September 2, 2009 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Olmo Ling Center for Meditation and Compassionate Outreach
1101 Greenfield Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15217
www.olmoling.org

CULTIVATING COMPASSION AND MINDFULNESS IN GREENFIELD

Pittsburgh Neighborhood Welcomes Bon Buddhist Temple

A newly outfitted Tibetan temple sits among a mixture of modern commercial buildings and houses built a hundred years ago on a typical Pittsburgh neighborhood street. The temple’s walls are covered with traditional Tibetan spiritual art, and the altar is heaped with ritual items and symbols. Cushions and mats are ready on the floor for those who want to sit quietly and learn how they can be more compassionate and suffer less. Painted and decorated by dozens of eager volunteers from a vibrant and diverse spiritual community, the Olmo Ling Center for Meditation and Compassionate Outreach will officially open in Greenfield on Sunday, September 13 at 3:00.

Olmo Ling began in 2007 in the Greenfield home of the group’s spiritual director, Tempa Lama, and his wife, Iris Grossmann. The community has grown quickly—up to 35 people attend a regular Tuesday evening meditation and teaching session. Recently established as a nonprofit organization, Olmo Ling has taken up residence at the corner of Loretta Street and Greenfield Avenues.

The new space is decorated with a number of thangkas painted by Lama. Thangkas are paintings of inspiring figures, but they are not just decorative. They also present complex spiritual teachings to the viewer. For example, Tempa Lama’s painting of the female deity Yeshe Walmo, shows a fierce blue woman wearing skulls and brandishing a sword. To Western eyes, the image can seem threatening, but practitioners know that Yeshe Walmo is fiercely protecting the teaching and knowledge that can transform someone’s ignorance and suffering. Yeshe Walmo is fierce in order to protect the practitioner, and meditating on her image is meant to focus and train the mind.

Greenfield is a diverse neighborhood that has welcomed newcomers throughout its entire history. Olmo Ling members, themselves a diverse and multi-national group, believe that it will be useful to have a dedicated and stable space in the neighborhood for programs and projects.

Olmo Ling will offer several different weekly times for meditation and teaching as well as weekend retreats, often taught by Tibetan teachers visiting from monasteries in India and Nepal. Such teachers have a tradition of helping those in need in their communities, a commitment that Olmo Ling will share as the organization launches several new programs that put compassion into practice.

The Project on Being with Dying will provide spiritual help and support for the dying by training volunteers in compassionate care. The Olmo Ling Prison Project will help prisoners through meditation instruction and through inspiration on how to transform difficulties.

The combination of spiritual direction and social action is especially powerful for the members of Olmo Ling, a group that includes teachers, therapists, artists, students, business professionals, researchers, and many others.

Tempa Lama is the spiritual director of Olmo Ling. A Tibetan born in Nepal to a family of traditional healers, he went to Menri Monastery in India at the age of 6. Upon completing his studies at Menri, Lama lived and worked in the Upaya Zen Center (New Mexico), where he focused on programs that helped people who were dying and their caregivers.

Written by Jean Grace