Garden of 1,000 Buddhas celebrates 8th annual peace festival
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JOCKO VALLEY — Eleven years ago, Tibetan Buddhist Lama Gochen Tulku Sang-ngag Rinpoche had a vision of creating an international place of peace. A place accepting of every political, religious, economic and cultural ideal where every sentient being is welcome; a place of harmony and acceptance.
In July of this year, the EWAM Garden of 1,000 Buddhas was officially consecrated by Lama Rinpoche and several of his followers from around the world.
On Sept. 8, the garden celebrated its eighth annual Festival of Peace with an all-day celebration featuring speakers, music, poetry, food, prayer, and the second annual Walk-A-Mile for Peace.
Georgia Milan is on the board of directors of EWAM and explained the Walk-A-Mile for Peace event was born of the idea that individuals can make a difference with every step, and that each step brings them closer to their eventual goal of peace.
“With each step they are mindful of peace,” Milan said. “You don’t have to be sitting on a cushion to be meditating on peacefulness or working towards peace.”
Ryan Springer, his wife Heather and their daughter walked along the garden’s exterior wall just before the mile-long walk for peace began. They arrived too late to participate last year and were looking forward to the experience.
“It’s just a small thing we could do to help out such a beautiful place,” Ryan said.
The secondary goal of the walk is to use the event as a fundraiser for the garden. This year’s target was $20,000. The money will be placed in a maintenance fund, and with roughly 1,000 people attending the event in past years, the garden has the chance to reach that goal.
While the festival has an overall goal of peace, the emphasis varies from year to year. This year’s festival is centered on environmental health and conservation. Aptly titled, “Landscapes of Peace: Creating an Environmental Ethic,” a number of speakers from the Native Land and Wilderness Council’s 2012 regional gathering at Salish Kootenai College stayed one day longer to be able to speak at the festival.
“The Tibetans, of course, are the indigenous voice of Asia,” Milan said. “We’re so blessed to have the support of a number of the Native Americans who live here, and we’re grateful that they’re willing to get to know us.”
Milan stressed that the event was not about telling people what to do and what not to do. Instead, the hope is that by simply being at a sacred site like the Garden of 1,000 Buddhas, a person’s natural and spontaneous impulse to be good and do things that benefit everyone will come to the surface.
“We want to awaken that awareness,” she said. “We want to get people to spontaneously desire to take care of the planet for future generations.”
A short distance away, Lama Rinpoche carefully prepared flowers, incense, beads and silk cloth around the garden’s center statue of Yum Chenmo, The Great Mother of Transcendent Wisdom. From a bird’s-eye view, Yum Chenmo rests in the center of an eight-spoked dharma wheel. Each spoke of the wheel is a wall with 1,000 Buddha statues resting on it.
These walls extend towards the circular outer wall containing 1,000 stupas (statues). For Buddhists, the stupa represents the enlightened mind inherent in all beings.
“We do it differently every year,” Rinpoche said of the festival.
“In general, it’s about helping and benefitting the entire world by cultivating peace. This year’s focus is the environment, because in our current time, that’s the most pressing issue. It will affect all of us very soon.”
As musicians tuned their instruments and vendors organized their wares, people from all walks of life began to congregate in and around the garden with easy smiles and peaceful demeanors.
Milan looked around at the gathering crowd and smiled.
“It’s so inspiring that people will get out of their busy lives, gather and enjoy one another in the name of a good cause: to create peace,” she said.
