LOVE & COMPASSION IN PRACTICE
Love becomes something we do.
At Jhamtse Gatsal, love and compassion are not ideas reserved for lessons or special occasions. They are practiced in the small choices of everyday life - how people care for one another, reflect on their actions, share responsibility, offer service, and show up for their community.
Seven elements, lived every day.
Love, compassion, responsibility, interdependence, equanimity, gratitude, and generosity become meaningful through practice. They overlap in relationships, reflection, shared work, and choices made for the good of others.
Love
Showing up with steady care.
Compassion
Noticing a need and responding.
Responsibility
Owning choices and contributing.
Interdependence
Recognizing that each action touches others.
Equanimity
Meeting experience with steadiness.
Gratitude
Remembering what people and the Earth give.
Generosity
Sharing time, care, and resources.
KARMAYANA
Pause. Reflect. Choose again.
Karmayana is a daily self-reflective practice at Jhamtse Gatsal. Its name joins Karma - actions or behaviors - with Yana, a vehicle. By examining an action and its consequences, children have an opportunity to learn, reflect, and engage in change. The practice makes responsibility personal: choices can be understood, owned, and made differently.
CARE & BELONGING
Care that creates belonging.
Love becomes real when someone keeps showing up. The Amalas offer children the quiet continuity of daily care: helping them prepare for the day, supporting learning, holding boundaries with patience, and being present again at day’s end. Over time, consistency, empathy, discipline, and nurturing become the bonds of family and home.
SERVICE & SHARED RESPONSIBILITY
Everyone has something to give.
Responsibility is learned by participating. Children and adults care for shared spaces and work alongside one another. In the kitchen, food is prepared with patience and joy; children help set tables, and older children serve younger ones. Ordinary work becomes a way of being together, and each small act of service helps hold the community together.
FEEDING THE HUNGRY
Generosity becomes action.
In the Jhamtse practice called Feeding the Hungry, community members give up one meal so the food saved can be shared with others. The gesture joins gratitude for Mother Earth with generosity beyond Jhamtse Gatsal. It shows how love, interdependence, and responsibility can meet in one concrete choice.
TEACHERS OF LIFE
Children learn from what adults live.
Across classrooms, homes, kitchens, gardens, and the work that happens behind the scenes, adults model care, patience, service, responsibility, consistency, and compassion. They teach through how they respond, how they work, and how they treat people. At Jhamtse Gatsal, these adults are Teachers of Life.
A VOICE OF CARE
A VOICE OF CARE
— Ama la Tenzin ChoikeI am willing to help anyone without any conditions. I value the principles of love, compassion and care. I try to live by these principles on a daily basis and I try to nurture them in the children at Jhamtse Gatsal. The garden of love and compassion is my first home. It is where my heart is.
BRING IT INTO YOUR LIFE
Planting Kindness
Planting Kindness is a free 21-day journey inspired by Jhamtse Gatsal and Loving Karma. Each day offers one small Seed of love, presence, or compassion to practice in your own life.
Continue exploring the community.
Love and compassion belong to the larger story of how Jhamtse Gatsal lives, learns, and grows together.