Tuesday, June 06, 2006

A New Home

The past few days have been a whirlwind of activity. Tonight the spiritual head of my Buddhist tradition Lama Zopa Rinpoche arrives in Sydney to give a series of teachings and to officially open our new centre.

Prayer Wheel

The paint is still drying, and my permanent bookshop fixtures haven't been built yet, but the centre is 95% finished and boy does it look impressive!

Altar Detail

Light, bright and airy, yet the touches of earthy accent colours and all the traditional Tibetan art make the centre feel like a real modern Buddhist centre. It's stunning.

Finished Gompa

The facilities are a huge leap forward from our old centre. Where we used to crowd anywhere up to 30 people in our old gompa (meditiation room), a room that was not much larger than a big bedroom, now we have a massive purpose built space.

Gompa Doors

Thursday night were are expecting a few hundred people to come for the opening ceremony and some teachings wih Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Then once the place is full and buzzing with students it'll feel like we're really in our new home.

[Click the pics for a trip to Flickr and the full size versions with descriptions. All my photos from the new centre are tagged Vajrayana Institute.]

4 comments:

worldpeace and a speedboat said...

wow, TOA, the new digs look absolutely lovely!

The Other Andrew said...

They are lovely. Given that the place was a semi-derelict ex-nursing home before... the transformation is amazing.

Anonymous said...

Very nice indeed : )

Bodhi said...

Vajralicious :-)