About Us
BACKGROUND
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Nepal is among the poorest and least developed countries in the world. Around a third of the population lives on less than 50 cents per day. About 41% of the country’s children under the age of five are stunted. Mortality rates are high, especially in remote mountain villages where people die of common diseases. Half the children in Nepal are malnourished.
Life in remote Himalayan villages is harsher and survival is even more uncertain. With no access to sanitation, clean water, electricity, communications, healthcare, or education, mortality rates are high and literacy almost unknown.
Nubri Valley, a Tibetan enclave in Northern Nepal, is an isolated area with no road access for vehicles. This valley can be reached either by trekking for 6 days through the mountainous terrain, or by chartering a helicopter, which the local people cannot afford. The difficulty in accessing the village means that bringing goods and supplies is not only complicated but extremely expensive.
Moreover, over the last 15 years, the communities of Nubri have had to face a mounting double threat: globalization, and climate change.
The valley has seen an outpouring of male and children outmigration in search of economic opportunity or of a better education. This has left most of the villages more than half empty, with, in some cases, 75% of the male population residing outside the Nubri valley, and women burdened with household chores previously performed by men, and 14-19 hours workdays.
In addition, climate change, which has been assessed by recent research to happen 2-3 times faster than in other regions of the world, has led to more irregular weather patterns; the local villagers' efforts to adapt the agricultural and food production system to these changes has not been able to cope with the rapidity and magnitude of the temperature changes, leaving the communities’ food security situation in haphazard, and the women again overly burdened with work.
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To respond to these challenges, Tergar Charity Nepal was established under the blessings and guidance of Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche in June 2018. We are a not-for-profit organization (NGO), working in education, health, environment, and social services to empower and equip remote mountain communities with skills for better resilience, sustainable development, and social wellbeing.
"Children are the world's most valuable resource and it's best Hope for the future."
JOHN F. KENNEDY
About Our Fouder;
YONGEY MINGYUR RINPOCHE
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Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche possesses a rare ability to present the
ancient wisdom of Tibet in a fresh, engaging manner. His profound yet accessible teachings and playful sense of humor have endeared him to students around the world. Most uniquely, Rinpoche’s teachings weave together his own personal experiences with modern scientific research, relating both to the
practice of meditation.
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Born in 1975 in the Himalayan border regions between Tibet and
Nepal, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche is a much-loved and accomplished meditation master. From a young age, Rinpoche was drawn to a life of contemplation. He spent many years of his childhood in a strict retreat. At the age of seventeen, he was invited to be a teacher at his monastery’s three-year retreat center, a position rarely held by such a young lama. He also completed the traditional Buddhist training in philosophy and psychology, before founding a monastic college at his home monastery in north India.
In addition to extensive training in the meditative and philosophical traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, Mingyur Rinpoche has also had a lifelong interest in Western science and psychology. At an early age, he began a series of informal discussions with the famed neuroscientist Francisco Varela, who came to Nepal to learn meditation from his father, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. Many years later, in 2002, Mingyur Rinpoche and a handful of other long-term meditators were invited to the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where Richard Davidson, Antoine Lutz, and other scientists examined the effects of meditation on the brains of advanced meditators. The results of this groundbreaking research were reported in many of the world’s most widely read publications, including National Geographic and Time.
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Mingyur Rinpoche teaches throughout the world, with centers on five continents. His candid, often humorous accounts of his own personal difficulties have endeared him to thousands of students around the world. His best-selling book, The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness, debuted on the New York Times bestseller list and has been translated into over twenty languages. Rinpoche’s most recent books are Turning Confusion into Clarity: A Guide to the Foundation Practices of Tibetan Buddhism, Joyful Wisdom: Embracing Change and Finding Freedom, and an illustrated children’s book entitled Ziji: The Puppy that Learned to Meditate.
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In early June 2011, Mingyur Rinpoche walked out of his monastery in Bodhgaya, India, and began a “wandering retreat” through the Himalayas and the plains of India that lasted four and a half years. When not attending to the monasteries under his care in India and Nepal, Rinpoche spends time each year traveling and teaching worldwide.
Click Here for the Detailed Biography of Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche.