Open position: Facilities Manager

Gampo Abbey is looking for someone to take care of its buildings and grounds. If you would like to experience life in a monastic community and have good maintenance skills, this is a perfect opportunity for you.

Main duties

• Assure the general functioning of the Abbey’s three primary systems, which are water, heat, and power.
  
• Be on call for urgent conditions, especially power outages.
  
• Maintain good relations with our contractors and suppliers.
  
• Render physical assistance to all department heads in setting up programs and events.
  
• Keep three vehicles clean and in road-worthy condition using qualified mechanics.
  
• As needed, repair or have repaired the various elements and parts of our fourteen structures.

Required skills

• Commitment and desire to live and work in a practice community.
  
• Knowledge of building maintenance and repair practices.
  
• Knowledge of safety practices.
  
• Ability to plan and supervise the work of others.
  
• Ability to work effectively with minimal supervision.
  
• Valid driver’s license.

This position provides a salary and benefits. A two-year commitment is required.

If you are interested, please send a cover letter and resume to Barbara Badessi, Director of Gampo Abbey, at director@gampoabbey.org.

Open Position: Bookkeeper

Gampo Abbey is looking for a bookkeeper. This is a wonderful opportunity if you have a finance background and an interest in exploring life at Gampo Abbey, a Western Buddhist monastery in the Shambhala tradition in beautiful Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

Reporting to the Director and under the guidance of the Chagdzo, the Bookkeeper facilitates the financial operations of the Abbey. We are looking for a two-year commitment.

The Abbey offers a rare opportunity to practice, study, and work with a strong community in a deeply contemplative environment. In additional to being a resident of the Abbey, you will receive a small stipend.

Duties

• Process accounts receivable and accounts payable
• Prepare daily petty cash balances and daily entries
• Allocate incomes
• Ensure the integrity of the system's data and reports
• Prepare monthly and year-end financial statements
• Provide copies of monthly statements to the Director, Chagdzo, and department heads
• Complete month-end and quarterly reporting requirements
• Prepare bank deposits and bank reconciliation
• Complete monthly reconciliation of balance sheet accounts
• Prepare payroll and remit payroll tax
• Assist with programs and other tasks as assigned
• Maintain and/or establish business relationships with outside vendors, bankers, etc.
• Working with the Chagdzo and the Director, provide support for annual budget preparation and for preparation of quarterly financial reports
• Prepare HST/GST claim forms and other government-related financial forms
• Pay property tax
• Supervise the Abbey's Finance Assistant, whose job is to process donations, file financial documents, and prepare donor letters

Qualifications

• Experience performing the duties outlined above
• Experience with non-profit organizations
• Ability to work within a community
• Experience working with QuickBooks is an asset

If this sounds like you, please consider joining us. If interested, please send a cover letter and resume to Barbara Badessi, Director of Gampo Abbey, at director@gampoabbey.org.

For more information about the Abbey, please visit www.gampoabbey.org.

Empowering Our Lives with Meaning: A Monastic Youth Dathün at Gampo Abbey, Summer 2013

If you are a practitioner in your early 30s or younger, we invite you to participate in our Monastic Youth Dathün next summer, from July 13 to August 10, 2013. Below you will find information about the retreat. (Note that the application deadline is March 30, 2013.)

In ancient India, at the age of 29, Prince Siddhartha left his life of transient material occupations in search of liberation from the endless cycle of unease and dissatisfaction which no amount of distraction or entertainment could ease. The young prince was searching for deep inner meaning, understanding, freedom, and for a way to help the world around him.

 

Though times have changed since then, many of us in today's speedy and increasingly troubled world still feel this calling and some will pursue it by becoming monastics.

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the founder of Gampo Abbey, felt that it would be beneficial to do so temporarily. For younger practitioners it could become a powerful rite of passage. Temporary monasticism can be a way of exploring the possibility of life as a monastic or can be a way of discovering how helpful principles borrowed from the monastic tradition can support spiritual life as a householder. 

It is in this spirit that Gampo Abbey will be holding a Monastic Youth Dathün this summer from July 13–August 10. It will be directed by Shastri Lodrö Palmo and Getsul Loden Nyima. This dathün is part of an ongoing tradition at the Abbey to offer a powerful immersion experience of monastic training to young practitioners for the duration of one month.

The theme of this year's dathün will be "Empowering Our Lives with Meaning" and will focus on how dharma practice strengthens our sense of purpose in life and our effectiveness in transforming our minds and society. As a means of doing this the dathün will include extensive periods of sitting practice, interviews with meditation instructors, contemplative activities, as well as talks and discussions about enlightened society.

This will take place while immersed in the monastic lifestyle of simplicity, contentment, and deep purpose, which includes forms such as daily silence, oryoki, precepts, and communal living in Söpa Chöling, the Fortress of Patience, the Abbey’s long-term retreat facility.

Over the years we have seen the Monastic Youth Dathün playing a poignant role in the paths of participants. As Lodrö Rinzler (author of The Buddha Walks into a Bar) said of his experience of Monastic Youth Dathün:

"Even though I was raised within Shambhala, it was only during the monastic youth dathün that I realized that this meditation path was my own. I fully credit my time at Gampo Abbey as the foundation for my entire spiritual journey. It made me the man and practitioner I am today."

Shortly after their arrival, participants will be given temporary monastic ordination which will last for the duration of the program. This includes shaving one's head, wearing monastic robes, and holding the five basic precepts of conduct for monastics: refraining from taking life, stealing, sexual activity, false speech, and intoxicants.

