German Dharma Celebration 2008
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German Dharma Celebration ~ “The Great King of Dharma Protectors”
This year’s German Dharma Celebration was held at Berlin’s Dipankara-Zentrum – a wonderful farewell party bringing our time in the heart of Berlin to an end! Three weeks before moving to KMC Germany at ‘the Castle’ people from all over the country gathered together to receive the empowerment and commentary to the practice of Dorje Shugden by Gen Kelsang Ananda, National Spiritual Director of the NKT-IKBU in Germany and Resident Teacher of KMC Germany. With almost all Resident Teachers of Germany and their Sangha coming to help, the celebration was a very smooth and joyful occasion. It felt like a beautiful Kadampa family meeting under the care and protection of Dorje Shugden.
The celebration began with an introductory talk given by Gen Kelsang Repa, Resident Teacher of Bodh Gaya-Zentrum in Stuttgart, stressing out the importance of relying on Dorje Shugden as our Dharma Protector. She reminded us that in the face of difficulties we have the choice: either we become frustrated and unhappy, or we rely on Dorje Shugden’s blessings and try and use whatever we experience to develop a spiritual motivation. During the empowerment Gen Kelsang Ananda explained that our Spirtual Guide Je Tsongkhapa appears as Dorje Shugden to protect his doctrine. Dorje Shugden is helping us to gain, deepen and stabilise the realisations of the Kadam Dharma in our heart. When we come to recognise the eminent qualities of Kadam Dharma we can rejoice in having such a powerful Dharma Protector. With his wisdom blessings we can transform all situations into the path by applying meditation to whatever appears. Finally we will come to feel that there are no adverse conditions to our spiritual development left, everything helping us to move forward along the path to Enlightenment.
Deeply moved and empowered we had the good fortune to engage in a one-day retreat on the practice of “Wishfulfilling Jewel”. Although it is a familiar practice to most of us we all felt deeply inspired by the detailed instructions we received – now we know much better what we were often just reciting. What remains of this very blessed weekend is the joy to have such good Teachers, such a great Sangha and the conviction that there’s nothing better to do than to rely on Dorje Shugden!
