Report on 2009 Activities

2009 was a very busy year for us. Perhaps we spread ourselves a bit thin and overextended ourselves, but circumstances demanded it. Anyway, we all lived through it, and in the end a considerable amount of good came out of it all. Some of these projects are documented in our YouTube videos. The links are below. In addition, we made a 28 minute video that we have been showing for fundraising. Below are descriptions of the dozen or so principal projects that we completed in 2009.

1. Saving the Nicholas House, where the Roerichs lived during 1926-27
Undoubtedly our work to help save the Nicholas Roerich House was the most dramatic and energy-demanding of our 2009 activities. Not only did we raise some $35,000 for the project from various friends in America, Europe and Russia, we also oversaw the restoration teams who worked around the clock to meet our deadlines. For those not aware of Nicholas Roerich or his importance, he was a Russian born New York artist, and was the first Buddhist to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, having been nominated in 1929 by the University of Paris. Perhaps more importantly, his many paintings of Mongolia and Tibet, inspired by his travels through Central Asia between 1925 and 1935, brought a widespread appreciation of the spiritual, cultural and geographical qualities of these two important sister countries, an appreciation that swept the international community. Some years ago the highly esteemed Mongol scholar Prof Bira, who had studied Sanskrit and Tibetan under Roerich’s son George, learned that the house in which the Roerich family had lived during their 1926-7 sojourn in Ulaanbaatar was scheduled for demolition. Bira applied to the government to allow him to save it. The task of raising the funds for the saving of the house, as well as overseeing the work, was another matter. This fell to “Glenn’s Mongolia Projects.” We took up the task in Dec of 2008, with the resolve to begin in the Losar (Tsagansar) of 2009, and a determination to complete the first phase and open the house as a museum and Buddhist art institute on July 6th of 2009, the Dalai Lama’s birthday. Some of the work can be seen on our YouTube channel, at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/user/roerichmongolia#p/a/u/2/yBQ06Wumcfo. Also, the opening ceremony can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/user/roerichmongolia#p/a/u/0/-mTRS0id-Zo.

2. A website for the Roerich Project
To facilitate the above work, we also raised funds for and created a website on Roerich and his Tibeto-Mongolian efforts. The site is www.roerichmongolia.org. Click on the line “Our YouTube Videos” to view the dozen or so videos that we created in connection with the project.

3. Collaborating with Polaris Books in Mongolia to release Five Buddhist Books
The former incarnate lama known as the Telo Hugatht (Tilopa Tulku) was perhaps the greatest Mongolian lama of his generation. Somehow he escaped the Communist purges of the 1930s, and ended up living his final years in America. He was instrumental in bringing Tagtser Rinpoche and Geshey Wangyal to America, and this was, in a sense, the father of Tibetan Buddhism in America. Telo Rinpoche wrote two amazing memoirs before passing away. One was his blow-by-blow account of the Communist destructions and murders that began in 1924 in Mongolia and culminated with the liquidations and “cultural purges” of the late 1930s. The other was his spiritual biography, which gives an amazing portrait of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia in the last decades of the 1800s and first quarter of the 1900s. This was one of the five books we helped publish. In addition, we helped Polaris with the Russian and Indian edition of Helena Roerich’s “Introduction to Buddhism,” written by her in Ulaanbaatar in 1926. We also cooperated with Polaris Books in two important Roerich books, his “The Heart of Asia,” and “Shambhala.” These works are important for Mongolians today, in that they all deal with the Mongolia that was destroyed by the Communists.

4. Two National Buddhist Art Competitions
To inform the Mongolian public of the newly emerging “Roerich Shambhala Museum and Art Institute,” we organized two national art competitions. Several American and European friends provided the funding. The first involved 51 artists of national stature, each of whom contributed one or more paintings for the exhibit. It ran from March and culminated in our opening ceremony on July 6th, with a ten day exhibit in June in one of the most prestigious art galleries in the country (The Khaan Bank Gallery). The former Mongolian President personally awarded the prizes to the five winners on July 6th. The second competition involved approx 20 young artists. Each was requested to work for a week on a canvas, and then complete it in a one-day “paint-off,” this being videoed and shown on national television as a half hour program known as “Voicebox,” which is very popular with the youth of the country.

5. After the July 6th Opening, a Summer Program of Lectures by Visiting Lamas
Following our opening, we organized a series of summer lectures and teachings by visiting lamas. The first of these was by the reincarnation of the Telo Lama. This amazing young man was born in Philadelphia, recognized and enthroned by the Dalai Lama, and now spends his time between Dharamsala, the US, Kalmukia, and Mongolia. Officially he is the head lama of Kalmukia. His visit and lecture were made into a Russian television documentary. The English version is on YouTube in three parts. The link to Part One is http://www.youtube.com/user/roerichmongolia#p/a/f/1/Ic-EA7tMWQE. You can find the other parts by surfing YouTube with the formal name of the film. Next we hosted Ongtul Rinpoche, the Drikung Kargyu master who is the head of the Drikung Monastery in Tso Pema, India. Thirdly we hosted Garchen Rinpoche, a dzog chen lama combining Nyingma and Drikung lineages. Our fourth guest teacher was Majiid Dolma, the main incarnation of Green Tara in Mongolia. She is one of the great female incarnations in the country. We also hosted the British writer Keith Dowman, who taught dzog chen, from his book Flight of the Garuda. In brief, the summer was a festival of spiritual and cultural delight.

6. A Stupa Made from a Recycled Russian tank
This was no easy accomplishment. But we found a company in Ulaanbaatar that makes stupas from recycled metals. We went with their manager through various metal yards, and found the turret of an abandoned Russian tank. It now stands proud as a “Stupa of Great Enlightenment.”

