Gompa

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, and also free online at Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. Please bring your copy to the memorization class where we'll share advice about memorization and help each other practice.

This Medicine Buddha puja is sponsored for the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting to benefit everyone who died in this tragic event and to promote healing and peace for all sentient beings. This is the 49th day after the shooting, which is a very beneficial time to pray for the people who died and may still be in the bardo about to take a rebirth.

For additional suggestions how to help, CBS DC has a helpful list of agencies and memorial funds that are part of this effort.

On Sundays from 10:30 - 11:45am our resident teacher, Geshe Gelek Chodha, leads the Sunday morning program. It is appropriate for visitors and students of all levels of study and interest in Buddhism. The session includes a brief meditation, prayers, and the rare opportunity to learn from a highly trained Tibetan Buddhist monk. When Geshe-la is away, several senior students typically lead these sessions. If you are unsure when to visit the center for the first time, Sunday is a great time to start. The teachings and prayers are offered in English.

In addition to the teachings, join us for a special holiday celebration as the center gives gifts in the Western holiday tradition to the children who attend, presented by Santa Geshe Gelek. After the Sunday classes, families with their children can visit with Santa Geshe-la in the gompa, and everyone is invited to stay for a vegetarian potluck - to help us make it festive, we encourage bringing a holiday dish or dessert! Christmas lights were hung as an offering on Lama Tsong Khapa day and still decorate the center - a wonderful blend of Tibetan and Western traditions!

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

Join us for this special screening of Being Your True Nature, a new documentary by Osel Hita and Mateo Passagato. It includes footage of Lama Yeshe.  Mark the date (Lama Tsongkhapa Day) - December 8! The movie will be followed by discussion.

More information at: http://www.beingyourtruenature.org/

8th December 2012, Lama Tsongkhapa day, marks the international launch of a new film about universal education for compassion and wisdom, the late Lama Yeshe’s initiative to create a happier and more peaceful world by helping children, young people and adults to develop their natural compassion and wisdom.

The 20-minute film was commissioned by the Foundation for Developing Compassion and Wisdom, an FPMT International Project which develops educational programmes in universal education under the guidance of Lama Zopa Rinpoche. It was shot on location at Institut Vajrayogini in France, is narrated by Osel, and includes interviews with Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa. 

Osel’s aim is “to find new ways in which to discover the true nature of our being” with a particular emphasis on helping young people find happiness and satisfaction. “We have to start with the young children, the young generation…if those people can come into contact with Buddhist philosophy, with spirituality, with empathy, with being more conscious, then that can have a huge impact on the world in the future” he told the FPMT Europe meeting in June 2012. “I’m trying to find a different way for this future generation. One of the ways is through music, movies and audio-visual techniques.”

From December onwards, you can visit the website http://www.beingyourtruenature.org/ where you will find: a link to the movie; information about the directors and producers and additional interviews with some of the cast.

DORJE KHADRO FIRE PUJA Over the course of the year, it's easy to make lots of mistakes with our body, speech and mind. We create harmful karmic seeds from unskillful actions that will eventually ripen as suffering. Kadampa Center's annual New Year's Eve Dorje Khadro Fire Puja, a powerful Mahayana purification practice, offers an opportunity to go into the new year with a relatively clean slate. Bring along family and friends for this fire puja practice where we burn black sesame seeds which symbolize our past negative karmic actions.  All are welcome! We will have black sesame seeds available, however, feel free to bring your own, available at Asian grocery stores.

We will start with prayers in the gompa and then head outside to the fire. It's good to come by 7pm, while sesame seeds last.

This program is offered in-person only.

For an example of the practice and commentary by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, visit Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

Khen Rinpoche Lobsang Delek sent advise that instead of Kadampa Center sponsoring a long-life puja for Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Sera Je, it would be more beneficial if we held it right here at Kadampa Center. (Funds were already raised for this puja.) We will be holding this special Namgyalma Long Life Puja with extensive offerings for the benefit of our precious spiritual director, teacher and guide. The puja will be chanted by the monks in Tibetan, while students recite the short Namgyalma mantra. If you'd like to attend, we suggest bringing a potluck dish to share so we can all eat lunch together, then the puja will begin right after lunch (around 1:00pm).

A movie about Venerable Robina Courtin's extraordinary life.

In a packed 52 minutes, the extraordinary life of this irrepressible dynamo unfolds, racing through the turbulent early years into a kind of Buddhist calm that is glimpsed only when she is quietly telling her mala beads in a railway waiting room or a plane. The rest of the time the focus, the commitment and the fanatical energy remain. She still bumps headlong into her own anger and impatience; she is still intolerant of phoniness; and she can still cry over the unhappy, lonely death of her father.

In a final scene, Ven. Robina says, “I spent my life trying to get what I wanted and nothing stopped me from pushing obstacles out of the way . I was trying to change whole worlds, (to) give up attachment, give up jealousy, give up anger, for me the most sensible thing is to be a nun and after 20 years it is absolutely what I wanted.”

Excerpted from MANDALA magazine

According to Lama Zopa Rinpoche, doing Tonglen meditation "is the most powerful purification for you and also for collecting extensive merit. It is the quickest way to achieve enlightenment and to be able to liberate numberless sentient beings in each realm from the oceans of samsara’s sufferings and bring them to enlightenment."

Come learn about this meditation practice of giving and taking that is part of the lamrim (from the section on bodhichitta). Special guest and FPMT teacher Karuna Cayton will be explaining this important practice of transforming the mind.