Spiritual and Executive Director of the Rime Buddhist Center. Lama Chuck founded the Rime Buddhist Center 20 years ago and has since worked tirelessly to spread the Buddha Dharma in Kansas City. Lama Chuck has been the Buddhist director for Kansas City’s Interfaith Council for 20 years. In addition he has written a regular column on Buddhism for the religion section of the Kansas City Star since 1995.
Thanks to Lama Chuck’s efforts, Buddhism has been introduced to over 2700 individuals through his Basics of Buddhism course. Through his prison outreach he has served as chaplain in numerous prisons throughout the Kansas City area as well as answering letters from inmates from around the country.
He has also encouraged the members of the Rime Center to start a homeless outreach that now delivers bags of food to people in need living in camps or on the streets on a weekly basis. Thanks in part to his refugee outreach, Lama Chuck has found sponsors for over 330 Tibetan refugees living in abject poverty in India and Nepal.
Lama Chuck Stanford has been a living manifestation of the Rime Center’s motto of “Achieving Peace Through Compassion.” Throughout his career as Spiritual and Executive Director of the Rime Buddhist center he has received many awards for his work in the Kansas City area. These awards include: 2007 Peace Award presented by the Crescent Peace Society, the 2009 Heroes of Humanity Award presented by the Art of Living and the International Association for Human Values (IAHV), and the 2013 Peace Builder Award presented by the Global and Multicultural Education Center.
On June 25, Lama Chuck Stanford was awarded the title Lama Emeritus by the Rime Buddhist Center Board of Directors. The members of the Rime Buddhist Center and the Kansas City community will miss Lama Chuck’s guidance and inspiration. We wish him all the best and we hope he enjoys a happy, healthy, well-deserved rest.