We are continuing this tradition with interfaith seminars and other events. Teachings on the graduated path to enlightenment as well as Tantric teachings for more senior students, are offered on a weekly basis. A special worship service, the Jorcho puja, is given monthly at the beginning of these Sunday teachings. Special intensive courses and retreats are also held at regular intervals. Learning resources The Deer Park collection, developed from the bequest of Prof. Robinson's Buddhist Studies library as well as other generous gifts, includes many original Tibetan texts in traditional woodblock prints and modern formats, books on Tibet and Buddhism in English and other European languages, and a complete set of audiotapes of teachings that have been given at Deer Park over the years.
All works are available for consultation, and many can be lent out.
The altar is enhanced by Buddha images, offerings and a complete set of the Tibetan Buddhist scriptures, the Kangyur, that was printed in Lhasa. Stupas were the earliest physical representation for the remembrance of the Buddha, an elaboration of the funerary mounds which existed in India from earliest antiquity. They were venerated by pious Buddhists for centuries before images and other concrete representations began to be worshipped. In the Tibetan tradition, the stupa has come to represent the perfectly enlightened mind of the Buddha, and is a place of prayer and meditation for worshipers, who circle it in a clockwise direction. The stupa, located behind the temple and built by members of the Deer Park community, was dedicated by H. H. the Dalai Lama in 1989.