BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — The Tibetan Cultural Center, founded by the brother of the Dalai Lama, is $1.7 million in debt and is scheduled to be auctioned during a sheriff’s sale next month.
But Jigme Norbu, nephew of the Dalai Lama and son of center founder Thubten J. Norbu, said Tuesday he was seeking financial help from the community and Buddhist monasteries across the country to save the center.
“This is the time this town, this community needs to come together and be like one family and make something positive,” Norbu said. “We’re trying to make the best of it and get things worked out.”
Last November, Virginia based Mooring Capital Funding filed a complaint in Monroe Circuit Court to foreclose the mortgages it held against the center. According to court documents, the center has several mortgages dating back to September 2000 and at least three lines of credit worth about $1.3 million.
A Monroe County judge in March ordered foreclosure on the center’s 90 acre property in Bloomington. The property is scheduled to go on the auction block June 17.
Norbu said the center fell on hard times financially after several large donations from overseas failed to come through because of the poor economy.
The closure of the center would be a blow to the Tibetan community, said Larry Gerstein, president of the International Tibetan Independence Movement and a psychology professor at Ball State University.
“The thing that is most disturbing to me is that the site, for Buddhists, is very sacred ground,” Gerstein said.
The Dalai Lama consecrated an interfaith temple at the center during a September 2003 visit from his exile home in India.
