stayed in Chester Wood’s house, managed by Barhara Falconer and assistant Zoe de Bray and taught on the 6 page Mipham teaching, LAMP THAT DISPELS DARKNESS, from Crystal Cave, pithy teachings translated by Eric Pema Kungang at Colorado College. Dawn Hutchinson, a current 3-Year Retreatant at Vajra Vidya and her husband, Denny Davidson, hosted an intimate dinner with Rinpoche and Venerable Ani Pema Choedrun, Ani Thubten Salden, Steve Winn and Zoe de Bray (1st photo below). After Rinpoche’s teaching was completed a wonderful rainbow appeared! (first two photos Dawn R. Hutchinson, remaining photos Jim Campbell and Steve Winn)

We said goodbye to Rinpoche with a Sang puja at the Tashi Gomang Stupa with many people from all traditions attending. Jack Siddall tended the fire and sang a Milarepa song…

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News of Former Directors

Read about the Noskovs' new home in our Directors Corner.

Photo of Karma Thegsum Tashi Gomang near the end of a gloriously wet summer by Dana Bove.