March 24th, 2026
Friends,
A Place to Sit has undertaken to send assistance to a community center in Havana, Cuba, during these times of duress.
Two people in our group had the opportunity about ten days ago to see first-hand the effect of the blockade on the Cuban people. They reported that there is no electricity about 22 hours a day. Garbage is piling up on the street corners, breeding disease. The roads are nearly empty; people can’t get to work. Medical facilities and availability of staff are constricted. The country is being suffocated.
One taxi driver said, “Cubans are champions at survival.” Nevertheless, they do need help and they are getting humanitarian aid from many corners of the world. We are joining in that effort.
As a footnote, community centers serve a function in Cuba unlike anything in the US. The country revolves around their services, which truly work; however, they are underfunded.
Our representatives had a chance to see and hear what one community center in Havana does for the neighborhood in which it sits. The center looks to American eyes like a parking lot with a few under-renovated buildings. Actually, the center houses 15 otherwise homeless children. They educate about 100 children, especially in the performing arts. They feed them all, plus, once a week all comers from the neighborhood out of a modest kitchen. They were recently donated four solar panels (without electrical storage capability), which provide some electricity during daylight, as well as cook pots, two pressure cookers, and children’s clothing. The center runs a clinic with one skilled nurse, who works about 60 hours a week, packed with local patients, who have no other option for medical care. They need more medicines. The kids put on dances for visitors, and the sense of welcome was unmistakable.
Everyone in our group was deeply moved by their visit.
If you would like to offer a small donation, you may do so through the DONATE button on this website (www.aplacetosit.org). Any amount helps. The money goes directly to services; there are no salaried employees and no bureaucracy in between.
With best wishes,
Dudley Jackson
President
The Vidyadhara Foundation (d/b/a A Place to Sit)
The Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche Library Project
The Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche Library Project, a division of The Vidyadhara Foundation (A Place to Sit) is proud to announce the completion of the first phase of our work, as of June 2024. For the last 8 years, we have been distributing reliable Buddhist texts to library collections around the world – to approximately 30 facilities – contemplative centers, monasteries, universities, public and private libraries, and prisons. The recipients are associated with both secular and Buddhist institutions of many different lineages. We have also stocked depositories of our own in 8 countries.
The Project is staffed entirely by volunteers. It is run at very low cost and makes efficient use of its funding.
The second phase of our Project is to distribute our inventory regionally from our local depositories. The mission of the Project is to initiate or enhance 108 collections around the world. It is our hope that others are inspired by our model and follow the same course of action.
We receive our books (and recordings) by donation and bequest. The volumes are comprised of texts and commentaries of great masters in any language. Well used books are fine so long as the material is in decent shape. We take works belonging to all Buddhist traditions, not only the work of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche himself although his writings are prized, especially Seminary and other transcripts. We do accept restricted materials, and where we have nowhere to place them, we will return them to their home lineages for their internal use.
We place a beautiful bookplate in the back of each volume we donate, with our logo, designed with the help of the Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, and the name of the Project emblazoned on it, thus disseminating Trungpa Rinpoche’s fame wherever a volume is read.
We wish to thank our many volunteers for sustaining this project up until this time and into the indefinite future. We particularly wish to thank the Khyentse Foundation, without whose ongoing support all these years we would not have been able to fulfill our mission up to this point.
At this time we are interested in help of various kinds. Needless to say, cash donations are welcome. To make a cash donation, please find the DONATE button on our website, aplacetosit.org, and designate the gift for the Library Project. Feel free to write us if you wish to donate in some other way.
We are also looking for library recipients. If you have access to a library where good Buddhists books may be housed on open shelving in perpetuity, please let us know.
We always welcome book donations, especially from senior Dharma students who no longer find a use for their collection, particularly scholars. We will find a good home for your treasures!
Bequests are quite helpful. We recently received 8 boxes of priceless materials from the estate of a senior student, with some unique gems.
If you find yourself managing the inventory of your local Dharma center and have volumes of good books, which you cannot use, we will recycle them into the hands of those who will read them – the ultimate ecology.
Finally, if you are inspired by this Project, we would love to hear from you. 🙂
Our backgrund
The historical background and tradition followed at a Place to Sit comes through the great adept, meditation master and scholar, the Dorje Dradul, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche (1939 – 1987). He held and propagated the Karma Kagyu, Nyingma and Shambhala lineages. A Place to Sit adheres to Trungpa Rinpoche’s literal teaching stream, as well as that of his lineage predecessors – which means, essentially, the entire Buddhist and Shambhala canon and example.