Dorje Khadro Fire Puja (online and at home)

This powerful Mahayana purification practice lets us start the new year with a clean slate. In this fire puja, we burn black sesame seeds symbolizing our past negative actions. It’s a potent experience to watch our negative karma go up in smoke! Dorje Khadro is a deity who purifies our negative karma by consuming it in the form of black sesame seeds.

Because of the pandemic – another example of the ripening of negative karma – for the first time, we will not hold this practice in person at the Center.

Instead, we’ll do part of it together online and part on own at home. We'll start online (see below for links), with an explanation by our director, Robbie Watkins, of the practice and of the visualization to do while burning the seeds. Geshe Gelek will lead us through the actual practice, then each participant can burn their seeds at home – in the fireplace, the fire pit, or the barbecue grill. 

A little advance planning is necessary:  pick up some black sesame seeds in advance at an Asian grocery, or nowadays a lot of regular grocery stores do too. If you can't get the sesame seeds, you can simply write down the negativities you want to purify, and burn them instead. If you don't have access to a fire, visualize! 

Here’s the mantra we’ll say while burning the seeds:

OM VAJRA DAKA KHA KHA KHAHI KHAHI SARWA PAPAM DAHANA BAKMI KURU SOHA

The practice will be accessible through both YouTube and Zoom. Please register here for Zoom.

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