GOLDEN BRIDGE | Association for the preservation of tibetan culture and religion

The Golden Bridge association is a non-profit organization. Its main goal is to help preserve Tibetan culture and religion, mainly in Tibet but as well in places where Tibetans live in exile. It has been founded in July 2007 in order to give a legal framework to the numerous activities Namkha Rinpoche has initiated since 2005.

Difficulties of Tibet
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If one wishes to understand the deep significance and real necessity of the different projects the Golden Bridge association is carrying out, one needs to remember and understand what difficulties Tibetan people had to endure and are still enduring right now under Chinese occupation. When the Chinese invaded Tibet in 1959, it was a free and independent country having quite an unusual way of life. Indeed, at this time, the main goal of its society and culture was to pursue spiritual happiness, rather than material or worldly well-being. Tibet hardly had any army at all and did not have any military alliance with other countries. For centuries, it remained isolated in its high plateaus, having very few contacts with the rest of the world. For that reason, people were completely unprepared for the Chinese invasion and its so-called “Cultural Revolution” that has been terribly destructive for its culture and religion. Most monasteries have been destroyed; lamas (spiritual masters) and monks were imprisoned or sentenced to death. Tibetan language was banished from most schools, and any manifestation of Tibetan culture or religion was suppressed. During many years, people were not allowed to recite even the most common “Mani” prayer which used to be on the lips of every Tibetan. Therefore, Tibetan culture and Buddhist religion had to find ways to survive either in exile or secretly.
Subsequently, in the late 80's, the Chinese authorities started to release the pressure and gradually let Tibetan people practice their religion and culture. Since then, many monasteries received the permission to be reconstructed. At least in the region of Kham, which is one the most remote and deserted of Tibet, lamas and monks recovered the right to publicly perform religious activities. However, the destruction has been so massive that this resurgence of Buddhism in Tibet has been a very slow and difficult process. Indeed, the situation is now much better than what it was. But even now, it is miles away from the real cultural richness and spiritual strength it once had.

Tibetans deepest wish
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It is also important to understand that Kham is a very poor region. In the lower parts, the altitude is of 2500 meters. Higher nomadic areas have an altitude of around 4500 meter. There, only grass can grow and people's survival merely depends on the presence of their yaks. At present, the biggest cities of Kham have about ten or fifteen thousand people. The nearest Chinese cities are about two-days driving away. Thus, in those conditions, it has been impossible for the people there to restore in a few years the cultural and religious richness that had taken them centuries to build up.
The reader of the following pages might wonder why it is so important to build so many temples and monasteries in an area where people are having such a difficult life. For that, one needs to understand that Tibetans have always used most of their resources and put tremendous efforts into building religious constructions as a support of their devotion and spiritual practice. Actually, this is one of the reasons why Tibetans are such a special nation among others in the world. It is a nation where the cultivating of inner peace and compassion has been widely considered to be more important than to search for material comfort. For centuries, it has been a tradition that villagers join forces to build huge and beautiful temples, even though they would themselves often be living in small and dilapidated houses.
In this fashion, Tibetan people are of course very grateful for any humanitarian support they receive in order to help them improve their difficult living conditions. But when asked about their deepest wish, they always express the need to rebuild temples, stupas, retreat centers and monastic colleges. They believe this to be even a greater source of inner and outer prosperity than schools and hospitals can be. Actually, most Tibetans acknowledge that living conditions have always been rough in the high Himalayan plateaus. Therefore, the greatest misfortune they ever suffered was the massive destruction of their culture and religion.
As a matter of fact, the Golden Bridge active members – as well as Namkha Rinpoche, who initiated all these projects – are clearly carried along by a sincere personal devotion to Buddhism. However, they are quite certain that by working for the preservation and restoration of Tibetan culture and religion, they certainly meet one of the Tibetan people's strongest wish and aspiration.

Cost of our projects
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One last thing the reader might want to take into account while reading the presentation is that the projects presented on this website are all estimates carefully made by local lamas and monks. They of course will have to be revised once the construction firm has drawn up a quote for each of the projects. However, as all the projects in Tibet are located in very remote areas of high altitude, this will only be done where there is a good chance of actually accomplishing the project, for just the cost of a building firm’s traveling 2 or 3 days to assess it on the spot can be quite high. In addition, prices for these constructions can seem surprisingly high for a poor country like Tibet. However, one has again to understand that any construction in the region of Kham implies several days of journey through high altitudes and roads with all the equipment, raw material and workers. This, combined with the very difficult climatic conditions, considerably increases the costs of construction compared to anything one would build in the plains of China or India. Moreover, religious buildings, as already mentioned before, have always been the point of focus of tremendous efforts and expenses by Tibetan people themselves. The aim of these constructions is to be supports of devotion and spiritual practice Therefore, they are not supposed to be built in the most practical and cheapest way possible, but instead are to be made as beautiful and as closest to the tradition of tantric Buddhism as possible.