Gompa

Our Spiritual Director, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, encourages students to take the Eight Mahayana Precepts on holy days. They must be taken for the first time with a qualified teacher, and then can be practiced on any day. Those who have taken precepts previously from a teacher can take them as a group at the Center, or at home, at “first light” (6:00 am). Geshe-la will not be available this Sunday, so the ceremony will be for those who have taken precepts before with a qualified teacher.

Students who have not previously taken precepts and wish to request taking them with Geshe Gelek, please contact program@kadampa-center.org for more information.

For more information about the Eight Mahayana Precepts practice, please read Lama Zopa Rinpoche's commentary The Direct and Unmistaken Method.

On this holy day honoring the Buddha's first teaching, Wheel Turning Day, it's particularly powerful to do practice. The center will be open all day for individuals who would like to come and do individual practice in the gompa. Group practices in the morning will be precepts (more information is below) at 5:00am followed by a light breakfast. After breakfast, probably around 7:00am, students are encouraged to stay and recite the Golden Light Sutra to benefit Lama Zopa Rinpoche's health and long life. If you can't come to the center, please read the Golden Light Sutra and dedicate it to Lama Zopa Rinpoche, then report your recitation(s) to program@kadampa-center.org so we can pass that along to FPMT International, where all the practices done by centers around the world are being collected and offered to Rinpoche.

Precepts

Our Spiritual Director, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, encourages students to take the Eight Mahayana Precepts on holy days. They must be taken for the first time with a qualified teacher, and then can be practiced on any day. Those who have taken precepts previously from a teacher can take them as a group at the Center, or at home, at “first light” (5:00 am). 

Students who have not previously taken precepts and wish to request taking them with Geshe Gelek, please contact program@kadampa-center.org for more information. 

For more information about the Eight Mahayana Precepts practice, please read Lama Zopa Rinpoche's commentary The Direct and Unmistaken Method.

Meditation has many benefits - one of which is helping us to be mindful of our thoughts, speech, and actions throughout the day. Start your morning right with an hour of meditation. The session begins with a brief guided meditation with the rest of the time in silence for individual practice. Everyone is welcome, and no prior experience is necessary. Find the calm space in your mind to face the day with a positive and happy attitude!

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.

Many hands and hearts are needed to volunteer for the new Kadampa Center Care Squad. Please come join us on Saturday, March 9, at 1pm, for a one-hour introductory meeting to learn more about volunteering for this program. The program is meant to support our Kadampa Center community members when we  face difficulties of body with one-time/short-term needs.  Initially, we are seeking volunteers to fill our database of potential helpers. For example, tasks might include cooking a meal for someone after surgery or driving someone to a doctor's appointment. Once we have some volunteers committed to the project, we will then begin to match members who have specific needs to those volunteers who may be able to help.

Geshe-la has taught that supporting our community is an important practice. With the Care Squad, we can help provide another layer of support for each other. Please consider joining in this effort.

At this time we are not yet prepared to receive requests from members seeking support. As soon as we have taken the inventory from volunteers of what we can offer, we will send another email announcing that the Care Squad is open for business.

If you have any questions or are interested in volunteering but unable to attend this meeting, please contact Sheila Parker, Care Squad Coordinator, at caresquad@kadampa-center.org.

On behalf of the Habitat for Humanity Interfaith Initiative and Kadampa Center, you are all invited to our Interfaith Movie Night at the Kadampa Center for Tibetan Buddhism on Sunday June 9th at 6PM.

The film we will be watching is called "I Am," and it will inspire each and every one of you.  You'll laugh; you'll cry; you'll want to build a house :)

Grab your family and friends, and please join us for a fun, uplifting night!  Here is a link to the film (although the trailer doesn't do it justice):

http://iamthedoc.com/

And yes, there will be popcorn!!

For more information, contact Elise or Patti via outreach@kadampa-center.org.

There will be a special Medicine Buddha puja at 1:30 p.m., Thursday, January 24 at the Kadampa Center for Theodore Meyer who passed away recently. This puja is sponsored by his parents. Please join us to empower our prayers for Theodore's quick and pleasant journey through the bardo and happy rebirth.

Our Spiritual Director, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, is a precious jewel who guides all the centers in the FPMT and is a dear teacher to us. Geshe Gelek consulted with Khen Rinpoche Lobsang Delek (also the abbot of Sera Je) about the best offering for Lama Zopa Rinpoche's health and long life, and based on this advice we will be doing the pujas and mantras here at Kadampa Center. We raised the funds and had the first puja in October, and are pleased to have our second puja during Monlam Chenmo (Days of Miracles). 

The Geshes will be chanting a Chittamani Tara puja in Tibetan, while everyone else chants Namgyalma mantras. (That way everyone can attend and participate, even if they do not have a Chittamani Tara initiation.) We'll also have extensive offerings set up, thanks to the generosity of the many sponsors of these pujas.

If you can't be there on Sunday, you can still practice from home at the same time by saying the Namgyalma mantra:
OM BHRUM SVAHA / OM AMRITA AYUR DA DAI SOHA

In order to reach enlightenment, we have to put the teachings into practice - walk the talk. The foundation of practice in our lineage is the lamrim - the step-by-step guide to enlightment. Lama Atisha organized all the Buddha's teachings into this graduated path, and later teachers wrote additional commentaries and texts based on Lama Atisha's instructions.

Geshe Gelek has recommended memorizing texts on the lamrim to be used as a meditation tool in daily practice, especially for students of the Wednesday night class. (If you are not meditating on the text reguarly you will quickly forget it and it wil be wasted effort.) He suggested we start with a short lamrim text, Lama Tsong Khapa's Foundaton of All Good Qualities. Once students have the basics, we can move up to memorizing a more detailed lamrim outline.

The prayer is found in FPMT's Volume One Prayer Book, as a .pdf or ebook download.  It is also free online at Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive but is a slightly different translation than we will be using. Please bring your copy to the memorization class where we'll share advice about memorization and help each other practice. We've had one sesssion already, so this class will be to see how far people were able to memorize and help each other complete it. The goal for completing memorization is the Day of Miracles, February 25th.