Photograph courtesy of Mahabodhi Tawang Center.
May you all be well, happy, peaceful, and safe!
Dear Friends,
The onset of winter is a time when we tend to draw back from the flurry of outer activities and settle more deeply into ourselves, reflecting on the year about to end and pondering our plans for the new year that lies just ahead. It is also the time when we strengthen our bonds with our loved ones, those who are closest and most dear to ourselves.
But this season is also the time when we proclaim hopes for “peace on earth and good will to all,” when we call to mind our affinity with the billions of people who share this planet with us. Looking at the world from the broadest perspective, we can see that every single person is a long-lost relative of ours. They all share our genetic code and are thus perhaps our mother or father, our son or daughter, appearing in a different physical manifestation.
In the Discourse on Loving-Kindness, the Buddha says we should develop a mind of loving-kindness for all the world. To nurture loving-kindness for others is to open the fountain of compassion, and the supreme expression of compassion in action is generosity toward those in need: generosity toward those who face a daily ordeal just to get enough to eat; generosity toward those battered by war and poverty; generosity toward those who, in the midst of adversity, still dream of realizing their deep potentials.
For the past fifteen years, Buddhist Global Relief has been extending the hand of compassion to thousands of people around the world. We now sponsor over 60 projects in a dozen countries, including several here in the U.S. We’ve been providing food to the hungry—not just on occasion but through rigorous durable programs. We’ve been giving disadvantaged children the chance to attend school—especially girls, the key to social progress. We’ve been opening doors for women to earn an independent livelihood. And in recent years, we’ve also expanded the range of our long-term emergency grants to alleviate severe hunger in the Horn of Africa, to feed Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, and to provide hunger relief to undernourished families in Sri Lanka.
Photograph courtesy of G-BIACK.
Here are just a few highlights from our current projects:
Echavi is a ninth-grade student living in the care of the Mahabodhi Tawang Center in Arunachal Pradesh, India, for eight years. With BGR support, the diets of children at the center have been enriched, bolstering the students’ health as well as their learning. “We are served different kinds of vegetables and fruits. Milk and eggs are added to our diet. Our society is able to provide us these healthy and tasty foods with the support from Buddhist Global Relief.”
Deylin is a tenth-grader whose studies in Chiquilistagua, Nicaragua, have been supported by a BGR partnership with North Country Mission of Hope, providing food and educational sponsorship for 97 girls and young women from low-income families. Deylin plans to study pediatrics and serve the people of rural Nicaragua. She says: “This help has motivated me to forge ahead and fulfill my dreams of becoming a doctor and helping all the kids and their families that need it.”
Patronila was dependent on food aid in order to feed her family in Kenya. Through a project with BGR partner the Grow Biointensive Agriculture Center of Kenya (G-BIACK), she was trained in the Grow Biointensive method of agriculture, which allows farmers to grow vegetables organically and with low water use—a necessity in the drought-plagued region where she lives. Now, she says, “I grow different crops and my garden supplies me with enough vegetables for my family and surplus for sale.”
As we begin 2024, please bear in mind that it’s your compassion, generosity, and greatness of heart that empowers our programs and sustains our life-redeeming mission. So, as the season of giving arrives, please donate generously to enable us to continue this vitally important work. Remember that to give others the chance to live with dignity is to experience within oneself a deep well of joy. And it is our compassion, our generosity, and our deep humanity that makes our lives truly worthy.
May all blessings be with you and your family in the New Year,
Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi
Founder and Chair
