To preserve and promote the Tibetan language and culture to the exile community, Indian community, and foreign tourists.
Tibetan history, culture, and language play a huge role in the spirit and vitality of the Tibetan people
Under the Preservation and Promotion of Tibetan Language and Culture project, Lha Charitable Trust archives and makes available the valuable teachings, writings and speeches of His Eminence Professor Samdhong Rinpoche; these resources available to the public in written, audio and video formats on different platforms.
Rinpoche’s speeches and writings on wide range of topics of Buddhism, education and politics are available in different media platforms and in different languages, but there has never been a compilation of all these together on one platform. Therefore, Lha Charitable Trust is delighted to present all of Rinpoche’s speeches and writings here for the benefit of people throughout the world and particularly to Tibetans living in Tibet as well as in exile, who follow and study Rinpoche’s teachings.
Rinpoche is a renowned scholar in both Buddhist and non-Buddhist fields. Rinpoche has been honored with many scholarly titles by renowned Indian universities in particular, and other international universities, educational institutions and research centers.
Rinpoche works closely with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and shoulders some of the major services of His Holiness. His whole life has been dedicated to the cause of Tibet. In contrast to today’s world, he chooses to live a life of a simple Buddhist monk who has renounced money and material things.
Lha Charitable Trust is extremely proud to have the opportunity to launch and manage this website dedicated to Rinpoche’s teachings and looks forward to developing and updating this resource dedicated to Rinpoche’s philosophy, teachings and writings.
We will be extremely grateful if you can provide us with any of Rinpoche’s teachings or works, in any format, so we can add them to the existing achieve; please send them to our office.
Currently, you can find Rinpoche’s works and teachings in following online platforms:
- Website: samdhongrinpoche.com
- YouTube Channel : https://www.youtube.com/user/samdhongrinpoche
- Sound Cloud: https://soundcloud.com/prof-samdhong-rinpoche
- Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/Samdhongrinpoche
Contact magazine is a free online publication, also printed monthly, on Tibetan issues, news and community information. Contact has been a popular source of news and information for 25 years, reporting on Tibetan issues which, in addition to the Tibetans’ fight for their human rights within their own country, include culture, religion and politics.
Recognised by Lonely Planet and other international travel resources, the printed magazine is freely available around Dharamshala, as well as in digital on-line format, and on Facebook and Instagram. With its diverse readership, Contact magazine aims to raise awareness of the multidimensional issues faced by the Tibetan people, both those living within their homeland and in exile.
Contact is a recognised and registered publication under the Registrar Office of the Newspaper, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting Government of India. The registration number is HPENG/2013/51798. Between 700 and 1,000 copies are printed every month and distributed in the Dharamshala area and in Delhi, and to the various diplomatic missions in India as well as to Tibetan schools, settlements, offices, libraries and NGOs in India and abroad.
While we aim to disseminate news and information about Tibetan issues to a local and wider audience through Contact, we also give a wide range of volunteers from around the world the opportunity to get involved in Tibetan issues by volunteering to write for Contact. If you like to be a volunteer writer for Contact for any duration, please feel free to email us at [email protected].
Special Edition of Contact Magazine: Children’s Writing and Drawing
Tibetan schools were closed for the whole academic year under the pandemic lockdown restrictions. Contact created a platform for children to engage in a creative project and to get their work published.
The project was divided into three sections, inviting writings in Tibetan and English, and a third, drawing section. 39 English written entries were submitted, and 26 in Tibetan together with 35 drawings, all from Tibetan students across India and Nepal, divided into different age groups. The submissions were put to an independent panel of experts who selected the entries for publication.
We have printed 500 copies of the Children’s Writing and Drawing special issue of Contact magazine, which are available free of charge. Copies of the booklet were posted to all selected participants, as well as to schools, and distributed locally in Dharamshala. The printing and postage of Contact magazine has been funded by the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy since 2012.
Tibet Nature, a bilingual (Tibetan and English) website for providing updates and information on environmental issues through translation, research, and production of related documents to create awareness about Tibet’s environment. This project comes under our focus on the Preservation and Promotion of Tibetan Culture and Language.
The destruction of the Tibetan environment has global implications. The Tibetan plateau is the world’s third pole, with its vast ice fields giving rise to waterways that influence the lives of about 85% of Asia’s population, or 47% of the world’s population, downstream. The Tibetan Plateau is the principal watershed of Asia and as many as ten major rivers originate from there.
This fragile ecology is now under threat due to excessive exploitation of natural resources (particularly logging of the virgin forests, extensive mining, damming of rivers, dumping of nuclear waste and population increases due to the Chinese policy of resettling Chinese people in Tibet). One forecast warns that 80%of the glacial area in Tibet could disappear by 2035.
Tibetan culture has always strongly upheld traditional values of reverence towards the environment, which is based on the Buddhist concept of interdependence. This website, (which would be the first of its kind written in Tibetan), will help keep this culture alive.
The site will also disseminate important and valuable information to the Tibetan and Himalayan population both locally and around the world, on the global movement for the protection of biodiversity (including the current state of the global environment and endangered species, international laws on environment protection, etc)
Please visit the Tibet Nature website: http://www.tibetnature.net
Production of Tibetan Audiobooks is another venture for our organization and is led by the Venerable Redo Sangay under the administration of Lha Charitable Trust. With the rapidly increasing usage of the internet and technologies, we aim to contribute to making Tibetan content available online for those who prefer to access materials online, including people wanting to learn the language.
Through this project, we have made available 101 episodes of video/audiobooks featuring 34 significant Tibetans who have made immense contributions in the fields of Tibetan Buddhism, politics, language, and culture in our history. We are also working out how best to share this content with Tibetans living inside Tibet. Though it is difficult to measure the exact impact and result of this project, our intended beneficiaries are Tibetans living in Tibet, India, Nepal, and Bhutan and we believe the project will benefit anyone across the world who knows or is interested in learning, the Tibetan language.
Currently, you can find Tibetan Audiobooks at https://www.youtube.com/c/TibetanAudiobooks
In an effort to preserve and promote the Tibetan language in the exile community, we organize a three-month Intensive Tibetan Language Program each year in addition to our regular Tibetan language class. The aim of this advanced level special class is to provide an opportunity for youngsters and Tibetans working in non-government organizations and institutes to improve their Tibetan language skills. Learners in the class include employees from Tibetan NGOs based in Dharamshala, monks, nuns, lay people, and students from other Himalayan regions such as Bhutan. This special class is held after normal working hours to make it accessible to people who are working. We hire qualified and experienced Tibetan teachers for this program.
The Preservation and Promotion of the Tibetan Language being one of Lha’s core goals, we also manage several websites in the Tibetan language.
