About this ebook
Ratings and reviews
- Flag inappropriate
About the author
His Holiness the present Gyalwang Drukpa (www.drukpa.org) is the head of the Drukpa lineage of Buddhism, one of the main spiritual traditions of the Himalayas. Also known as the Dragon Order, the Drukpa lineage originated a thousand years ago in India and spread throughout the vast Himalayan regions. Drukpa retreat centres can now be found throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas.
Teaching worldwide for over thirty years, His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa has numerous charitable projects that exemplify the core Drukpa message of service. His Holiness founded the international humanitarian organization Live to Love (www.livetolove.org) to promote five efforts for modern compassion: environmental protection, relief aid, education, medical services and heritage preservation. With active projects in each category, His Holiness was honoured with the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Award in New York (September 2010), and the Green Hero Award, presented by the President of India, Smt Pratibha Patil, in New Delhi, India (December 2011).
One of His Holiness’ flagship projects is Druk White Lotus School in Ladakh, India. The school has received numerous accolades for sustainable design, including three World Architecture Awards (2002) and the Inspiring Design Award from the British Council for School Environments (2009). An advocate of women’s equality, His Holiness also established the Druk Gawa Khilwa Abbey outside of Kathmandu, Nepal and in Shey, Ladakh, where nuns receive spiritual training and teachings historically reserved for monks. Known for their daily kung fu regiment, the nuns have been featured in an hour-length BBC documentary for exhibiting a new approach to female empowerment. The Drukpa lineage has the longest waiting list for nuns in the region.
Known for the annual Drukpa ‘Pad Yatra’ (Sanskrit: ‘spiritual foot journey’), His Holiness leads hundreds of people on ‘eco-journeys’ each year. These treks last one to three months and cover hundreds of miles, where participants pick up plastic litter along the way to promote the message of environmental preservation. In 2010, inspired Drukpa participants organized a mass tree planting in the Himalayas that broke the Guinness World Record, successfully planting 50,033 trees within thirty-three minutes.
