A Buddhist lama is building a $1.6 million garden on the Flathead Reservation in Montana and is making sure to include the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in the plans.

Gochen Tulku Sang-ngag Rinpoche moved to the reservation a decade ago. He's not the only religious figure who lives there but he's one of the few who has reached out to the tribe.

“Many people move here without recognition they are a guest,” Julie Cajune, the executive director for American Indian Policy at Salish Kootenai College, told The New York Times. "None of the mainstream churches or the Amish have done that.”

The Garden of 1,000 Buddhas is due to be completed in 2012. Elders blessed the center and found commonalities with the Buddhist practitioners.

Sang-ngag also sought permission from the tribe to bring the Dalai Lama to the reservation when the project is complete.

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On an Indian Reservation, a Garden of Buddhas (The New York Times 11/1)