STUPA OF ENLIGHTENMENT: Consecration - History of the Stupa - Designing the Stupa 
 Statue of Gampopa -  Preparing the the Stupa  - The Contents of the Stupa

Excerpts from the Talk by The Very Venerable Thrangu Rinpoche at the Consecration of the Stupa of Enlightenment at Gampo Abbey, August 26, 2001 ...The dharmakaya aspect of the Buddha cannot be visualized. It has no form; it is beyond anything we can say about it. It is the ultimate nature of the Buddha's mind, which is endowed with three characteristics - omniscience, omnipotence and limitless love. If we could put that inexpressible aspect of the Buddha's mind into a form, it would be the form of this stupa. The stupa is a manifestation of the dharmakaya, that aspect of buddhahood that cannot really be described or visualized...This stupa will be a great support for us in the future as an object that we can use as a focus for our reverence and devotion and we can accumulate merit by our connection with it. So I thank you very much for your faith and devotion in coming to this consecration and I hope that in the future we can make use of the opportunity to use this stupa as an object for our aspirations, as a place to come to meditate, a place to do circumambulation practice. (Read the text of the entire talk) Excerpts from The Dharmakaya Comes to Cape Breton by Jigme Sheldrön ...Nine a.m., time for the ceremonies to begin and it starts to rain. The hundred hastily yet patiently lit candles succumb in short order. Various types of scrambling occur as attempts are made to keep the throne dry. Just as nerves are getting ever so slightly touchy, the skies open up for real and it pours, and then what can we do but laugh and get soaking wet and postpone until the afternoon. Apparently rain is auspicious too. Lucky us!...The gathered crowd swells to over 100 for the final day. Local people, curious to see the new addition to their neighbourhood, people from the area sangha, and from Halifax, and people from much further away. All are drawn here by this white and gold manifestation of something that happened 2500 years ago and is still happening today. I can close my eyes now, hear the tap of dorje on bell, see the string leading from the offerings on the stupa to the middle of Thrangu Rinpoche's chest, and I can almost understand what we all did on those three days in August. (Complete story)