Kangyur Ceremony in New York Paid for With Life's Savings

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Dayangji Sherpa lives with her 25-year-old daughter, Nima, in a
one-bedroom apartment in Woodside, Queens, where they sleep in the
same bed to save money. But on Sunday, they stood on a dais before an
altar of glittering gold Buddhas while some of the highest-ranked
Buddhist monks from around the region bowed their heads to the women
and showered them with benedictions. It took more than a month. And it
cost more than $50,000 the elder Ms. Sherpa’s life savings.

Completing the Kangyur, the Tibetan-language version of the sacred
Buddhist texts, is done as a form of prayer for peace for all sentient
beings, several monks explained. For nearly 40 days, ending last week,
about a dozen monks called from around the region read eight hours a
day, aloud and simultaneously

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/nyreg ... d=fb-share

Ms. Sherpa, 54, a home health aide, estimates she paid about $111 per
monk per day. It included twice-daily meals of Nepalese and Tibetan
comfort food at Himalayan Yak restaurant on Roosevelt Avenue and an
attendant to provide an endless supply of traditional salted butter
tea. Other members of the community also made donations.

“People can do this, but nobody does it,” Ms. Sherpa said. “I’m not
rich. I wanted a do a good thing.”

In a fur hat, her long braid laced with pink thread, Ms. Sherpa doled
out envelopes of money to each monk on Sunday, her daughter following
behind her. As trumpets sounded and cymbals clashed, she limped across
the dais on her artificial leg: When she was 8, her leg was amputated
after it was crushed by an avalanche while she tended yaks near Kunde,
her village. At 22, her family disowned her when she eloped with a man
from a lower caste. When she was five months pregnant with Nima, the
couple split up; Ms. Sherpa raised her daughter alone, eventually
immigrating to the United States about a decade ago.

[practitioner]

Thank you for sharing this, a very inspirational story!