Its shape represents the Buddha crowned and seated in meditation posture on a lion throne. The Tibetan for stupa is chorten (support for offerings). Every part of a stupa has specific significance and within it are scriptures and relics in defined positions, each equally alive with symbolic meaning.

In many Buddhist traditions, stupas are a place of pilgrimage and provide support for the practice of prostrations, offerings and circumambulations. They contain precious relics and scriptures and, especially when they are properly placed in important geographical points, have intrinsic power and invoke peace. A stupa is consecrated, not as a structure, but as a living enlightened presence, and therefore brings blessings not only to its location, but also to the world.

Chene Lhundrup Rimpoche was a great luminary of Tibetan Buddhism. One of his principle teachers, Polop Khen Rimpoche (1898-1967), prophesied and encouraged him to spread world peace through Stupa building all over the Country.

As a symbol of his wish to fulfill his teacher’s prophecy, Chene Lhundrup Rimpoche himself traveled throughout many places and built more than thirty stupas all over Bhutan as of now. The vision of Chene lhendup could not met without a stupa in his own Monastery. Financial constraint was the only key factor that kept him behind so long. Now with the help of Khenpo Rigzin Wanghcuk  ( the newly appointed khenpo in Orgyen Chholing  Monastery, Rimpoche and khenpo Rigzin Wangchuk are in the process and plans of coming up with the Parinirvana Stupa for his last wish to fulfill his root teacher and all mother sentient beings  near the main temple in Tsheldang, Bhutan. The stupa is particularly good for overcoming the obstacles for all one to nine moles according to Chinese and Tibetan astrology.

As Late H.H Polop Khen Rimpoche he wrote, Within the stupa, the blessings of the teacher remain unchanging. The Buddha said whoever sees the sight of it, feels the breeze near it will be liberated by its touch, and hears the tinkling of the small bells around it, would be liberated by the sound. Having seen a stupa, by reflecting in one’s experience of it, one is liberated by recollection. May these stupas become a supreme object of offering, liberating whoever sees, touches and remember.

There are eight different types of stupas that have been built according to Lord Buddha activities.

  1. The Lotus Blossom Stupa at Lumbini,Nepal.
  2. The Enlightenment Stupa at Bodhgaya,India.
  3. The Stupa Of Turning Wheel Of Dharma at Varanasi,India.
  4. The Stupa of the Descent From a Heavenly Realm at Shankasya,India.
  5. The Great Miracle Stupa at Sravasti, India.
  6. The Stupa of Reuniting the Sangha at Rajagriha, India.
  7. All-Victorious Stupa at Vaishali, India.
  8. The Parinirvana Stupa at Kushinagar, India.

The construction of this the Parinirvana stupa in Orgyen Choeling Monastery is a spiritual task dedicated to world peace. It measures 25 feet high and 12-feet width. The stupa will be made with hand-placed stone blocks with concrete from outside. Stone carvings adorn the bumpa vase in the center. Rimpoche himself, a specialist in stupa making, and the entire members of Orgyen Chholing Monastery and khenpo Rigzin Wangchuk have every spiritual Material in store….

The stupa will house two mandalas engraved on steel, highly detailed banners, offering bowls, lamps, and conch shells (all made by the Bhutanese Art School), eighteen auspicious vase filled with statues of the relevant deities along with precious ingredients, 800 tsa tsa (small porcelain images) and each 100 nos. of Budhha and guru’s images and zungs (millions of mantras inscribed on rolled paper anointed with saffron and precious herbs). Each of the stupas will have a sokshing (life tree) in the center with gold-lettered mantras from top to bottom. The stupa will be consecrated once they are finished.

The presence of a stupa contributes to the welfare and happiness of all beings, creates auspicious circumstances and subjugates negative forces. Making offerings to help build one brings boundless benefits, for many lives to come, for one's self and others. So the total budget of the construction sums to almost more than S 1ing $15,000. Therefore every donation and contribution, how small counts in bringing up the Nirvana Stupa in Orgyen Choeling.