SPIRITUAL: Holy Day

A Special Animal Liberation/Blessing According to Lama Zopa Rinpoche, it’s incredibly important to do practices to benefit animals and lead them to liberation: “It’s not enough that you look after animals and they give you comfort. You must do something of practical benefit for them. This is what you can do every day:​ Circumambulate with them around holy objects, chanting mantras. Recite prayers in their ears to plant the seed of all the realizations of the path to enlightenment. This makes a huge difference. It has incredible results, enabling them to have a good rebirth in their next life, to be born as a human being, and meet the Dharma.”
		Join us for a special animal liberation! It begins with a pet blessing. Bring your critters to the center (see below for important details) to have your pet circumambulate the stupa and receive a special blessing and mantras by the Kadampa Center nuns. After the blessing, we’ll continue with an animal release of earthworms, who would otherwise have been used as bait, into the woods and soil around the center. You are also welcome to purchase and bring earthworms ​to release.
Important Details for the Pet Blessing Dogs must be on leashes, all other animals must be in cages. In order to keep all the dogs and cats happy, please keep your pet under your control and be ready to follow our instructions at the site. We will have water available to keep the pets from getting thirsty​. ​If the weather is bad, animals will be invited inside the building for the blessing and circumambulation of a special altar.

Sponsor Animal Liberation $75

Lama Tsongkhapa is the founder of our lineage, the Gelugpa tradition, in Tibetan Buddhism. He was a renowned scholar, practitioner, meditator, teacher and author.  His studies and meditations in all the major schools of Tibetan Buddhism resulted in the founding of the Gelugpa lineage.       Among his major accomplishments is writing the Lamrim, or the Great Treatise on the Path to Enlightenment, a step-by-step guide to the spiritual practices that lead to enlightenment. He also wrote several condensed versions of the Lamrim, including Foundation of All Good Qualities, the Three Principal Aspects of the Path, and Song of Experience. He also revitalized the monastic code in Tibet, established the annual Great Prayer Festival, established Ganden Monastery, the first of the great monasteries in the Gelugpa tradition, and wrote 18 volumes of teachings.  Lama Tsongkhapa Day is a celebration of the anniversary of his parinirvana. Practices recommended for this day include making offerings and reciting Lamrim texts, as well as Guru Puja.

Please watch our calendar for a schedule of events for the day.

Seven weeks after attaining enlightenment at Bodhgaya, Shakyamuni Buddha gave his first teaching at the Deer Park in Sarnath. We celebrate this day as Chokhor Düchen.

At this teaching, the Buddha expressed his profound realization of the nature of existence in the Four Noble Truths:

    The Truth of  the Nature of Suffering
    The Truth of the Origins or Causes of Suffering
    The Truth of the Cessation of, or Liberation from, Suffering
    The Truth of the Eight Fold Path as the means to attain ultimate happiness and freedom from suffering.

This teaching, referred to as the First Turning of the Wheel of Dharma, led to the formation of the Sangha, the community of disciples committed to following the Buddha's example of living simply, following the Path, and teaching the Dharma. Accordingly, every year at this time, the FPMT encourages its Centers to celebrate the presence of the sangha community. Our website includes a Sangha Support and Offerings page with valuable information, including a previous year's talk and Q&A about sangha with our director, Robbie Watkins.

Kadampa Center events include:

3 pm  Animal Blessing and Liberation

You can sponsor Holy Day events - amazing merit!  Click here to sponsor Chokhor Düchen

This day marks Shakyamuni Buddha's birth, enlightenment and parinirvana (passing from this life). Saka Dawa is an especially auspicious day for spiritual practice — the karmic effects of all actions, positive and negative, are multiplied exponentially!

Our schedule at Kadampa Center will include:

5:15 - 7:00 am

Eight Mahayana Precepts, followed by a  group reading of  a sutra. The precepts begin before dawn and end at sunrise the following day. These precepts must be taken from a qualified master the first time; afterward the student may take them at home before their altar., or with other students at Kadampa Center. Geshe Sangpo will offer precepts if students request it. If you wish to take precepts for the first time, please register here by Thursday, June 13.

We will take precepts at the Center in any case.

3:00 - 4:00 pm

Animal blessing and liberation 

7:00 - 9:00 pm

Venerable Robina Courtin teaches on How to Discover Our True Nature  in the first night of her week-long visit to Kadampa Center.  

Sponsor Holy Day Activities $108

The two-week long Tibetan Great Prayer Festival, Monlam Chenmo, which began with the Tibetan New Year, culminates in the Day of Miracles, Chotrul Duchen, which falls this year on Tuesday, February 19.  As a Buddha Holy Day, the karmic effects of virtuous actions performed on this day are multiplied exponentially, according to Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

Our Schedule:

•  12:00 pm  Group reading of the Sanghata Sutra

•   7:00 pm  Group reading of the Golden Light Sutra*

The FPMT spiritual director, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, encourages students to take the Eight Mahayana Precepts on holy days. This is a set of vows that are taken for 24 hours, from just before dawn to sunrise the following day. Those who have taken precepts previously from a qualified teacher are encouraged to take them at home, at "first light".