The dathün is open to practitioners in their early 30s and younger. As a prerequisite for taking temporary ordination and attending the program one must have formally taken refuge or have definite plans to do so. The cost of the program is $1500, which includes housing and meals. We also have some scholarship funding available.

Join us for deep practice and a profound experience of joyful living!

For more information, write to office@gampoabbey.org.

Visit our website to download an application form.

New book by Chökyi Gyatso Translation Committee

We are pleased to announce the second publication of our Chökyi Gyatso Translation Committee.

Abhidharmakośa-Bhāṣya of Vasubandhu: The Treasury of the Abhidharma and its (Auto)commentary.

Translated into French by Louis de La Vallée Poussin. Annotated English Translation by Gelong Lodrö Sangpo. With a new Introduction by Bhikkhu KL Dhammajoti.

ISBN: 978-81-208-3607-5. 2898 pages (4 volumes; cloth). Rs. 5000 ≈ US $100 (Motilal Banarsidass)

Since its appearance in the late fourth century C.E., the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya has been used as a standard textbook for the understanding of not only the Abhidharma doctrines but of all the fundamental Buddhist doctrines in general. Its nine chapters cover classical presentations on the skandhas, dhātus and āyatanas, on mind and mental events, on causes and conditions, on dependent origination, on cosmology, on karma, on the kleśas, on the paths and the persons in whom the Noble Path arises, on the cognitions (jñāna/prajñā), on meditative concentration (samādhi), and on the refutation of the self.

La Vallée Poussin’s French translation of this key text of Buddhist scholarship is considered to be one of the most outstanding masterpieces of Western Buddhist scholarship of the twentieth century.

Attempting to make the study of Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośa and its autocommentary more accessible to a general Buddhist readership as well as to university students, Lodrö Sangpo inserts into the text section headings (based on Karmapa Wangchuk Dorje) outlining in detail the content of the autocommentary, as well as a table of contents of each chapter, charts and drawings. In his many added endnotes, he presents summaries, overviews and additional important information drawn mainly from the work of contemporary leading Abhidharma scholars (including La Vallée Poussin).

For an electronic appendix providing additional source materials related to the translation, click here.
 
The translation is enhanced by the masterly introduction (69 pages) by Professor Dhammajoti, Glorious Sun Professor of Buddhist Studies (University of Hong Kong).

Also new in this English translation:

• The original Sanskrit kārikās and their Tibetan translation inserted into the endnotes
• Cross-references internal to the Kośa and cross-listings with other texts
• New bibliography
• Sanskrit-English Index-Glossary; English-Sanskrit Index-Glossary (205 pages)
• Remarks by the Translator (38 pages)

Please also note that the publication of this book coincides auspiciously with Lodrö Sangpo’s Fall Shedra course at Gampo Abbey (November 5–30, 2012): The Essential Points of the Abhidharmakośa. This course is open to non-residents. For further information and the prerequisites for participating in this course, please visit our website.

A Successful Lobster Release!

Thanks to the generosity of many donors, we held a very successful Lobster Release last Saturday.

Because of all the donations, we were able to buy the season's last catch from a local fisherman and release all the lobsters back into the sea. Residents and friends of the Abbey traveled by boat to a spot below the cliffs of the Abbey and released the lobsters into the Gulf of St. Lawrence to continue their lives.

Thanks very much to all who supported this annual project!

Come take a tour of Gampo Abbey

The Abbey is once again offering guided tours this summer, from July 2 to August 31.

Tours are offered Monday through Friday, at two times: 1:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m.

At other times, you are welcome to come walk the grounds, visit the Stupa, and see the outside of the Abbey -- but with a guided tour, you get the inside track. See the shrine room where we practice, visit our library with over 5,000 books on Buddhism and religion, learn about our lineage and activities, and get a glimpse into the life of the monastics and lay residents living at Gampo Abbey.

See our Traveling page for driving directions.

We hope to see you in beautiful Cape Breton this summer!

The 2012 Gampo Abbey Lobster Release!

Each year at the end of the lobster fishing season in this area of Cape Breton, the monastics and residents of Gampo Abbey hold the great Lobster Release, when many caught lobsters are released back into the water. Read on to learn how you can participate.

"Life Release" -- in which captive animals destined to be eaten are, instead, released back into their native habitats -- is a traditional practice for Tibetan Buddhists, especially monastics. The most obvious benefits of the practice are for the sentient beings whose lives are being saved, but it also serves to strengthen the individual practitioner and the sangha as a whole, and to establish an important link with the local environment and culture.

The day after the end of the local Lobster Fishing Season, a fisherman is compensated for his catch and the residents of the Abbey board his boat. The lobsters are blessed with purifying water; a liturgy written by Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche is read; and finally each person on the boat is encouraged to release a lobster into the water. People who send donations to support the Lobster Release sometimes include a request and these prayers and aspirations are also read aloud at this time.

Gampo Abbey has become a respected part of Cape Breton and open curiosity has developed around the activities of the monastery. The annual Lobster Release, while taking root in the local culture, has served as a powerful means for the residents and donors of Gampo Abbey to connect with this ancient Bodhisattva activity of saving the lives of sentient beings.

Each year the Abbey raises funds to support the Lobster Release. Your tax deductible donation can be sent through the Supporting Gampo Abbey page on our website (select “Lobster Release” under the Gift Designation menu) or you can call our finance office at 902-224-1358 (Mon-Fri, 1:30-5:00 pm Atlantic Time). We can provide you with a receipt upon request.

Thank you for your support!

In the spirit of the Great Eastern Sun,
Your friends at Gampo Abbey