January retreat season is fast approaching and today we begin a round up of upcoming retreats. Here we feature two six-week mountain retreats, one at IKRC Grand Canyon with Gen-la Jampa and one at Kailash IRC with Gen Devi.
The Fall Festival is now over. What an extraordinary week! Here is one last video and a chance to look back over the week and to share with others some of the highlights of this amazing event.
The Festival draws to a close. Thank you Gen-la for such precious teachings and thank you to the other Teachers, translators, and everyone else who made this auspicious event possible. But most of all thank you Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche. Without you none of this would be possible. In every respect, this Festival has appeared from your heart.
Watch as the preparations are put in place for pouring the Temple floor, with masses of steel reinforcement being laid and bound together. Soon the trucks will come!
On the final day of teachings and the first day of the retreat, Gen-la reminded us that everything appearing for us throughout this Festival and beyond is coming from the great kindness of our Spiritual Guide, Venerable Geshe-la.
The groundwork is finished and the concrete is poured. The foundation for the new Temple is laid!
We are learning about the power of prayers made by sincere practitioners with good hearts. And at this Festival we are experiencing this power directly as over 4,000 people around the globe join in praying to heal the world. But in addition to this great meaning, there is another huge benefit of the International Festivals – all the profits are dedicated to the International Temples Project to build more Temples for World Peace and urban Temples to bring this precious Dharma to future generations.
At the Fall Festival teaching on Medicine Buddha, Gen-la reminded us that everything is created by mind and so by using Tantric technology such as this, with faith, conviction and our Guru’s blessings, we can use our wisdom imagination to become a pure being in reality.
Yesterday, Medicine Guru appeared for us to bestow special blessings to transform our body, speech and mind into those of Medicine Guru through the power of Tantra. In a powerful and blissful empowerment, Gen-la Dekyong explained that when the world is pervaded entirely by problems and dangers due to uncontrolled minds and inappropriate actions, the practice of relying on the Medicine Buddhas is so important.
What better preparation could we have had than the extraordinary introductory teaching Gen-la gave last night? And with a beautiful rainbow appearing over the Temple just before the teaching. Today, at 16.00 UK time, Gen-la will grant the blessing empowerment of Medicine Buddha! How wonderful. How extraordinary!
General Spiritual Director
