SPIRITUAL: Special Class

Kadampa Center is offering a year-long series of workshops on many aspects of death and dying. The first Saturday of each month at 1pm, we will meet to focus on one important topic to help us make our own life more meaningful by preparing for our own death, to support our practice as caregivers, to explore Buddhist tools for approaching death, and prepare all the worldly details that accompany this process here in America: working with the healthcare system and insurance, preparing our will, etc.

The first workshop, entitled "Thinking about Death – A Workshop for All of Us," will be held Saturday, June 1, from 1-3pm at the Center. No registration is required and this series is offered on a donation basis.

Please join us starting in June for this important series of workshops. If you have any questions, please email Venerable Choekyi at support@kadampa-center.org.

Death and Dying Library

Additionally, our Death and Dying Resource team has been hard at work to prepare a library specific to this topic. As part of Kadampa Center's main library, in the bookshelf just to the left of the main library shelves, is a section of books, DVDs, and handouts focused specifically on aspects of death and dying. As with all books in the Center library, members are welcome to check out these resources.

If you have any items you'd like to donate to the Death and Dying Resource Library, we are looking for books and audio and video resources on caregiving, living with illness, dying, death, and grief. We are not in a position to take resources about specific diseases, such as a diet for cancer patients or a cure for arthritis. Items should be either Buddhist or nonsectarian in nature.

Resources to be donated can be brought to the center and marked for Sylvia or clearly labeled "Death and Dying Resources".  We will take a look at your kind donation to determine if it is something we can use in the library. Please clearly indicate if you want the resource back if it is not something we can use in the library. If you would like to purchase something for the library, please contact Sylvia directly.

If you have any questions about donating items, please contact Sylvia Hill at l09h0314@yahoo.com.

In response to requests from students who want to take refuge and lay vows, Geshe Gelek will give this special teaching about what it means to take refuge in the three jewels and how to practice the five lifetime lay vows (in brief: avoiding killing, lying, stealing, intoxicants, and sexual misconduct). Everyone is welcome to attend, but it's strongly recommended for anyone interested in taking any of these commitments in preparation for when the ceremony is actually offered.

This class is restrcited to students who have taken Highest Yoga Tantra vows - the material related to this practice requires a certain level of background and the commitment of the vows. Examples of Highest Yoga Tantra are Chittamani Tara, Guhyasamaja, Vajrayogini, Heruka, Yamantaka, etc. If you took a lower tantric initiation, you did not take these vows, so this class is not appropriate for you.

For those who have taken the vows, it is critical to learn how to keep them purely and the importance of purifying mistakes. Geshe Gelek will be offering this very special class to help us gain a clearer understanding how to keep our tantric vows.

The commentary Geshe-la will be using has not been translated into English, so there's no text to bring, but it would be a good idea to have a copy of the vows to refer to during class, such as The Three Sets of Vows from FPMT.

It is strongly recommended that you bring a bag lunch, and use the day as a short retreat, spending the break discussing the teachings and preparing questions for the afternoon teachings.

This class is restrcited to students who have taken bodhisattva vows - the material related to this practice requires a certain level of background and the commitment of the vows. For more information about the bodhisattva vows, the former abbot of Kopan Monastery, Khen Rinpoche Lama Lhundrup, gave this teaching of a basic explanation of the 18 root bodhisattva vows: http://www.lamayeshe.com/index.php?sect=article&id=616

For those who have taken the vows, it is critical to learn how to keep them purely and the importance of purifying mistakes. Geshe Gelek will be offering this very special class to help us gain a clearer understanding how to keep the bodhisattva vows.

The commentary Geshe-la will be using has not been translated into English, so there's no text to bring, but it would be a good idea to have a copy of the vows to refer to during class, such as the Bodhisattva Vows book from FPMT.