We are pleased to offer you a range of items from Nepal, including a selection of books and audio cassettes from the Kopan Library. These materials are otherwise not easily found.
Find a great gift for a friend, a practice manual you have been looking for, some very special CDs with original recordings of traditional pujas and many more things to delight you.
The proceeds of the monastery shop are used to support the monks and nuns of Kopan Monastery and Nunnery.
Kopan Monastery
Just north of the ancient Buddhist town of Boudhanath is the Kopan hill, rising up out of the terraced fields of the Kathmandu valley and visible for miles. Dominated by a magnificent Bodhi tree, it was once the home of the astrologer to the king of Nepal.It was to this hill that these lamas first came with their first Western students in 1969.
Kopan Monastery had its beginnings in the Solukhumbu region of the Himalayan mountains. In 1971 Lama Zopa Rinpoche, the reincarnation of the Lawudo Lama, a yogi of the tiny hamlet of Lawudo, fulfilled the promise of the previous Lawudo Lama to start a monastic school for the local children. The school was called called it Mount Everest Center. Twenty five monks moved down from the mountain to Kopan in 1971 - prompted by the harsh climate at an altitude of 4000 am, which made study barely possible in winter.
Now Kopan is a thriving monastery of almost 400 monks, mainly from Nepal and Tibet, and a spiritual oasis for hundreds of visitors yearly from around the world. Nearby is Khachoe Ghakyil Ling Nunnery, home to nearly 400 nuns. Both the monastery and the nunnery are under the spiritual guidance of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and the care of the abbot, Khen Rinpoche Geshe Lhundrup Rigsel. And it is the wellspring of the FPMT, a network of some 140 centers and activities world-wide, themselves expressions of the Buddha activity of Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
How does the Monastery Support Itself?
All facilities, board, and education at the monastery are totally free for all monks and nuns, to give an opportunity to all those who wish to follow the religious life. This is financed through the program of meditation courses for foreign visitors as well as through a sponsorship scheme in which people who are supportive of the goals of the monastery sponsor the living cost of a monk or nun.
A Member of the FPMT
Kopan Monastery is a member of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT).
The FPMT is an organisation devoted to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation, and community service. FPMT provides integrated education through which people's minds and hearts can be transformed into their highest potential for the benefit of others, inspired by an attitude of universal responsibility.
