The Lattè Box , fundraising for Drala Jong

The Lattè Box

, by Ngakma Shadröl Wangmo

A couple of years ago I was thinking about how I, as a person with a small income, could come up with something like $1000 to donate to Drala Jong. It occurred to me that there was something I'd heard of called 'saving money' and though I'd never previously tried it myself, I thought it could be applied to this situation. So I came up with the idea of the Lattè Box.

The idea of the Lattè Box is that every day, instead of taking myself out to a café for my [required] morning coffee, I would dose myself at home and put $3 into the Lattè Box. Since I was going out for coffee nearly every day and sometimes spending more than $3 (although I never actually order lattès because I hate milk) I knew I could probably afford it.


Q: Why would I call it a Lattè Box if I never actually drank lattès? Why not call it a Coffee Box? Or a Caffeine Addiction Receptacle? Huh?

A: Because 'lattè box' sounds interesting and exotic and somewhat artistic. 'Coffee box' is awkward and inelegant. 'Caffeine addiction receptacle' sounds like a spittoon.

Onward: I happened to have a skull-sized black box with a matching cover which I thought would look nice sitting on my small black iron table, so I cut a slit in the top of the box and designated it as the official Lattè Box. Each day I dragged three dollar bills ('notes' for you British) out of my wallet and stuffed them through the slit into the box.

Problem #1: Not having the right change. Some days I only had a five-dollar bill. Or even a ten or twenty. The obvious solution was to make change from the Lattè Box itself, since it had a bunch of ones in it. BIG MISTAKE! [See What I Have Learned at the end of this narrative.]

Problem #2: Not having enough cash. Some days I just didn't have much cash on hand. I could go to the bank and get some, yes, but that would mean walking the vast distance (a few city blocks) to the bank and sometimes I just didn't feel like it. Especially when it was cold or raining. I realize that this confession of supreme laziness is not making me look very good. Oh well. At any rate, there was something of a Psychological Barrier to leaving the house just to get $3 to put in the Lattè Box. Usually I just figured I'd make it up in a day or so when the universe flowed some more cash in my direction or I had to go to the bank for some other, more compelling reason. Also BIG MISTAKE! 

Things went on pretty smoothly for several months. Money was accumulating in the box in spite of my now having gotten in the habit of making change from its contents (putting in a twenty and taking out a ten and two fives, for example). Soon the Lattè Box only contained large bills which made it even more likely I would delay my daily contribution if I didn't have the exact change.

And this led to an even bigger problem. A barrier had been breached. One night a delivery of Chinese takeout food arrived and I found I didn't have enough cash to pay for it so I opened up the Lattè Box and 'borrowed' some. BIG BIG MISTAKE!

After this discipline started to break down. I acknowledge that it is all my own fault rather than that the method doesn't work. I got too casual about the box and was often making change, borrowing and replacing, etc. Naturally the numbers got muddled. I'm leaving out a lot of specific details because I don't want this to get too long. Studies Have Shown that people don't like long emails.

The result of all this behavior was that at the end of the year I didn't have even close to the $1000 I thought I could easily accumulate. I still think it is not the method which is at fault but the execution. I will explain.

What I Have Learned

They make piggy banks out of ceramic with a small slot exactly because then you can't take money out once you put it in without busting open the pig. Breaching the in/out barrier is definitely a mistake. The money has to go in and stay there till it all comes out at the end. 'Borrowing' from the bank is a road to ruin.

Also, one has to be absolutely strict about paying in the $3 every day and not skipping it for a few days and figuring I'll put in $15 five days from now to make it up. It's too easy to get confused, or to forget about it. 



My Lattè Box had an easily removable cover so I could reach in there any time and play with the money, make change, borrow, steal, whatever, and tell myself I'd settle up and then forget. I ended up paying the Drala Jong contribution in installments because I had robbed the box too many times. That still worked but it would have been a lot easier if I'd just left the money in the box. Khandro Déchen pointed out that since you can contribute even small amounts easily via the Total Giving website [or PayPal], she just contributes the proceeds whenever she sells one of her streptocarpus plants rather than saving the money in an envelope or something. This is a great idea. The piggy bank would also work. It just needs to be something where you can't get the money back out. Or maybe you just need to be a more disciplined person than I am. Do as I say, not as I do.

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The Drala Jong project seeks to create a home for the Aro gTér Lineage. Please see the Appeal page for more information about the Drala Jong project and how to help.

A car boot sale, Fundraising for Drala Jong

Continuing a theme of 'every bit helps' in the art of fundraising, £83.10 was recently raised and donated to the Drala Jong Retreat Centre funds by Ngak'chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen at a local car boot sale.

They gathered together various objects including a number of horse related items, both being keen equestrians and a selection of the very lovely streptocarpus plants that Khandro Déchen cultivates to create a living display.

