The sale began Dec. 5 and will continue until Dec. 15. The store is full of hand-crafted items ranging anywhere from jewelry to artwork to apparel. Many of these items were made by Tibetan refugees.
The store is a part of the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center that was initially established as the Tibetan Cultural Center in 1977 by the Dalai Lama’s older brother, Thubten Jigme Norbu, who was a professor of Tibetan studies at IU.
In 2007, the Dalai Lama visited the center and expanded both its mission and its name.
The center is a nonprofit organization and the Happy Yak is one of a small number of revenue sources to keep them running.
Chenli Rejie, the center manager, said the center has multiple ?purposes.
“One is to promote Tibetan Buddhism in general, to inform and share our practices with the Western world,” Rejie said. “And the other thing is to preserve and educate people about Tibetan and Mongolian cultures ... but also we’re here to promote peace, compassion and trying to understand other cultures so we can learn and educate our own people as well.”
Rejie said Norbu received the 108-acre property the center resides on as a donation from a friend. In the beginning there was just a singular building which housed a family upstairs and the cultural center on the ground floor.
Now, in addition to the cultural center, the property holds the Kumbum Chamtse Ling Monastery, two traditional Tibetan Stupas, four retreat cottages, a teaching pavilion and two private residences.
The center is open every day during daylight hours for the public to visit the grounds, but they also offer several services to the public.
The teaching pavilion is home to meditation teachings. They also have daily chanting led by the monks and Rejie said they hope to begin having cooking classes taught by the monks as well.
All of their services are led by either the center’s senior resident monk, Geshe Lobsang Kunga, or the center’s director, Arjia Rinpoche.
Interfaith prayers are also occasionally held at the center for followers of all religions in the area to come and share their beliefs with others.
Rejie said he hopes the center will be able to work more closely with students at IU in the future.
“I know IU is a public school and they’re a little hesitant about working with a religious place, but our center is not really just for people who are religious,” he said. “You don’t have to be Buddhist. You can be any faith ... but our teachers, our director, they’re people who have had a lot of experience, personally, professionally, politically ... all these things I feel could be at least an interesting topic for a lot of IU students to hear.”
