The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:
I am racking my brain to think of more ways to fund raise. It feels like crying in the darkness. His Holiness Karma Kuchen Rinpoche tells me KPC is absolutely necessary, as did His Holiness Penor Rinpoche. Palyul needs us to be strong for the sake of all beings and for western Dharma.
We are not on time, we are lagging. Please wake up and march forward with me and make the world a better, kinder place.
I have an idea. Maybe kits could be put together and sent out to people. The United States Olympic Committee and the Leukemia Society had me do this. They sent me envelopes, and letters with information about why to donate. I then sent these out by mail or door to door to either my neighbors or friends and family and co-workers with a return envelope. They send me the money in 4 weeks and I return all the money collected to them.
I have another idea. Lets write letters to rich people. Maybe 100 of us can all write letters to the same rich person so that they will take notice, since they have busy lives. Tina Turner and Tiger Woods are rich AND Buddhist, so they may be more sympathetic and willing. Or Bill and Malinda Gates, they already have a habit of giving away lots of money to good causes! I watched The Shawshank Redemption, a movie where Andy Dufresne sent 1 letter a week to the state department requesting money to fund the prison library. After 2 years of letters they finally sent him money with a letter saying “please stop sending us letters.” After that he sent 2 letters a week and eventually got even more money!
I have another idea. Maybe put together a page and give people incentives to donate. Such as, donate this amount, say $100 or so, and you get a free Tara Buddha Statue blessed by Jetsunma or somebody. Donate $250 get a free prayer crystal, t-shirt or something. Donate $1,000 get something else. Also, each person who donates $50 or more could receive a raffle ticket entered into a raffle. After 1 million dollars or x amount of money is raised the raffle happens and someone is chosen at random to receive a Free Mini Stupa (like the ones in the Gompa next to the Sand Mandala, or one could be made?) or a free something!
I have another idea. Lets create a link on this page or tara.org and get everyone who is connected to the temple via. internet to start accumulating a certain mantra or prayer each day and solely dedicate it to removing obstacles that KPC has and also KPC effortlessly and quickly receiving all the money it needs to donate. So there can be a link where we can post how many Mala’s were said each day and it will tally up everybody’s individual accumulations and show publicly the total number.
I have another idea. 25 years ago Jetsunma made headlines everywhere in newspapers, magazines (I like Time magazine), and television. Lets have that happen again! Lets get this story out to the media. If only 1 million people (.003% of the US population) saw the article and they all donated just $1, that would be enough.
“When something needs to be done in the world to rectify the wrongs, if one is really concerned with benefiting others, one needs to be engaged, involved. This is action out of compassion.” – Buddha
“It is not enough to be compassionate; you must act. There are two aspects to action. One is to overcome the distortions and afflictions of your own mind; that is, in terms of calming and eventually dispelling anger. This is action out of compassion. The other is more social, more public.” – Dalai Lama (posted by Jessica Yap)