Matto Pistono and Josh Elmore at Maratika Cave in Nepal

December 9, 2011

Namaste fellow pilgrims,

Nekorpa has had a busy and productive year working to enrich and protect sacred pilgrimage sites.  We have built partnerships, started innovative programs and established a strong network of spiritual friends and supporters.

Please join with us on our journey to protect and improve sacred landscapes in 2012!

From Sri Lanka to Nepal to Tibet and in between, Nekorpa is making it possible for communities to protect and restore their spiritual landscapes.  Our program is small, highly focused and run by local people to ensure it will continue and grow. But, we need your support.

Nekorpa is engaging local groups, international NGOs, scholars and spiritual practitioners to join together in support of our mission. The local response to the program has been overwhelmingly positive.

Our work is getting noticed and we have been invited to advise, guide, and work with environmental and cultural projects, including a partnership with the World Wildlife Fund and DiversEarth. This is a real testament to the substance of our work and more importantly a recognition of the importance of sacred pilgrimage sites.

Below is snapshot of what Nekorpa has accomplished since we started two years ago, and what we have planned for 2012:

• In a far eastern region of Tibet, a stupa-reliquary was constructed to honor the life and teachings of Tertön Sogyal Lerab Lingpa, a 19th century mystic and meditation master. We are now translating a short biography of the mystic to be included with the guidebook to the area.

• Last year at Taksang Hermitage in Bhutan, we collaborated with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in the project ‘Where Pilgrims & Conservationists Meet.’ Recommendations were made to the Bhutanese government on protecting the sacred mountain climb to the hermitage and to promote “green pilgrimage.” Nekorpa is continuing the partnership with WWF along the pilgrimage route to Taksang by supporting a brick pathway to combat erosion, promote proper sanitation, and publish a pilgrimage guidebook.

• Outside Kathmandu, Nepal, at the holy pilgrimage sites of Pharping, Nekorpa embarked on an ambitious community-wide Zero Waste campaign. Following a challenging year of awareness building and clean-up, the project recently received the donation of a plot of land for a recycling center and public toilets. Research continues on the pilgrimage guidebook, which will cover the sacred sites from the Chobar Gorge to the Vajrayogini Temple and the caves of Yangleshö to Asura, the Hindu sacred sites in the area including Daksinkali and Sheshnayan temples, as well as the Haraiti mountain shrines.

• Our most ambition project of the last two years has been at Sri Pada—Adam’s Peak in Sri Lanka. At the summit of Sri Pada, there is a “sacred footprint” in the rock. Buddhists hold it to be the footprint of the Buddha, Hindus that of Shiva, and in the Christian and Muslim traditions that of Adam. Nekorpa’s comprehensive plastic clean-up program has been on-going along the two principal pilgrimage routes and is integrated with school and environmental programs about ‘spiritual climbing.’ A pilgrimage guidebook for Sri Pada will be published in September 2012.

• Increasing awareness and appreciation for pilgrimage sites, Matteo Pistono, Nekorpa’s Executive Director, has given slideshow talks at universities, conferences and meetings across the United States, in India and England.

Nekorpa is looking forward to working with our dedicated local partners in 2012 in Tibet, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bhutan and expanding to projects in Mongolia and India, and beyond.

We encourage you to support us so we can continue to protect pilgrimage places for spiritual pilgrims, practitioners, tradition holders, and indeed, the world.

Please consider making a donation, dedicating prayers and making aspirations to benefit Nekorpa’s work.

Over 90% all donations are utilized directly for projects at sacred pilgrimage sites. We have no paid employees and rely on volunteer and in-kind support to carry out our mission. Nekorpa is a registered 501(c)3 not-for-profit in the US.

With hand folded and prayers for peace along your journey,

Matteo Pistono and Josh Elmore

Founders, Nekorpa, www.nekorpa.org

Donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by the law.

THE ENVIRONMENT:  Is It Too Late for Individuals to Make A Difference?

Can our planet sustain a global population that has recently reached 7 billion?  When the environmental crisis feels overwhelming, we may wonder if it is nearly too late? Can individuals still make a difference? And do the teachings of the Buddha, who lived long before carbon emissions, have anything to say about philosophical, ethical, or pragmatic responses to global imbalance?
Join us as we ask scientist of climate change, Christina Hulbe, philosopher David Loy, businessman Mark Waller, and founder of Nekorpa, Matteo Pistono, about approaching sustainability thresholds and what can be done by whom to avert catastrophe and even possibly create space for healing communities and earth systems. Maitripa President & Professor of Buddhist Studies, Yangsi Rinpoche, will further the conversation with reflections from the Buddhist tradition that illuminate these issues. Moderated by Professor of Buddhist Studies, James Blumenthal.

Click here to register for the symposium in Portland, OR.

Check out photographs from Nekorpa’s work in Sri Lanka and Nepal 2010-2011.

Nekorpa is dependent upon your generosity and it is easy to donate here. Thank you.

