Compassion Wheel Team

From left to right: Bill and Matt Clopton; Troy Stafford; Barbara Brown; Bridget Brewer; Dechen Brooke.

Barbara Brown

Barbara Brown’s architectural practice has been actively focused on community-oriented and residential projects in the Bay Area. She is a UC Berkeley alumni and a long-time supporter of Tibetan Buddhist causes and sacred place building efforts.
Since 2010, Barbara has been working with the Tibetan Association of Northern California to assist their members in creating a vibrant community center building in Richmond, CA. She also participated in the design and construction effort to create the new Prayer Wheel Gazebo at Gyuto Foundation in Richmond Heights.

Bill Clopton

Bill’s first connection to Buddhism was December 1969 in a week-long retreat with 3 Tibetan monks he had met in London, England. As a general contractor he has over 30 years of experience specializing in home construction and remodeling paying careful attention to all aspects of a project from client/builder, workers, design and craftsmanship of materials.

Troy Stafford

Troy Stafford is a master craftsman with 20 years experience in the Fine Arts and Museum framing field. He has collaborated with artists, galleries, collectors, and museum curatorial and conservation staff on a range of museum and private projects involving the design and creation of custom frames and the restoration of antique frames. He was personally requested by Lama Zopa Rinpoche to do the elaborate carvings of the prayer wheel and is receiving direct instructions from him.

Bridget Brewer

Bridget Brewer integrates her extensive background in landscape design and construction with her architectural practice in Sonoma County, where she is a board member of US Green Building Council. Her landscape work includes wildlife restoration in urban environments. She has received grants to restore neighborhood parks and urban creeks in Oakland and Berkeley. She has taught with the Insight Garden Program at San Quentin Prison as well as high school students planting food forests in Windsor.

Upcoming Retreats

Transforming the Mind to Cultivate Lasting Happiness

Elaine Jackson

February 23 - March 23, 2025
Buddhist Mind Science: Activating Your Potential is an FPMT introductory course.  Buddhism is considered by some to be a “science of mind” because it presents a comprehensive map describing the mind and its various aspects and functions. The Buddha’s teachings also provide methods to observe the mind directly and to discover and activate our inner potential. And it does so with one intention: to overcome suffering and its causes, and to cultivate true, lasting happiness.   The Buddhist Mind Science series is being offered in collaboration with Thubten Norbu Ling, our sister FPMT center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Elaine…

Transforming Problems Into Happiness

Venerable Tenzin Tsepal

April 3 - 6, 2025
We are excited to welcome Ven. Tenzin Tsepal of Sravasti Abbey, who will share insights and transformative tools from Lama Zopa Rinpoche's, Transforming Problems Into Happiness. This small book contains volumes of practical advice for training the mind to see problems as beneficial conditions supportive of, and even necessary for, our happiness. While mind-training texts like this are not intended to eliminate the difficulties we inevitably encounter, they teach us how not to be disturbed by them, and instead how to accept and transform such harms to make swift progress along the path to full awakening.    Ven. Tsepal taught…

Vajrapani Institute is affiliated with the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition www.FPMT.org