Orgyen Chö Dzong
His Holiness envisions Orgyen Cho Dzong as retreat center and revitalizing source of Buddhism in the coming age. The pure and complete Nyingma transmission, based on the Nine Vehicles of Buddhist teaching, will be given here by qualified teachers of the lineage. Masters from various schools of Buddhism will also be invited to give their interpretations of the Dharma. Thus, a comprehensive scholastic foundation will be combined with intensive meditation practice to bring about the true spiritual realization that can keep Buddhadharma alive and accessible.
Orgyen Cho Dzong is located in the northern Catskill Mountains near Greenville, New York. Nyingma teachers are now available to teach and assist practitioners. Seminars and retreats under the guidance of His Holiness are attended by students from America and Europe. There is comfortable accommodation for sixty to eighty people. Currently, practitioners are doing short retreats in the existing rooms and in caravans in the woods. The hope is to increase these retreat facilities.
In addition to accommodation, Orgyen Cho Dzong has a World Peace Stupa with many important relics from Tibet, many texts, temple statues, and a lamp house. Numerous renovations have been done to the property since 1980. These include installation of metal roofs, nine new septic systems and two new state of the art oil heating systems, renovation of all the rooms, wooden floor in the temple, construction of a community room and grand dining area, planting of trees, additional gas heating systems in the Temple and yoga room. The rooms are also being winterized for year-long retreats and practice.
At Orgyen Cho Dzong we already have an excellent setting for the study and practice of Dharma, but these facilities need to be maintained and improved. In the future, we plan to build retreat cabins and a library. A translation group will work to convey the meaning of Tibetan scriptures. An herb garden will be planted and a Tibetan doctor invited to teach the traditional science of Tibetan medicine. The fine arts of music, dance, thanka painting, woodblock printing, weaving, the casting of the sacred ritual instruments, gold and silver engraving, scroll, mask and traditional paper making—this rich cultural heritage of Tibet can be preserved and transmitted here in the West. In addition, a small public museum will display Tibetan arts, artifacts and important relics. To realize this vision means that one of the supreme schools of Tibetan Buddhism will no longer be hidden in the Orient, but will openly offer its pure unbroken lineage of awakened mind to us in the West.