Pia Lindstrom  presented the cutting edge work of Deer Park-India, and Matteo Pistono, Executive Director of Nekorpa, spoke about working with communities in Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka. Both Deer Park and Nekorpa offered their experiences within the Himalayan-Buddhist context with regards to Zero Waste methodology, raising ecological consciousness, and implementation of waste management. Participants of the workshops were actively engaged in discussion and offered their relevant experiences from India, Bangledesh and Sri Lanka.

Read Ajahn Sulak Sivaraksa’s thoughts on the Future of Buddhism, Roshi Joan Halifax’s essay on the Precious Necessity of Compassion, Hozan Alan Senauke’s essay on The Future is Always Arriving and other articles from the conference by Jonathan Watts, John Stanley & David Loy, and Matteo Pistono.

The Mahabodhi Temple and bodhitree where the historical Buddha attained enlightenment

And read more about the conference here.

"Clean Pharping" garbage cans installed at the Varjayogini temple in Pharping

Nekorpa’s Executive Director, Matteo Pistono, was in Pharping, Nepal in October 2010. He met with staff from a local women’s organization, WomenAct Nepal, and with the headmaster of the Tribhuvan Adarsha High School. WomenAct and the Adarsha High School are the implementing partner for Nekorpa’s waste management program in Pharping.

The team toured a plot of land donated by Tribhuvan Adarsha High School for the collection, separation, recycling, and pick-up location for recyclables and refuse. The land will be leveled and then enclosed with fencing.

The plot of land donated for the Zero Waste program. Presently the land is where garbage and waste is disposed of in a haphazard and unsafe manner.

An adjacent plot was selected where organic matter will be composted.

Additionally, Nekorpa is supporting the building of public toilet near the bus stop—currently there are no facilities.

The present work continues the program that was initiated in Pharping in July 2010 with the generous support from The Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation. It was at this time that Nekorpa partnered with WomenAct Nepal to initiate a waste management program in Pharping, Nepal. The work in Pharping was preceded by three staff from WomenAct attending an educational conference on Zero Waste in the Himalaya at Deer Park Institute in Himachal Pradesh, and the methodology from that conference is the bases for the outreach in Pharping. In September 2010, the waste management program was launched with WomenAct staff working in conjunction with the Pharping Village Development Council and the Tribhuvan Adarsha High School. Because of the long-standing practice of simply discarding in near-by fields all refuse and garbage, the program has important educational components, which are key to engaging the various community and castes groups.

Temple grounds surrounding the sacred caves in Pharping

Paro Taksang, the Tiger's Nest, in Bhutan

When: Thursday, August 11 6:30-8 pm

Where: REI Boulder, 1789 28th Street

In this engaging slideshow, Matteo Pistono shares majestic images from the Himalayas together with stories from his 15 years of pilgrimage trips in Tibet, Nepal, India, and beyond. You will journey across expansive landscapes, following in the footsteps of past saints and present-day yogis. Through the pilgrim’s lens, the external environment supports the internal journey, where every peak, valley, river, and inhabitant are woven into sacred topography.

Click here for a glimpse into Matteo’s pilgrimage in Tibet.

REI Host: Sarah Leone, sleone@rei.com

Robb Hiatt, rhiatt@rei.com 303-583-9970

The event is free but registration is recommended.

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, Jigme Khyentse Rinpoche and Tsikey Chokling Rinpoche lead a Barche Kunsel Drupchen at the sacred Asura Caves in Pharping, Nepal.

In late December 2010, Nekorpa and WomenAct Nepal partnered with Wild Earth, Inc. and Deer Park Institute in a targeted educational outreach to local monasteries. The effort was endorsed by Dzongsar Khyentsé Rinpoche, who was conducting a ten-day ceremony in Pharping (Tibetan: Yanglesho).

Khyentsé Rinpoche spoke about Zero Waste ideology to the gathering of monks and lay people attending the ceremony.

Nekorpa and the other sponsoring groups offered cotton bags to those attending to beused instead of the many plastic bags which are used and discarded at such gatherings. The Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation offered their financial support as well.

The front side of the cotton bags offered at the ceremony

Ajan Sulak Sivaraksa, the founder INEB, and Matteo Pistono, Nekorpa's Executive Director

The International Network of Engaged Buddhist’s (INEB) Executive Council and Advisory Council met in late November at Wongsanit Ashram outside Bangkok. Nekorpa’s Executive Director, Matteo Pistono, sits on the EC and joined the two-day meeting that planned for the 2011 Conference of Engaged Buddhist in Bodhgaya, India (26-29 Oct 2011) and the Buddhist Art’s Festival (22-25 Oct 2011). Additional discussions included briefings from representatives from various countries on INEB members’ activities, the 2012 Buddhist Approach to Climate Change conference, and Buddhist Economics.

Wongsanit Ashram outside Bangkok

The meeting coincided with the Loy Krathong-Floating Ceremony and the group sent their prayers and positive intentions into the nearby water way alight with candles and incense. Click here for a slide show from the ashram.

This effort is but one in a growing movement which understands that environmental conservation efforts are highly successful when initiated and carried out in concert with faith-based communities.

The Kyoto Journal recently featured Nekorpa’s work and pilgrimage in Bhutan. You can read “Where Pilgrims & Conservationists Meet” or see other selections from the on-line issue here.