Ways to participate more deeply in pujas

Anyone is welcome to deepen your participation in pujas, and there are many ways to get involved.

Bring your own offerings to add to those provided by Kadampa Center:

• Flowers are a wonderful offering for any puja
• Food offerings are great for Guru Puja, which includes a period when the food offerings are distributed to everyone in attendance. The idea is to please the guru and the Buddhas, so delicious and bountiful food offerings are quite auspicious.

If you bring an offering, please come at least 15 minutes early.

Sponsor a Puja here

Sponsoring a puja is a great way to earn merit – your sponsorship serves our entire community by helping to make pujas possible. In addition, as a sponsor you can offer a dedication that will be read at the puja, so that all who attend can share in supporting your concern. The sponsor usually hands out the first set of monetary offerings to the sangha – according to Geshe Sangpo, this is so the sangha know the sponsor and can do special additional prayers for them as well.

Make personal sangha offerings

At every puja, Kadampa Center makes a financial offering to all sangha members in attendance. Individuals can also make offerings to sangha, and there’s great merit in doing so. Traditionally these are presented in an envelope – it’s fine to use a plain white envelope – and can be in any amount.  The envelopes are simply laid on the monks’ and nuns’ tables. The offerings are made during the “Auspicious Verses” section of the puja, near the end. If you are doing this for the first time, we’ll be glad to show you how – please come at least 15 minutes early. There will always be someone making a sangha offering on behalf of the center, so you can also follow that person’s lead.

Join our puja team

• Puja setup: Setting up for puja is part of the practice, and each puja has its own unique setup of the traditional seven offerings of drinking water, bathing water, flowers, incense, light, perfume and food. Our trained puja team arrives at the gompa before the puja to place the offerings on the table and altar.
• Shopping for offerings: Our trained puja team shoppers purchase flowers and food for the pujas.

If you are interested in joining the puja team, please contact pujas@kadampa-center.org and we’ll set up training for you.

Help get the room set up for teachings afterward

After the pujas end, we ask those who can spare a few minutes to stay and help arrange the gompa for the next scheduled event.