Sera-Je Food Fund:

a food fund for the monks

The Sera monastery was founded six hundred years ago, at an altitude of about 4.000,00 meters, in the region of U Tsang, a large area in the centre of Tibet, and during the centuries it became one of the leading Tibetan monastic universities: over seven thousand monks (also Mongols, Chinese and Japanese) studied there.

In the twenty-first century, the monasticism may appear anachronistic: we are very proud of our science and technology, so useful but also often so polluting and destructive.

In Tibet there was an ancient civilization that was not technological but extremely advanced in the knowledge of man: in fact Buddhism is rather a science of the mind and a philosophy of life than a religion.

The monasteries were its factories, where instead of producing rivers of superfluous objects, deeply balanced people came to life, with a sharp and serene open mind, that they used to spread through their speeches and examples.

Nowadays, hatred, violence and retaliation are growing faster, with the terrible thought that there is no choice.

Tibet has been giving evidence that there is a different way, it’s been showing us that a persecuted population can fight for its own freedom through truth, steadiness and non-violence.

The Dalai Lama often says: recognize in your enemy the human being that lays inside him.

In Tibet there were around seven thousand big and small monasteries, they were almost all destroyed after the 1959 Chinese invasion. Many monks were killed, others died in imprisonment camps, others were sentenced to many years force labour for "antipatriotic activity". Many monks ran away to India after having crossed the Himalaya a two month trip afoot.

Subsequently the Indian government gave the Tibetan refugees a field in the south of India and the refugee monks started to rebuild their monastery bearing unbelievable sacrifices and difficulties: a hot and damp weather, so different from Tibet, exhausting work, tropical illnesses, little and unhealthy food.

Many years later, in 1991, some benefactors gave an enormous sum to the Monastery.

At that time at Sera-je Monastery there were 1300 monks and every day they could have a nutritious meal of lentils and rice or a big loaf; on alternating days a banana or an egg and vegetables.

The monks still keep on running away from Tibet, they are now almost 3000 at the monastery which refuses no refugee but money is rapidly running out.

The money is rapidly coming to an end, even if some monks do not eat from the communal kitchen as they are able to buy their own food thanks to someone who helps them directly.

At the moment at the common refectory all the monks can have enough nourishment, even though only a basic one.

• lunch: boiled lentils and vegetables, with rice or even some whole-wheat bread, that monks particularly appreciate. On alternating, an egg or a fruit.
• Supper: bread and tea.
  

They have bread and tea for breakfast every four days because of lack of funds.

The daily overall cost is around half a dollar for each monk.

Every four days the Fund also provides for breakfast to the younger monks studying at Sera-je School.

The main community project of Yeshe Norbu is to sponsor the food of the monks at Sera-je: your donation will help them to be healthy and to preserve their precious culture of peace that belongs to the whole humanity.