Special Appeals
Spreading Peace and Happiness Together
Thank you very much for your interest in and support of the Archive. As I always say, we couldn't do it without you. What I mean is, together we have a common goal: ensuring the happiness and welfare of all sentient beings through offering them the Dharma. With your financial assistance we are able to do the work we do. So here at LYWA we really see this as a joint effort and thank you so much for playing your part. We are grateful and blessed to play ours.
By the end of 2013 we're hoping to publish four more books by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Three are from the FPMT Lineage Series, part of our PFL Project: Rinpoche's extensive lam-rim teachings on the Perfect Human Rebirth and Impermanence and Death, and an amazingly detailed volume of emptiness teachings. The fourth is from our Heart Advice Series, a book of Rinpoche's experiential teachings on refuge. An ambitious program for us but one that we'll certainly try to accomplish.
Fortunately, these books have all been sponsored. Unfortunately, the infrastructure that allows them to happen has not. So we are again turning to you with our mid-year appeal for $50,000. We need this money not only to pay crucial staff but also to invest in the technology that, behind the scenes, is the backbone of the Archive.
As new technologies emerge, we endeavor to take advantage of the latest tools to preserve, catalog and publish the precious teachings of Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Our technology costs this year include upgrading our archive servers to keep them secure and up to date; upgrading our archive database to improve access; upgrading office PCs; and renewing annual software contracts, including our license for ISYS, our text retrieval system that is so important to editors working on Rinpoche's books. And of course there are the ongoing costs of continually updating and optimizing our website to make all these amazing teachings freely available around the world. It all comes to nearly $10,000.
In addition, there's our annual financial review and our annual liability and property insurance, totaling $10,000. The other approximately $30,000 will help cover the salaries of essential staff members not directly involved in book preparation for the next few months.
In most previous years general donations have somewhat covered many of these costs, but this year our general donations have slowed a bit and there are also a couple of one-off expenses, so we really need your help at this time.
As Lama Zopa Rinpoche has said about supporting the Archive:
When you contribute to the Archive, you create the charity of Dharma, the highest form of giving. Moreover, when you donate money to the Archive, you accomplish material charity. And since the Dharma teachings show readers how to protect themselves from suffering, you also accomplish the charity of saving others from fear. Thus, by the one action, supporting the Archive, you achieve all three forms of generosity. If, on top of that, you give with bodhicitta—the determination to attain buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings—your donation becomes the cause of enlightenment.
We greatly appreciate those of you who made an offering towards our mid-year appeal. You have helped us get an excellent start towards our $50,000 goal. To date, we have received donations totaling over $9,500.
If you are able, please consider becoming a Member of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive with your donation of US$1,000 or more. The main benefit of Membership is that you will be joining us in making the Lamas' incredible teachings available to a worldwide audience. More direct and tangible benefits to you personally include free Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche books from the Archive and Wisdom Publications, and access to an exclusive members-only section of our website containing the entire LYWA library of publications in electronic format. Please see our website for more information.
If you make your US$1,000 donation today, you will receive all the usual Member benefits plus a beautiful 16x20 matted print of Lisa Sawlit's spectacular portrait of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Donors of $50 or more will automatically receive the next free book we publish, most likely Rinpoche's next book in the Heart Advice series on refuge.
Visit our website at www.LamaYeshe.com and click on the "Donate Now" button. Thank you!
Much love,
Nick Ribush
Director