We welcome any fundraising initiatives and projects to our shared efforts.

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The Drala Jong project seeks to create a home for the Aro gTér Lineage. Please see the Appeal page for more information about the Drala Jong project and how to help.

Teaching a Tibetan Exercise system, Fundraising for Drala Jong

There are a number of small, incremental, consistent activities that members of the Aro gTér Lineage sangha are involved in to raise funds for Drala Jong. One of these is that Ngakma Sang-gyé A-tsal donates £10.00 from every private Jong-dar chèd pa /sKu-mNyé class she teaches.

sKu-mNyé means massage of the psychophysical body and is one of the remarkable systems from Jong-dar chèd pa, a constellation of Tibetan exercise systems from the Aro gTér Tradition.

Sang-gyé teaches sKu-mNyé currently on a one to one basis either in a Pilates studio or people’s homes in the smart, urban bustle of West London. She has been a student of Ngak’chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen since 1993 and was ordained as a Ngakma in the gö kar chang lo’i dé in 2000 When encountering the Aro gTér lineage with its valuable teachings of physical practices she began to practice sKu-mNyé, eventually becoming an approved teacher.

A former dancer and actor, turned massage therapist, she has been working with her body to a high degree for many years, and now she brings all that experience to her current work as a rTsa-mNyé (Tibetan massage) practitioner and qualified Pilates instructor as well as Jong-dar chèd pa  sKu-mNyé instructor. There are as yet not many who do teach this remarkable system and Sang-gyé does so with a remarkable insight, precision and clarity. It contains a range of movements from really quite gentle to complex, strenuous and demanding; requiring balance and fitness. The variety and depth of Sang-gyé’s training means that she is able to make them accessible to many, facilitating a gradual building up of the strength, stamina and flexibility required for the more demanding exercises.

Once Drala Jong is established, workshops and teachings in Jong-dar chèd pa including sKu-mNyé will be able to be made available there to anyone who wishes to deepen their practice and understanding of them. Currently classes are also taught at Aro Ling in Bristol and Cardiff. For more information on sKu-mNyé see Moving Being, by Khando Déchen.

Sang-gyé can be contacted for classes and workshops in London and
Bristol at info@tibetantherapies.com 07552576121

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The Drala Jong project seeks to create a home for the Aro gTér Lineage. Please see the Appeal page for more information about the Drala Jong project and how to help.

A Pilgrims Progress, Fundaising For Drala Jong.

Chris Haydon's wonderful account of his fundraising walk:

Fairly recently I became an apprentice within the Aro gTèr tradition of Vajrayana Buddhism. It is very important to me that this unique blend of traditional Nyingma practice and our modern Western culture is able to survive and flourish. To that end I see it as very important that a centre is established to act as a base and provide continuity and focus. This is the Drala Jong project to purchase land and buildings on a modest scale in a peaceful and vivid rural setting. I wanted to do something to help bring this to fruition.

I had read Ngak'chang Rinpoche mention that he thought pilgrimages to sites of particular significance to the Aro gTèr tradition in this country would be beneficial, and one such site is Bird’s Rock (another being Southerdown). Since I have no time constraints I felt a walk to Bird’s rock from my home would be a great endeavour, I also had doubts about whether I was up to it. Like many plans that hatch in my imagination, this one might have been put on indefinite hold, but it seemed to have an impetus of its own, and importance outside ‘the Chris project’. When I mentioned it to my teachers they were immediately enthusiastic and supportive, and so I felt I had to see it through.

It took a while to get my fitness levels up to a level that would permit an average 15 miles of walking day after day. By early spring I felt more confident and took the plunge by publicising my plans and starting to gather route information and to book accommodation. I set off in late April and for a while entered a new dimension, that of the homeless itinerant wanderer.

The goal was so far ahead that each day I saw only the path I was walking and the changing scenery around me. The first thing that struck me was the richness and energy of the British countryside in Spring. It was a veritable feast for the senses and, as well as banquet of outrageous colours and visual forms, there were smells and birdsong and feelings of pleasant fatigue in  the body. The route up through the SW peninsula is one I have driven close to many times, but at walking pace it all seems very different. There is time to appreciate the old farm buildings, crops and animals, wild flowers, woodland and even the transport infrastructure of railways and roads, from a new perspective.

It was nice to take stock at each high point of the ranges of hills behind and ahead. It was actually possible on a couple of occasions, in clear weather, to see Dartmoor and the hills of S.Wales and all the intervening ranges. Seeing where I had come from and where I was headed grounded me in the landscape. The weather was predominantly warm and sunny with wonderful clear blue space overhead and only occasional rain that was usually a welcome blessing. Approaching Bristol and in the Hafren forest were the only times when I became totally soaked. Crossing the Severn Bridge gave further exposure to elemental forces, this time wind that made it impossible to walk upright and in a straight line.

