Gompa

The visiting monks from Sera Je Monastery will perform a Medicine Buddha puja from 2:00-3:00pm. This healing practice can benefit anyone who is ill or dying, and help bring peace of mind and body. It will be chanted in Tibetan, and students and visitors are welcome to come and go at anytime during the ritual. 

There will be a Medicine Buddha sand mandala on display during the puja. At 3:00pm, there will be a closing ceremony where, with a remembrance of impermanence, the sand mandala will be deconstructed and taken to a body of water to be dispersed. Some of the blessed "sand" will be available to attendees with instructions how it can be used in Buddhist practice.

The Sera Je monks are touring to raise funds to benefit the Sera Je Secondary School. In addition to accepting donations, they will have available for purchase a variety of gifts and Tibetan imports for sale.

A 100-Offerings Hayagriva puja will be performed by visiting monks from Sera Je Monastery for the health and long life of our Precious Teacher and Spiritual Director Lama Zopa Rinpoche, as well as for the success of Kadampa Center. Hayagriva, while wrathful in appearance, is actually a deity of great compassion and one of the aspects of Avalokiteshrava. It's an important practice performed for His Holiness the Dalai Lama and for bringing world peace. The puja also has many added benefits, such as removing obstacles for projects, and helping people who suffer from illness (particularly strokes) and spirit harm. The puja will last several hours and be chanted in Tibetan. Visitors and students are welcome to come and go at anytime during the ritual, as well as during the day to see the ritual preparations.

The Sera Je monks are touring to raise funds to benefit the Sera Je Secondary School. In addition to accepting donations, they will have available for purchase a variety of gifts and Tibetan imports for sale.

You won't want to miss this documentary film!!!!

If you have wondered about:

• how to be fully alive and not just living into your later years
• the fear of getting old
• how to create a sense of community

If you love Rock 'n Roll:

• Hear songs from Coldplay, The Clash, James Brown and more like you've never heard it before - and will never listen to the same way again!

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/young-at-heart/

Compassion is the basis for all of the Six Perfections, and of all our practices - from daily prayers to tantra. Our goal is to develop the wish to become enlightened in order to free all sentient beings, otherwise known as bodhichitta. While teachings such as the lamrim give us a starting point, it really requires meditation to bring that knowledge from the head to the heart, which makes it a "realization." Please join special guest Venerable Tenzin Legtsok as he explains several methods how to meditate on compassion. No prior classes are required.

Ven. Legtsok is currently studying in the Geshe program at Sera Je Monastery (which is Geshe Gelek's monastery), and has a close connection to Kadampa Center. Ven. Legtsok grew up in Virginia, and was ordained in 2001. He has been leading classes at Choe Khor Sum Ling Tibetan Buddhist Meditation and Study Center in Bangalor, India, since 2004.

Our gompa space will be unavailable with the statue filling and blessing activities (which are quite messy and take up the whole room). We apologize for the inconvenience, and the schedule returns to normal on Monday.

Instead of the weekly 9:00am teaching, we will be having a special prayers ceremony to consecrate statues and holy objects. Statues had to be registered in advance and prepared on Saturday, however anyone may bring other altar items for blessing such as thangkas, prayer flags, and malas (please label all items with your name - many look similar and we want them to get back to their correct homes). A table will be set up in the gompa for these items (starting August 18th) which must be brought in before the ceremony starts. Please pick up your blessed object as soon as possible after the ceremony ends. The prayers will be chanted in Tibetan, and everyone is invited to come listen and meditate during the ceremony. It's recommended you attend if possible if you have a holy object being blessed.

Private teachings for students who requested instruction on Lama Tsong Khapa Guru Yoga

Guru Puja is a practice consisting of making offerings to and requesting inspiration from the Spiritual Master. Spiritual vows and commitments which might have degenerated are also restored through the practice of tsog offering (feast offering). In this practice, we unite our minds with the holy mind of the Spiritual Master, who is considered the root and life-force of the spiritual path in order to receive blessings and generate realizations on the path to enlightenment.

We need merit, or positive energy, for our enlightened potential to grow and become perfect and one of the best ways to do that is to make beautiful offering and prayers to the Three Jewels and to our Spiritual Teachers. This is what happens in the Guru Puja. A special type of offering called tsog is made. Here we offer platefuls of fruits and biscuits, which are distributed afterwards to the participants. The tsog can be eaten by oneself or shared with friends who have faith in the Three Jewels, but should not be given to animals or thrown in a dirty place.

Written by Ven. Sangye Khadro

The center will not be holding a puja, but according to the Tibetan calendar it is the day for performing tsog offering (and is a commitment for anyone with a Highest Yoga Tantra Initiation according to Lama Zopa Rinpoche).

Special guest Mr. Lobsang Nyandak, Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to the Americas, will present a talk on the current affairs in Tibet. The oppression of the Tibetan people and culture affects everyone in our community because it threatens the lineage, holy sites, and practice of Tibetan Buddhism, so it is important to be informed. It is also quite an honor for such a distinguished representative ot visit our center, so please come if you can. Light refreshments will be served after the program.

Mr. Lobsang Nyandak assumed the post of Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to the Americas in September 2008. Previously, from 2001 to 2006, Mr. Nyandak served as a Cabinet member of the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala, India. As a Cabinet member, he headed the Department of Information and International Relations, the Department of Finance and the Department of Health. He implemented Prime Minister Samdhong Rinpoche’s policy of privatization of the Tibetan exile economy.

Prior to his appointment to the Tibetan cabinet, he served as a member of the Tibetan Parliament, and also held executive positions with various Tibetan NGOs: in particular, the Tibetan Youth Congress, the National Democratic Party of Tibet and the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy.

He was the first Executive Director of the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, one of the premier institutions that track and promote human rights and democracy for Tibetans.

Mr. Lobsang Nyandak holds Bachelor’s degrees in Political Science and Education from Punjab University, Chandigarh, India.

About Ryan

Ryan Draper was born in Durham, North Carolina on March 8, 1983.  In 1990 he and his family moved to Chapel Hill.  He has Duchenne muscular dystrophy a neurological disease that causes his muscles to progressively weaken over time.  Despite this illness he has always had an affinity with animals and the natural world.  He attended Carolina Friends School in Durham.  He graduated from high school in 2002.  He then attended Elon University studying Environmental Sciences until the travel became too much.  Then he transferred to UNC Chapel Hill and switched majors to Native American Studies because he thought it related well to nature.  In 2011 he began work at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham where he displays insects and arachnids to the public.  He began taking Discovering Buddhism classes last year.

About Wednesday Night Class

Lama Atisha organized all of the Buddha's teachings into a step-by-step guide how to become enlightened in a short text called "Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment." Lama Tsongkhapa (the founder of our Gelugpa lineage) wrote a detailed explanation of Lama Atisha's text to help students understand and practice the instructions called The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment (Lamrim Chenmo). This lamrim foundation is the basis of all practice in our lineage, including tantra. These incredible teachings by Geshe Gelek on this text is probably a once in a lifetime rare and precious opportunity, and likely to span a couple of years. This class is open to all students and you can join anytime, but be sure to prepare by reading the first volume of the Lamrim Chenmo, available in Kadampa Center's bookstore (proceeds benefitting the stupa project) or many online book sellers.

In addition to the teachings by Geshe-la, part of class time will be devoted to discussion. This is an important part of learning and practice - to check that we heard the instructions correctly and understand them, and, if not, to ask questions of the teacher the following week.