The Mahakaruna Buddhist Society celebrated 21 years since it was established in Denmark on December 12 and marked the retirement of The Venerable Lozang Chodzin.

Buddhist devotees gathered to wish Lozang Chodzin, 89, well in her retirement.

The society started operating in Denmark in June 2000 at 9 Scotsdale Road, under the guidance of a Tibetan Lama, the 15th Gyalkhang Tse Tulku Rinpoche.

Rinpoche belongs to the lineage of HH the Dalai Lama and has been the society’s spiritual director for many years.

He was teacher-in-residence at Mahakaruna, which means ‘great compassion’ in Tibetan, for two years before settling in Perth.

In 2003, Lozang Chodzin was ordained as a Buddhist nun and eventually took over the role of teacher.

“However, I was very ably supported by many visiting teachers,” she said.

“We were the first established organisation in the Great Southern to offer the general public access to the teachings of the Buddha.”

Lozang Chodzin said the arrival of COVID-19 had made it difficult to maintain the programs which the society had previously provided. Therefore it has been decided to close the society and develop a new, less formal organisation.

“This is now in progress and I am sure it will continue to make our form of Buddhism, the Mahayana, available in Denmark,” Lozang Chodzin said.

She said the motivation that drove this form of Buddhism is called by the art of happiness.

This involved changing often negative and destructive states of mind into those that are positive and beneficial.

“This might sound easy but requires developing a completely different mind set about the world around us,” Lozang Chodzin said.

“This requires study, reflection and meditation and these are
the opportunities we have been providing.”

One of the main practices is generosity and over the 21 years the society has fundraised for events like the Nepalese earthquakes, poverty in Timor and more.

Many former students had thanked the society for changing their life for the better.

“These are the things we celebrate and would like to maintain in the future,” Lozang Chodzin said.

The former University of WA librarian who later worked as librarian in charge of a Commonwealth department in Melbourne took early retirement in 1996 from her then job as a TAFE curriculum writer.

She had been drawn to Buddhism after taking meditation classes when her marriage broke down in the 1980s and will continue to serve as a nun.

This article appeared in the Denmark Bulletin, 23 December 2021.