Making a Contribution to PMC

Making a Contribution to PMC

A donation of any amount makes a heart connection with PMC and the activities of Chhoje Tulku Rinpoche. Becoming a member or making a one-time donation are great ways to support the center and its programs.

Your donation helps to ensure that our center can operate on a day-to-day basis. It helps cover the cost of heating and air conditioning, electricity, internet, phone, landscaping, and general maintenance. It also helps us with paper goods, supplies, and cleaning efforts.

You can make a donation or become a member to make a connection.

What is Meant by “Suggested Donations” for Programs?

For each program, we suggest a donation per session on our registration page. We appreciate your donation of the suggested amount—or more, if that’s possible. These donations make it possible to make an offering to Chhoje Rinpoche and other teachers at the center for their teachings and to provide a comfortable environment within which to receive those teachings.

Your donation is considered a gesture of appreciation for receiving these teachings.

If it is not possible to offer the suggested donation amount, please offer whatever you can. If you would like to offer to volunteer in exchange for a discount, please contact us through our contact form. We want to make it possible for you to attend the teachings and we will not turn anyone away.  

We believe that receiving these teachings is a priceless opportunity; the motivation of the teacher is to benefit the minds of sentient beings, so we wish to remove financial barriers to receiving them while still supporting the system that makes the teachings possible.

“From the time of the historical Buddha for more than two millennia, there has been a strong prohibition against turning the transmission of the Dharma into a commercial transaction. One does not put a price on the Dharma. Rather, the tradition is that both teacher and student are practicing generosity. The teacher offers the Dharma, based on a judgment about what will be most beneficial for the student. The student offers to the teacher based on an appreciation for the value of the Dharma and understanding that the transmission of the Dharma requires material resources.  

When both teacher and student make the best offerings they are capable of, commensurate with their resources and considering the situation they find themselves in, then that generosity becomes a basis for the successful transmission of the Dharma.

In the United States, as soon as any relationship involves money, we have a set of habits and presumptions that take over. We start thinking about the relationship as a transaction, or as an opportunity to get something, instead of as an opportunity to give something. We think about what is ‘fair’. Or we fool ourselves with various excuses to ignore our own avarice. It is important for us to understand that every aspect of our relationship with the Dharma is a practice, which means an opportunity to get beyond our selfish, self-cherishing habits.

When we receive teachings, we are not purchasing a commodity. For both teacher and student, the transmission of the Dharma is an opportunity to practice the six perfections: generosity, moral discipline, patience, diligence, concentration, and wisdom.”

Lama John Ross