More Information about Spiritual Teacher Meditation Day

About lam rim: In the 11th Century, Lama Atisha brought Buddha’s teachings from India to Tibet and organized them into a practical guide for an individual to navigate their spiritual journey. Since that time, many great Indian and Tibetan masters have offered short texts, prayers, commentaries and extensive texts with instruction, all based on this approach. The presentation of Buddha’s 84,000 teachings into a step-by-step method is known as “lam-rim” in Tibetan and can be translated as “graduated path.”.

Note about DB: If you are working on the requirements for completing the DB Practice Retreats, these meditations are required for the Spiritual Teacher module. Please be aware that these mediations will be guided by a fellow student and not an FPMT teacher, so for DB purposes, your approach is similar to if you were preparing for and practicing independently. However, we offer this opportunity in the center’s spiritual setting with other students with the hope that you find the environment beneficial and to cultivate a supportive environment in which we all practice.

About this day: In the lam-rim, or graduated path to enlightenment, the first meditation outline is the root of the path: how to devote to the virtuous friend. Why is guru devotion the root of the path to enlightenment?

Schedule

8:30 - Center open, check in, make offerings
9:00 - 9:15 - General information
9:15 - 9:55 - Session 1, Why We Need a Spiritual Guide
9:55 - 10:05 - Break (Silent)
10:05 - 10:45 - Session 2, OM AH HUM Purification Meditation
10:45 - 10:55 - Break (Silent)
10:55 - 11:35 - Session 3, A Short Daily Meditation Practice on Shakyamuni Buddha
11:35 - 12:15 - Lunch Break (Silent)
12:15 - 12:50 - Session 4, Relating to the Spiritual Mentor in Thought
12:50 - 1:00 - Break (Silent)
1:00 - 1:40 - Session 5, Advantages of Proper Reliance and the Disadvantages of Not Properly Relying on a Spiritual Teacher
1:40 - 1:50 - Break (Silent)
1:50 - 2:30 - Session 6, Devotion to One’s Spiritual Teacher in Thought
2:30 - 3:00 - Discussion
Clean up, take down offerings

Meditation Details

Session 1, Why We Need a Spiritual Guide
The purpose of this meditation is to generate in your heart and mind an enthusiastic aspiration to find a qualified spiritual guide through opening your heart and through thorough scrutiny and checking. Feel the confidence and joy of finding such a precious spiritual friend to accompany and guide you on your spiritual path.

Session 2, OM AH HUM Purification Meditation
Though you may not yet have encountered actual spiritual teachers in your life, you can open yourself up to the “waves of enlightened energy” that the buddhas and bodhisattvas are sending our way. Gain a real experience, your experience, of touching and relating with that compassionate wisdom energy.

Session 3, A Short Daily Meditation Practice on Shakyamuni Buddha
On the one hand, as we study the Dharma, we hear about how ignorant and deluded we are, since we are still in samsara. On the other hand, we all have buddha-nature, buddha-potential; we have the innate clear light mind that is pure and is the seed of our enlightenment. The meditation on Shakyamuni Buddha is a profound method to reconcile these two perspectives on ourselves. Allow the practice to help you to step out of your ordinary relationship with yourself, your ordinary view of who you are.

Session 4, Relating to the Spiritual Mentor in Thought
In this meditation we request from our hearts to be able to meet and recognize our spiritual teacher as soon as possible and to be able to receive and follow your teacher’s sage advice.

Session 5, Advantages of Proper Reliance and the Disadvantages of Not Properly Relying on a Spiritual Teacher
The purpose is to cultivate the thought to maintain with strong effort and diligence a proper and healthy relationship of respect and reliance on your spiritual teachers.

Session 6, Devotion to One’s Spiritual Teacher in Thought
Lama Zopa Rinpoche has composed this meditation for us to help us understand the vastness and depths of a bodhisattva’s practice of guru devotion, which brings such extraordinary benefits to our minds and our practice of the Dharma. Whether or not you feel that this level of guru devotion practice is beyond your capabilities, by engaging in this meditation with openness and sincerity, you can cultivate a deeper understanding.