7. Ten Computers for Mongolian College Students
A fringe benefit of doing lecture and teaching tours around the world, and also in leading pilgrimages to Mongolia and Tibet, is that I get to ask people to donate their used laptopsand other useful items. We were able to do this in Tibet with the Chushul Orphanage, after the Tibet Fund requested us to look in on them. In fact, last year through the Theosophical Society we were able to build new toilets, showers and a greenhouse for that orphanage. Nothing that grand has occurred in Mongolia, but last year we were able to inspire collect a half dozen laptops for donation to Mongolian college students. Other patrons donated small amounts of money to help us buy desktops.

8. Continuing Education Scholarships
Altho our work in scholarships is modest, we have managed to find sponsors for several Mongolian college students, paying their tuitions and also offering them basic living expenses support. We were especially proud last year when one of them, Miss Bolormaa, now in her third year at the School of International Finance and Economics in Ulaanbaatar, became a straight A honors student, and as such was one of only three students in the school to be granted a fifty percent scholarship from the university for the remainder of her studies there.

9. Assistance to Six Mongols participating in the Buddhist Conference at Smith College, March 2009
Prof. Jamie Hubbard at Smith College, and Prof Rick Taupier at the Un. of Mass in Northampton, both made visits to Mongolia in the spring of 2008. We assisted with both of their visits. They had asked if we would help organize a conference between Smith and the Un of Mass in Northampton, on “The Revival of Buddhism in Post-Communist Mongolia.“ In particular, we organized for four lamas and two artists to attend. The artists, in fact, became part of a larger project. I will discuss this in the next para.

10: Two Artists in Six Cities
Once talk of the exhibit arose, we felt that we should avail ourselves of the opportunity and orgaiize more in the US. Our old friend Kathy Connors kindly throw herself behind us, and organized a three week exhibit and artist-in-residence stint at the Un of Indiana at Bloomington. Two members of the Buddhist Women’s Consortium in Chicago, who were organizing a Buddhist Women Conference at DePaul University, organizeá an exhibit there. From Chicago the two artists went to Buffalo, Smith College, and NY. In NY Don Rubin asked for a private showing of their work, and bought a dozen Buddhist pieces for his museum. Next they went to Atlanta, where three years earlier we had organized a Mongolian Buddhist exhibit at the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art. Here Pam Tremayne, a well know art enthusiast, organized an exhibit. Finally the work went to Buffalo, for a four month shoring over the summer. The artists left their work there, and returned to Mongolia. All of these exhibits are posted on the Picasaweb site that we made from the tour: http://picasaweb.google.com/soyolma108.

11. Ad Hoc Assistance to Monks and Nuns
Altho we do not have a formal project for supporting monks and nuns, we occasionally get “general donations,” to use how we see fit. As part of this, we have contributed to one monk and also one nun who are doing their three years retreats. In addition, we managed to find some financial help for several monks going to Dharamsala to attend the teachings by Gyalwa Rinpoche. We call these “ad hock,” because we do not regard them as formal projects. However, we get numerous requests for small help in these ways, and sometimes the resources to fulfill the requests comes through.

12. Artists in Summer Residence at the Roerich Shambhala Museum
Again, this was a small project, perhaps only costing us $1,000 or so for the entire summer. But we tried to keep two young artists at work in our museum throughout the summer, turning out works inspired by Buddhist themes. A half dozen or so artists participated between July and Oct. We felt that this “living art” quality was very important in inspiring young artists to look at the Buddhist artistic heritage that came under such intense attack from the Communists, but that managed to survive underground.

13. A Well for a Monastery in Southwest Mongolia
Majiid Tara, a female incarnate lama in southwest Mongolia (Hovd Amaig), rebuilt a replica of the monastery that was destroyed by the Communists in the 1930s. She has been very actively involved in reforestation in her area, and a year or so ago approached us to find funding to drill a water well, for watering the newly planted forest, as well as providing drinking water for local herds of animals. We applied to a German organization on her behalf, and in Sept 2009 the grant was Awarded. Of course applying for a grant in Mongolia involves more than just filling out paperwork. It also involves many meetings with NGO workers to discuss the project, convincing them of the merits and benefits, long lunches and dinners, and so forth. Then, once the application is drafted and submitted, further discussions are needed to clarify points, and then to follow up. That said, all went wonderfully. The well has been drilled, and the irrigation system put in place. As a result, thousands of herd animals in Hovd Amaig are now drinking our water, and the newly planted trees in the region are similarly thriving.

14. Token Support for Volunteers
We had the very excellent fortune to have numerous volunteers work at our Roerich House project during 2009. Although all of them were equally precious, we owe the deepest debt of gratitude to Vedran Bolfek, a young professional restoration artist from Croatia. He emailed and volunteered to come and work for us throughout the spring, summer and fall. We never would have been able to have completed the work on Roerich House, and get it ready for its “soft opening” in July 6th, without his generous and gracious presence. He worked for six months without salary, and we were only responsible for his lunches. We also were able to take him on a two week tour of Mongolia with a group of Theosophical Society pilgrims who came to visit us, as a token of our appreciation for his efforts.

A Concluding Note

There were numerous other small projects that we became involved in last year. But those listed above were the main ones. I would especially like to thank His Excellency Rinchen Dharlo of the Tibet Fund, New York, for mer ambassador of the Dalai Lama to the Americas, for allowing us to channel larger donations in the USA through his organization, and thus allowing the donors to claim a tax status from their donation. This allowed all tax-paying Americans to share in the merit of the individual gifts. In addition, Mr. Daniel Entin, director of the Roerich Museum in NY, and his assistants Aida and Guido, have been wonderfully encouraging and helpful. Puntsok Wangyal of The Tibet Foundation in London has also allowed us to refer our UK sponsors through him.