A letter of welcome from Lama Drupgyu

Welcome to the Tsadra Foundation Contemplative Alumni Community. It has been my wish for some time to connect all of our contemplative alumni and to share the variety of stories that your lives have illustrated post-retreat. It is my aspiration that awareness of the mosaic of your trajectories will be informative and inspiring to us all.

The Tsadra Foundation contemplative scholarships have been granted for nine years now with contemplative grants allocated for ten years before that. So far, eighty-four people have completed retreats with the Foundation’s sponsorship, and twenty-four people are currently in retreat.

We have become aware over time that an important part of our work is encouraging conversations and community building; it is through finding commonality within diversity that we avoid narrow or sectarian perspectives. It is my conviction, moreover, that through sharing our experiences, our contemplative community can discover and appreciate the rich potential for spiritual development both inside and outside of religious contexts.

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Our wish has always been that your connection to Tsadra Foundation be a personal one and we look forward to continuing this relationship through this new Alumni Initiative. As your contemplative training path is unique, and difficult to share with others, I also feel it is important for the Foundation, as well as the public at large, to recognize the unique contemplative community that you are.

In selecting individuals for scholarships, we have confidence that our contemplative alumni will have a positive effect on the world. It is our hope that whatever your choices post-retreat, you will be keen to share your stories as you make your way.

As the Foundation pursues its mission of “Contributing to the development of wisdom and compassion in Western minds”, it is our intention that while honoring the tradition, we also seek to inspire the translating and transmitting of our experience and understanding in ways that are accessible and effectively catalytic to positive change in our modern Western world. Thank you for participating in the realization of that mission.

~ Lama Drupgyu