The scenic highlights were almost too many to catalogue, Dartmoor, Exmoor, The Brendon Hills, the Somerset levels, the Mendips, Wye Valley, the Black Mountains and the scenery in mid Wales approaching Snowdonia all stand out as delightful places.

In a way I was sad, as the goal approached, that it would end but excited at reaching the destination and meeting the lineage holders Ngak’chang Rinpoche and Khandro Déchen and my own teacher and other apprentices who had all travelled to celebrate my arrival and to make a joint ascent of Craig yr Aderyn.

On one level being with one’s lamas and fellow sangha members can seem like normal social activity, but beneath the radar of conventional mind all sorts of transmission is taking place. It would be nice to be able to recount this, but unfortunately impossible to describe. I am in any case a simple dolt who probably only appreciates a small fraction of what is happening at any one moment. Nevertheless the ascent through the special setting of that place in the company of lamas and the subsequent drive back to Cardiff are experiences I will long cherish; and I would warmly encourage anyone else, who is so minded, to seek out a similar type of endeavour. I met many kind and interesting people along the way as well and was reminded that we are all begininglessly enlightened beings inhabiting a wonderfully perfect world.

Now it’s all fading into the past. When I look at the route on Google Earth I wonder “did I really do that?” Amazingly I must have!

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The Drala Jong project seeks to create a home for the Aro gTér Lineage. Please see the Appeal page for more information about the Drala Jong project and how to help.

Summer in the City - Fundraising in München

[This is a bilingual message, please scroll down for the English version]

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Summer in the City
von Ngakma Déwang Pamo

4. Juli 2015 in München. 38 Grad Celsius, 100 Grad Fahrenheit. Summer in the City. Wir hatten aber nicht geplant, schwimmen zu gehen oder faul in der Sonne zu liegen – es war der Tag unseres geplanten Gartenflohmarkts um Spenden für Drala Jong zu sammeln.

Schon mehrere Monate zuvor hatten wir gemeinsam mit Nachbarn beschlossen, an dem jährlichen Gartenflohmarkt in unserem Stadtviertel teilzunehmen. Die Idee dahinter ist, dass alle, die mitmachen, in ihrem eigenen Garten oder Hof verkaufen können, was sich für einen Flohmarkt so angesammelt hat. Je mehr Nachbarn mitmachen, desto besser. Jede Adresse, die mitmacht, wird in einem Plan gekennzeichnet, die in den lokalen Geschäften verteilt wird und auch online verfügbar ist, um diese Initiative bekannt zu machen.

Die Vorbereitungen für die Veranstaltung waren sehr geschäftig. Die Mädchen hatten Poster gemalt, Ballons aufgeblasen und fleißig Dekorationen gebastelt. Außerdem hatten sie ihre Spielsachen und Bücher durchforstet und entschieden, was sie verkaufen wollten. Ich hatte unsere Kleider und Schuhe gesichtet und aussortiert, was nicht mehr passte und verkauft werden konnte. Wir hatten auch von anderen Mitgliedern der Sangha Gegenstände und Bücher zum Verkaufen bekommen, so dass wir im hellen Sonnenlicht ein vielfältiges, buntes Aufgebot präsentieren konnten.

Da die Sonne vom frühen Morgen an heiß herunterbrannte, mussten wir von Beginn an Sonnenschirme aufstellen. Schon unsere ersten Kunden klagten über die Hitze, und es wurde schlimmer. Bald stellten wir Eimer mit kaltem Wasser auf, um die Füße zu kühlen, und schleckten Eis, um auch innerlich abzukühlen.

Die Mädchen harrten wild entschlossen an dem Tisch aus, auf dem sie unsere selbstgebackenen Zitronenmuffins verkauften, die wir mit Zuckerperlen dekoriert hatten. Manche der Muffins sind wohl in ihren eigenen Bäuchen verschwunden, wenn gerade keiner hinsah, aber auf jeden Fall waren die Muffins der Verkaufsschlager unseres kleinen Flohmarkts. Für diejenigen, die widerstehen konnten, die Muffins gleich zu essen, wurden auch welche zum Mitnehmen eingepackt.

Am frühen Nachmittag war es dann so heiß, dass wir nach drinnen gehen mussten, um uns abzukühlen. Unsere Kunden waren wohl ähnlichen Impulsen gefolgt, denn der Strom der potentiellen Käufer schmolz dahin wie Eis in der Sonne.

Am Ende des Tages zählten wir unsere Einnahmen und belohnten uns mit Mozzarella und Tomaten. Cool town, evening in the city... und wir sind Drala Jong einen sonnigen Schritt näher gekommen!

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Summer in the City
by Ngakma Déwang Pamo

4th of July 2015 in München. 38 degrees Celsius, 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Summer in the city. We didn’t plan to go swimming or lie lazily in the shade, however – it was the day of our planned garage sale to raise funds for Drala Jong.

