Guna Newsletter - February 1, 2012
Luis Barrera and Renate Marx, bilingual volunteers from Colombia and Germany, translated our documentary Light of the Valley: The 15th Renovation of Swayambhu into their native languages. Until this project, neither had translated anything on such a grand scale. The subtitles project moved them in unexpected ways.
VIEW AN INTERVIEW WITH THE TRANSLATORS
INTERNATIONAL EDITION DVD NOW AVAILABLE
Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese & Spanish subtitles
To order: dp@dharmapublishing.com or (510) 809-1540
Click here for full-sized newsletter
Guna Newsletter - October 10, 2011
Kum Nye Retreat at Glacier Park, Montana
A retreat each season offers an opportunity to deepen practice, relax, refresh, and let go of habitual patterns. Traditionally mountain retreats offer solitude and silence. To practice together at Sperry Chalet seems to be a gift from the heavens. -- Kum Nye flyer
This year’s fourth annual retreat at Sperry Chalet in Glacier Park, Montana, began amidst inclement conditions. Record amounts of snow had caused an avalanche, damaging the chalet, trails were closed, and snow banks required extra care to cross.
The season was shortened. The chalet was only open six weeks. We were fortunate to have reservations in mid-August and on the day we began our hike the trail through snow banks had been blasted open with dynamite.
Our group of eight, four men and four women, from all over the country, turned out to be hearty, good spirited, in shape and appreciative. It made for a memorable retreat.
Guna Newsletter - July 1, 2011
Restoring Sacred Places
The Swayambhu Stupa in Kathmandu, Nepal is recognized as one of the most important stupas in the Buddhist world. Renowned for its great antiquity, blessings and power, this stupa has been worshipped continuously through the centuries by the people of Nepal and Tibet. It remains a focus of daily offerings, prayers and ceremonies today.
In 2008, Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche sent his daughter, Tsering Gellek to Nepal to direct the renovation, a project that is traditionally undertaken once in a century. With the help of seventy skilled artisans, in less than two years the project was successfully completed. Guna Foundation has produced a thirty-minute documentary, Light of the Valley, chronicling this momentous achievement.
Sacred sites serve a deeply human need for a place of refuge and tranquility. Light of the Valley inspires us to revive and protect these living treasures.
Guna Newsletter - April 1, 2011
Culture Shock & the Challenges of Filming in India & Nepal: A Field Report from Guna team member FJ Leto
I thought making a documentary in Berkeley was complicated, energy consuming, and challenging … then I tried filming one in India and Nepal.
The Guna team, along with cinematographer Allen Moore, has just returned from our second filming excursion in Asia. We captured stunning footage, met wonderful people, and learned a whole lot about making a professional documentary. I personally learned so much on this trip about film and myself it is essentially inexpressible. Anyway, the following is my attempt.
Firstly, I learned about time. In some cultures the term “on time” does not exist; in fact, in India and Nepal the very idea of time is questionable. This perspective is wonderful, the practical reality - not so much. However, Guna managed to shoot every offering, ceremony, and event that we set out to film.
Guna Newsletter - December 1, 2010
A little over a year ago Guna Foundation was established in order to create a video and photo archive and to make a documentary film presenting the inspiring story of Tibetan lama Tarthang Tulku’s efforts to preserve, protect and sustain his culture in its darkest hour. Pema Gellek and I, co-directors of Guna, were asked to document the accomplishments of a momentous 42 years. We quickly learned that while archiving may be straightforward, knowing how to tell a story so enormous in scale and complexity is a formidable challenge. The achievements over this time, measured within humanitarian, organizational, spiritual, or historical contexts, are remarkable. |
Guna Newsletter - September 1, 2010
Warm greetings from the Guna Foundation! We hope this finds you all well and thriving in this dynamic, if not tumultuous, year of the Iron Tiger. It’s been almost a year since our Shojin Riyori benefit dinner. We would like to share with you our progress and achievements since then, and also announce our special upcoming event, A Brighter Vision of Tibetan Culture on October 8th. |
Guna Newsletter - June 1, 2010
Documenting the New
Odiyan Copper Mountain Mandala defies belief. It is a jewel of traditional Tibetan architecture, nestled amongst hundreds of acres of Californian forest and perched high above the coastal cliffs of Sonoma County. The Guna Foundation was given a rare invitation to document the most lush and fertile spring in its history, and I was given the chance to redefine my idea of what is possible.
It is said that you never get more than you can handle. At the Guna Foundation we like to test that theory regularly. What some people call baptism by fire, we call ‘job orientation’.
Guna Newsletter - March 1, 2010
2010 World Peace Ceremony
Beneath the Bodhi tree the chant of the assembly of the 21st World Peace Ceremony begins. Ten-thousand voices are praying in the early morning light. Lamas, monks, lay people and children are praying amidst birdsong and an occasional dog bark. The entire compound seems to hum with prayer, with many streams melting into an ocean of harmonious rhythm.
It matters not that one know the language or meaning of these ancient prayers whose origins are over two and a half millennia. The feeling is palpable: one immediately feels welcomed, embraced and uplifted by an ocean of prayer.
Guna Newsletter - December 15, 2009
An Update from the Guna Foundation
Hello Friends,
As you may know, we at the Guna Foundation have initiated the first stage of our film documentary project, chronicling forty years of Tarthang Tulku’s and his students’ monumental accomplishments in preserving Tibetan civilization. In that time some very positive and encouraging developments have arisen that we’d like to share with you.
