Stupa Restorations

Eight stupas were built between 1977 and 1999, they are located along a bushy ridge at the Monastery. In 2015 we started restoring the retaining walls around the Stupas to stabilise the ridge. We are also developing the Stupa surrounds, including; balustrades, lighting, new paths, a meditation room and planting.

All work is done by volunteers, and all materials are donated If you’d like to help you can get involved by:

• come along to a working bee, we need people to do all sorts of jobs from carrying things, concreting, block laying and cooking for volunteers.

• help to raise funds, if you have an idea for raising money we’d love to hear from you

• donate money directly to our account: NZ Karma Kagyu Trust, ASB, 12-3209-0303196-02 (We are a charitable organisation all donations are tax deductible)

Contact Annie to get involved at office@kagyu.org.nz

A birds eye view of the stupas

The drone footage (below) was filmed on the day the old concrete retaining walls were bolted to each other and lifted upright again using underground steel rods. After researching several different options this plan was chosen because it was the most cost effective and long lasting. We dug trenches infront of the walls to allow them to be straightened up, we dug 6 trenches between the walls to hold the underground steel rods. All digging done by hand in one day, by an enthusiastic team of volunteers. See the Stupa Renovation News page for details of the different stages of work with photos.

Many thanks to Jeff Smith from Deep Animations for this video.