Jo Gibson, KCCL’s liaison to His Holiness Karmapa, shared with us how the conception of our KCCL logo came about:
“Finally, the auspicious day finally arrived and it gives me great pleasure to attach THE LOGO!
As to the story of the logo, there’s not much to tell. HHGK was very specific. He announced that he wanted a lotus with the word bodhi. Then he closely supervised the construction of the logo in Illustrator. He chose the shape of the lotus and the font. He then typed in the Tibetan himself and chose the positioning. He also chose the colour but did not say why at first. But when I later asked about the colour, he replied that green in Tibetan culture signifies germination and that the green signifies the germination and growth of BoDhi.
The actual logo is the lotus with BoDhi and the line. Where you place Karma Changchub Ling is your choice.”
The lotus, the symbol of purity, is a beautiful, delicate flower that grows and blooms in the mud and as such signifies the birth of enlightenment (bodhi) amidst the world of confused existence. As the symbol of the padma family, the lotus signifies the ability to transmute the grasping quality of desire into discriminating awareness wisdom.