*Lama Zopa Rinpoche recommends reciting the Golden Light Sutra everyday, and especially on Buddha holy days. The benefits from reciting, listening to, or even hearing the name of the sutra are immeasurable, extending from eliminating conflict, terrorism, torture and gamine, to achieving full enlightenment. The Sanghata Sutra is a direct teaching by the Buddha that promised to tranform all who read or recite it.

Sponsoring the sutra readings is a great way to create merit, and it's especially auspicious to do so during the Days of Miracles, when our merit is multiplied exponentially.

Sponsorship is a two-step process

Step One  is dedicating your sponsorship (click here).

Step Two  is making the donation (use the button below on this page),

Sponsors may wish to dedicate very simply - "For my mother, Rosemary" - or they might make more extensive spiritual wishes, such as "May these teachings be the cause to liberate all sentient beings," or wishes for the teacher's long life, to benefit a person who is ill - any heart-felt positive intention!  You also can dedicate for more than one intention.

Use our secure online community to donate by clicking your choice below. 

To try our new Text Giving, send KC108 to 73256 and select your level from the drop down menu.

Don't forget to dedicate your sponsorship!

Sponsor a Sutra Reading ~ $75

Losar is the Tibetan New Year, the most important festival in Tibetan culture, when families get together and celebrate hopes for a better coming year.

Spiritually, the first two weeks of the Tibetan year are particularly powerful. These weeks mark a time when Shakyamuni Buddha was challenged to a duel of mystical powers by a group of  teachers who did not believe in the Buddha's teachings. During each of the 15 Days of Miracles, the Buddha's actions led to many people attaining realizations, ripening karms for higher rebirths and being liberated from samsara.

Each day in this two-week period is an auspicious day for practice.

FPMT says:

Any actions done during that period of time, both auspicious and harmful, are multiplied in their power. Karmic results are multiplied by one hundred million, as cited by Lama Zopa Rinpoche in the Vinaya text Treasure of Quotations and Logic. It is a very powerful time to practice and increase one’s commitment to both practice and study.

Our schedule of special events for this holy season:

Lama Tsongkhapa Day is a holy day honoring the monk who wrote the Lamrim, and whose life work resulted in the founding of our Gelugpa lineage in Tibetan Buddhism.

During this morning's session, we will explore Lama Tsongkhapa's life and work, and our connection to him at Kadampa Center.

We will also do practices that honor him and review his teachings.

Children in the Family Program will decorate and prepare luminaries to use in the evening for light offerings at the stupa.

Lama Tsongkhapa Day honors a very powerful practitioner so there is great power in the merit of supporting it financially. Supporting this holy day's spiritual practices – whether you are able to attend or not – is an opportunity to collect great merit. If you are sponsoring but not attending, you can offer prayers for those who are participating in the events.  Sponsor the morning practice ($75)

Making light offeirngs is a wonderful practice to do on Lama Tsongkhapa Day! We will gather at 6 pm to offer lights to our stupa. At 7 pm we will have Guru Puja.

Lama Tsongkhapa Day honors a very powerful practitioner so there is great power in the merit of supporting it financially. Supporting this holy day's spiritual practices – whether you are able to attend or not – is an opportunity to collect great merit. If you are sponsoring but not attending, you can offer prayers for those who are participating in the events.

Sponsor the light offerings ($50)

Geshe Gelek will teach on the 12 deeds of Shakyamuni Buddha. These are deeds that all buddhas perform. They are : descending from Tushita Heaven, entering his mother’s womb, birth, studying arts and handicrafts, enjoying life in the palace, renunciation, undertaking ascetic practices, going to Bodhgaya, defeating the negative forces (Mara), attaining enlightenment, turning the wheel of Dharma, entering parinirvana.

Following Geshe-la's teaching, we will have a group reading of the Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra - the Buddha's teaching on emptiness, given on Vulture Peak in northern India. It is one of the most well-known of the Buddha's teachings.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche says:  "(W)e are extremely fortunate, unbelievably fortunate even to be able to hear some teachings on emptiness, the Buddha’s teachings on the wisdom perfection. Even one stanza, not the complete teaching, but even a few lines from the Buddha’s teaching on the Perfection of Wisdom, even just to be able to hear it is unbelievably fortunate, leave aside having the opportunity to meditate, to reflect and to meditate, to study... For us, even if we are unable to practice; even those of us who are unable to practice in our daily life, at least we can leave a positive imprint on our mental continuum, to make preparation to realize emptiness in the near future. Even if we can’t meditate in everyday life, on lam-rim and on the teachings on the Perfection of Wisdom, at least we are able to leave an imprint by reading and by listening, even one time."

Come join in this amazing practice, and take a step toward realizing emptiness!

We will read the Vajra Cutter Sutra "monastery style" -- the pages will be divided evenly among all those present, and then we will all read our pages aloud, simultaneously.

This creates a joyful cacophony, as many voices join in together!  Even though we don't hear it all with our conscious mind, the imprint of the entire sutra enters our mindstreams.