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A Letter to the Board

Dear Honored Board of Directors,

I am so happy today to be meeting with you. Thank you very much for joining me in my vision for Tsogyaling Meditation Center and the Tibet Girls School.

I was born in Eastern Tibet, in a small village high in the Himalaya mountains. My family are nomad people who move with their herds of sheep and yak. I am the last of 9 children born to my mother, Chime and my father, Gongchoe. My oldest brother is Konchog Dechen and he is my first teacher. From him I learned Tibetan reading and writing and my practices of meditation and Buddhism. I remember when he would practice for 3 months of meditation in the caves in the way of our ancestors, and he would ring the bell when he would need me to come and make the tea offering. He taught me so many things for which I am deeply grateful.

My work with my family was to care for the sheep and yaks and I never got to go to school. For me, my world was only as big as my village and the mountains and the sheeps and yaks. Sometimes I would sit on the mountain and dream that maybe someday I could travel to India. I only knew of India and China at this time, and nowhere else in the world.  With no school and no healthcare there were many deaths with my village people. Many mothers and babies would die in childbirth. After my older sister, Donkar, and her baby died I decided to try to make the dangerous escape from Tibet to India.

I traveled for one month with 42 people through the cold mountains to finally arrive in Nepal and then to Dharmasala India where I was welcomed by His Holiness The Dalai Lama and got to attend one of his schools for adults. Going to school for the first time in my life was an amazing experience. Before I left Tibet I was a little wild, drinking lots of alcohol and fighting without reason. Now, being in school my life had purpose and I began to have my vision of helping my Tibetan people some way. I wished my village people could all have the chance for education and not have to make the dangerous journey out of Tibet for it.

From my education in India I was so surprised to learn that the world was actually much bigger than India and China and I began to say out loud to my roomates that I would travel one day to the USA. In our school library we had books about Martin Luther King and we studied about “I have a Dream” in our English class. This was the first that I began to understand about human rights and I wanted to live in the country that had such a great freedom, and maybe there, my dreams could be even bigger and I could help even more people.

When I first arrived at the O’Hare airport in Chicago and came outside, I thought "am I dreaming or am I really here?" I love so many things about this country and can't wait to become a US citizen. I also have come to see how helpful some of the things from my Tibetan culture could be for people here. I began to have a vision of a small meditation center where my brother who is now a very educated monk could offer his teachings about meditation and Tibetan Buddhism. I dreamed also of a school for girls because I know that with education and healthcare the mothers and babies, like my sister, can stop dying in Tibet.

I am more grateful than you can imagine that each of you is here to support this vision and to work to see what we can create together. It is my profound wish that our work be of the most benefit possible for all sentient beings. I know that I have much to learn to be your Executive Director and I am ready to learn everything that you can teach me. What I have to offer you is my life experience as a Tibetan and my knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism. I promise you that I will give all of my heart, mind and energy in my work as your Executive Director.

Respectfully,

Asang
Founder & Executive Director
Tsogyaling Meditation Center