Some months ago, our neighbours and we had decided to participate in the yearly district fleamarket. The general idea is that everybody can sell their items in their own garden or yard. The more neighbours participate, the merrier! Every address that participates is promoted on a general map oft he district that is distributed in local shops and online to market the event.



The run-up to the event had been very busy. The girls had painted posters, inflated balloons and diligently engaged in handicraft to produce decoration. They also had a look through their toys and books to decide what they were prepared to sell. I went through the boxes with clothes and shoes that didn’t fit anymore. We also received some items and books from the sangha to sell, so that were able to present a dazzling and colourful array of items in the bright sunlight.

As the sun was hot from early morning, we had to install umbrellas right away. Our first customers already complained that they could hardly stand the heat, and it got worse. Soon, we got buckets of cold water ready to get cool from the outside and had to rely on ice-cream to cool down from within.

The girls were adamant in their will to stay at their table where they were overseeing the sale of our home made lemon muffins, decorated with little sugar beads. Some of the muffins must have disappeared in their own stomachs when no-one was looking, but otherwise the muffins were the best selling items by far. We also packed muffins to take away for people who could resist eating them straight away.

By early afternoon, the heat was such that we had to go inside and rest. Customers must have been following the same impulse, as the stream of prospective buyers was melting away like ice in the sunshine.

At the end of the day, we counted the coins together and rewarded ourselves with mozzarella and tomatoes. Cool town, evening in the city... and one sunny step closer to establishing Drala Jong!

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The Drala Jong project seeks to create a home for the Aro gTér Lineage. Please see the Appeal page for more information about the Drala Jong project and how to help.

Join Chris Haydon on his walk to Bird Rock

You can stay up to date with Chris's Drala Jong Fundraising Walk via his event page on Facebook. You can join him there, see his photographs and send him encouraging messages.

On Wednesday he reported "A fantastic day's walk into Exmoor, and just past quarter distance completed. Today's highlights included nice scenery, Tarr steps, a stag crossing my path, the Exmoor hunt, sky sign, and an upgraded room."

If you feel so moved, you can donate money via Totalgiving. It would be wonderful to see him reachi his target of £3000.

Finnish what you started - Ravintolapaiva (Restaurant Day)

For our first fundraising post of the Tibetan New Year we turn to Elina, Alex and Marika's Finnish Food Extravaganza - helping establish the tradition of food-based fundraising that Iza Redon started with her Bristolian fine dining last year.

Over to Alex for the meat of the tale:

It’s not every day that someone comes up with a brilliant fundraising idea, one that’s both fun and lucrative, and yet with Ravintolapäivä just around the corner the event struck us as the perfect opportunity. It was also a great excuse to follow our appreciation and do what we love to do – cook! Here in Finland, four times a year, Ravintolapäivä (Restaurant Day) allows anyone to make, bake or boil a selection of cuisine and then sell it to the public.

Our idea was to use the garden as our venue and to create a menu that would attract as many different palates as possible. To that end we chose two traditional Finnish soups – salmon, and mushroom – and then a more exotic lentil soup, as starters. The first main course is a rising star of Helsinki dining – pulled pork – served with coleslaw and tomato in a homemade bread bun; and secondly, a roasted red pepper, garlic mushroom, and yoghurt marinated chicken skewer served with tahini sauce. For dessert we went for a family favourite – ice-cream – all traditionally homemade. We served three flavours, vanilla, caramel kitkat, along with saffron and coconut.

To promote the event we put our listing on the official Ravintolapäivä website and then set up a Facebook page. One member of our team (who has just graduated as a chef!) previously worked in marketing and she designed a logo, and some flyers. The grass was freshly mown, the fence freshly painted, we borrowed tables and chairs and after that, we simply cooked and cooked and cooked. Ten litres of ice-cream; 40 litres of soup; two necks of pork, and 40 chicken skewers, all sat waiting for the big day, and we, with our fingers tightly crossed, wondering if anyone would show up.

[the yoghurt marinated chicken skewer]

At one point, on the morning of the event, we stood looking at the mountains of food and wondered ‘why on earth did we make this much food? Who exactly is going to come and eat it?’ Actually, it was a win win situation; even if no one showed up we would eat like kings for days to come, but, as it turned out, the clock struck eleven and at five past we had our first customers, then the next and the next, right up until five o’clock that afternoon.

We sold out of nearly everything. One of our team drove four times to restock, and another gamely helped with the washing-up for hours on end. And so it went. Our customers enjoyed the food, we enjoyed serving them, no one had to wait and the weather was perfectly warm. The garden was transformed into a heartfelt space of appreciation for the senses, and we couldn’t have been happier. All in all, a thundering success, we raised 700€ before costs!

[The team]