Tibetan Buddhist Society Melbourne

Looking After Our Beautiful Holy Temple

Geshe-la relates in his autobiography that one of his three major achievements was the construction of traditional holy Tibetan temples in Australia. The Melbourne temple was completed in 2000 and blessed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 2002, who said that it should be a place for study and practice. So, caring for the temple is something of great importance, for ourselves, for future students and for Geshe-la’s legacy.

If you’ve visited the centre in the last few months likely you would have noticed the shiny new metallic gold Colorbond roof. The original roof was corroding and needed replacement. This work was completed in April 2026 and cost $237,000. We were able to fund this through a combination of our savings and the kind generosity of many within our community.

We have another major maintenance project. For many years the upper deck has been leaking, resulting in water damage within the temple. We’ve repaired a number of leaks, but there are always more to be fixed. The problem is the deck’s waterproof membrane, because it splits with building movement. Finding the sources of the leaks is difficult, as the water damage is usually in a different location to where the membrane is leaking. Fixing the leaks requires lifting terracotta tiles to track down the splits. This is an arduous and time-consuming process. The current membrane will continue to leak and continue to cause damage.

The long-term solution is to replace the membrane and re-waterproof the upper deck. Modern membrane technology is much more sophisticated, reliable and tolerant of building movement. This will be a major project with a budget of over $400,000, based on the two quotations we’ve received.

We have now started fundraising for this project. If you are interested in supporting it, you can donate to the temple building fund via our website at donate here, or by direct bank transfer. For direct transfer, please get in touch with us for our account details.

Let us know If you have any question. You can contact Michael or Chris.