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A potent symbol of the path to enlightenment and a focus for practice and devotion, the Sudarshanaloka Retreat Centre stupa, containing relics of Dhardo Rimpoche, is the spiritual heart of Sudarshanaloka.
It could be said that the stupa is the most important and ubiquitous of all Buddhist architectural forms. The stupa has its origins in the heaps of earth and stones erected over the burial place of kings, from which it evolved into an elaborate architectural form redolent with symbolism and meaning, refined and individualised by each culture in which Buddhism took root.
Tibetan stupa in Sikkum and Thai-style stupa at Bodhinyanarama Monestry in Lower Hutt, Wellington It is said that before the Buddha died he indicated the shape that his reliquary should be by folding his outer robe into a cube of cloth and placing his upturned begging bowl on top. So the earliest form of the stupa had this shape; a simple squarish base with a hemisphere on top. As time passed architectural and symbolic elaboration occurred; the hemisphere became surmounted by a square, box-like structure representing the Vedic fire alter; honorific umbrellas represented the tree of life, the cosmic tree and the tree beneath which the Buddha sat on the night of his enlightenment. Later these ascending concentric rings also came to represent the 13 stages of spiritual attainment on the way to supreme enlightenment.
The Elemental Symbolsim of the Stupa During the Tantric or Vajrayana phase of the development of Buddhism in India a further layer of symbolism was added to the form of the stupa. The geometrical forms associated with the five elements - a cube for earth, sphere for water, cone for fire, hemisphere for air and flaming drop for space, were correlated with the base, body, spire and finial of the stupa, as well as with the energy centres of the human body (chakras). Thus the stupa came to represent the whole of the material, as well as the mental and spiritual universe. The placing of the elements in this sequence, from the grossest to the most refined indicated the progressive transformation of these energies on the spiritual plane and the stupa became an architectural representation of the path to enlightenment.
In 1994, a year after the purchase of Sudarshanaloka, and with the project to develop a retreat centre having hit a number of difficulties, we decided that we needed a reminder of why we were here, a symbol of our own unfolding and a reference point for our highest aspirations. What better focus of devotion and symbol of spiritual aspiration than a stupa? The initial idea of a small stupa grew until we settled on a seven metre high structure to be visible from the approach to Sudarshanaloka Retreat Centre. Venerable Urgyen Sangharakshita, the founder of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, suggested the stupa be dedicated to Dhardo Rimpoche, one of his teachers, and offered to inter a portion of Rimpoche's ashes there.
With due ceremony, ritual, and dedications to the resident spirits of the place construction began in the summer of 1996, led by an international team of builders. Over the next three months, and accompanied by the lively involvement of the elements - fierce and constant winds, burning sun and regular torrential rain, the stupa gradually took shape. During the building process ceremonies were held to honour the Buddhas associated with each element, and numerous sacred objects, mantras and Buddha images were incorporated into the structure. In February 1997, in the context of much celebration and festivities Urgyen Sangharakshita dedicated the stupa and interred a portion of Dhardo Rimpoche's ashes. Since then the site has been landscaped and the finishing touches made to the stupa, namely the plaques commemorating the life of Dhardo Rimpoche and stating his threefold message to "Live united, cherish the doctrine, radiate love". You are welcome to visit the stupa. Please contact us for details.
"Live united, cherish the doctrine, radiate love" Dhardo Rimpoche, born Thubten Lhundup Legsang in 1917, was the tulku, or reincarnation of the chief abbot of the famous Drepung Monastery in central Tibet. Raised and educated within the classical Tibetan monastic system he left Tibet in 1949 to become the abbot of the Tibetan monastery at Bodh Gaya. At that time refugees from Tibet were beginning to trickle into Northern India, fleeing the Chinese hostilities. When this trickle became a flood Rimpoche decided the best way he could help them was to start a school that would educate the children and teach them about Tibetan culture. In 1954 he founded the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Cultural Institute school (ITBCI) in Kalimpong and he devoted the rest of his life to its survival and development. The motto of the school, one that Rimpoche hoped would stay with the children throughout their lives and help guide them in their lives as Buddhists, was "Cherish the doctrine, live united, radiate love". It is a message that we too can live by and learn from. While in Kalimpong, Rimpoche met and befriended an English-born monk, Sangharakshita, who subsequently returned to the West to found his own Buddhist movement, the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO). The now world-wide movement honours Dhardo Rimpoche as one of Sangharakshita's eight key teachers and Dhardo Rimpoche often said that he made no distinction between his own disciples and those of Sangharakshita. Thus it is fitting, and a great honour, to have the Sudarshanaloka Retreat Centre stupa blessed with the presence of relics of Dhardo Rimpoche and dedicated to him. Sources: |
