ABOUT US
"All the happiness in the world exists because we have wished for others’ happiness; all the suffering in the world exists because we have only thought about our own happiness."
Shantideva, yes. AD VIII
Why Casa Virupa
Casa Virupa is a community of people with diverse interests and educational backgrounds sharing a common motivation: finding a way of life that is oriented towards the happiness of all sentient beings.​
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​In our search for happiness, we realized how important it is, from time to time, to get out of the fast-paced rhythm of everyday life, which makes introspection difficult. We decided to develop a consciousness of ourselves, the world, and others, by committing to personal growth more intensely. This is made possible by the lifestyle we have chosen and, hoping that the benefits of this project will expand, we want to share our house and our knowledge with anyone who is interested.
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For these reasons, all of the events you can find in Casa Virupa share a common objective: to encourage the search for one's own happiness and that of others through self-development and quality guidance.
Buddhism at Casa Virupa
The tradition that fosters us is Tibetan Buddhism. Our experience in meditation, philosophy and rituals has always been within the frame of the Sakya lineage and tradition, His Holiness Kyabgön Gongma Trichen Rinpoche being our main master.
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Buddhism is a philosophical and religious tradition that was started in between India and Nepal by Buddha Shakyamuni around 500 BCE, and whose proposal, both theoretical and practical, attempts to orient people's lives towards a stable, fulfilled and expansive happiness.
Our motivation
We want Casa Virupa to be a space in which anybody, regardless of their current spiritual development, can work on their happiness and the happiness of all sentient beings. With such pretense, we offered the center to his Holiness Kyabgon Gongma Trichen in 2016, who encouraged us to embark on this project. The director of the project since its inception was Román Sánchez Orpella, who in February 2020 was named "Lama" by Gongma Trichen. Through this, in addition to being the project director, he became the resident teacher of the center. His Holiness advised us that it would be important that members of our community train themselves following the Sakya tradition, and that Casa Virupa facilitates the link with this tradition through regular activities based on ethics, meditation and wisdom. Following this purpose, Lama Norbu guides most of the Dharma activities that we do, supervises the spiritual growth of Casa Virupa students and watches over how the task entrusted to us by Gongma Trichen is carried out. We also invite qualified teachers whose activities occur mainly in this country, as well as others beyond our national borders.
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COMMUNITY LIFE
One of the pillars of Casa Virupa is the community that resides here. The community is at the heart of our project, and our aim is for all our relationships to be based on care, mutual respect and the ethical principles of the Mahayana Buddhism.
Our form of life is communitarian and is governed by norms and schedules that allow us to deepen our care for mindfulness, an essential tool for personal development. At the same time, coexistence is a perfect way to learn how to value what we have, what we are, and above all, that which the other needs or asks for.
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Our living together is an effective way to remind ourselves that every circumstance, no matter how simple it may seem, can be transformed into an extraordinary experience.
volunteers
This project, more than its community, is made up of network of people who help us develop what we do and who we are: these are Casa Virupa’s volunteers. Some of them have accompanied us for many years, while with others, we have just begun our path together. Yet all of them have made many of the activities we organized possible, be it helping us daily; such as those who take especial care of our garden, those who make sure we have everything we need in our pantry, those who have become spokespersons wherever they go; or helping us for particular events we have hosted.
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If we were to speak of Casa Virupa without mentioning them, we would be forgetting one of the fundamental parts of this project: our volunteers are also artisans of the mandala we are building.
