In 1959 Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche entered into a three-year retreat on the Tibetan Nepali border. He named his retreat house ‘Tharpaland’, which means ‘Land of Liberation’. Later Venerable Geshe-la established an international retreat center for modern people called ‘Tharpaland’. Now based in the beautiful setting of Schloss Sommerswalde just outside Berlin, Tharpaland International Retreat Centre is a major institution within NKT-IKBU that hosts a full programme of retreats open to everyone, including the three-month Snows Retreat in the winter.

A magical journey with Gen-la Dekyong

Last weekend Tharpaland hosted the 2018 German National Festival entitled ‘A journey to peace and happiness’ with Gen-la Kelsang Dekyong, the General Spiritual Director of NKT-IKBU.

Gen-la granted the empowerment of White Tara and gave blissful teachings on the New Eight Steps to Happiness. She explained that the real meaning of ‘Happiness’ in the title of Venerable Geshe-la’s book is the pure everlasting happiness of enlightenment, so we should use our human life to realize this potential and not be satisfied with the temporary pleasures of worldly enjoyments. ‘There is so much more we can accomplish in our daily life,’ she said.

Gen-la also encouraged us to look around at all the beneficial conditions we enjoy, from the center itself to the books and programs and the qualified teachers and always remember that all of this emanates from the compassionate heart of the holy Spiritual Guide and constantly think, ‘May I become just like you.’

As you can see from these amazing photos it was a truly magical event.