News from the post Fall Festival retreats ~ Part 2
Nov 16, 2024
16 August 2021
With the International Summer Festival 2021 now completed this is a great time to look back over the Festival Diaries for Weeks 1 & 2
Through the great kindness of Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche, the Founder of these Festivals, for the very first time the Summer Festival will be hosted and broadcast from multiple locations around the world simultaneously.
Last night, Gen Thekchen opened the 2021 Summer Festival online with an inspiring introductory teaching setting the scene for this extraordinary event. And today, Gen-la Dekyong will grant the empowerment of Dorje Shugden. How wonderful!
First we learned to listen well and thus create perfect inner conditions for the empowerment of Dorje Shugden. Then yesterday we received this extraordinary empowerment from Gen-la Dekyong. It was so clear, so accessible and so transforming!
Yesterday we enjoyed two extraordinary teachings by Gen-la Dekyong on essential Kadam Lamrim as transmitted to her by Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche. The teachings were so clear, so powerful, so inspiring. They touched the hearts of so many people around the world very deeply.
Yesterday Gen-la Dekyong completed her extraordinary presentation of Kadam Lamrim with two more powerful and inspiring teachings. Thank you Gen-la for such a precious gift to the world. And thank you Gen-la Kunsang for leading such wonderful meditations this week.
Empowerment, teachings & meditations, and then retreat. Following this special sequence introduced by Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche, yesterday we entered into a brief retreat to absorb the meaning of the teachings we have received.
In Week 2 of the Festival we will receive the Highest Yoga Tantra empowerments of Heruka & Vajrayogini and commentary to the practice from Gen-la Kelsang Jampa, NKT-IKBU Deputy Spiritual Director. Through receiving these empowerments and teachings we will be introduced to the very essence of Kadampa Buddhism and the quick path to enlightenment.
As Gen-la Jampa said yesterday, the first day of the empowerments, Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche has an extraordinary ability to transform the unusual situation in the world today into an opportunity for more and more people to meet Kadam Dharma and feel its beneficial influence in their lives.
Yesterday was a very special day in many ways, with 6,000 people in 70 countries receiving the empowerment of Heruka body mandala granted online for the very first time. It is almost impossible to find words to describe this extraordinary day.
Following the extraordinary empowerment of Heruka body mandala, yesterday Gen-la Jampa granted the empowerment of Venerable Vajrayogini in her sindhura mandala. There are no words!
Yesterday, Gen-la Jampa began a series of six teachings as brief commentaries to the practices of Heruka and Vajrayogini. The teachings on the practice of Vajrayogini yesterday felt like another empowerment! Faithfully following the teachings of Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Gen-la’s instructions were extraordinarily clear and profound.
Yesterday Gen-la completed a brief, essential commentary to Vajrayogini and began an equally powerful and inspiring commentary to the practice of Heruka body mandala based on the sadhana The Yoga of Buddha Heruka. The day concluded with a powerful worldwide Offering to the Spiritual Guide puja, with a special dedication to the long life of Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche.
Yesterday, with two extraordinary teachings on Heruka body mandala, Gen-la Jampa’s teachings drew to a close. Teachings that, though extremely profound, were presented in such a practical way that everyone felt empowered and eager to engage in the practice.
Yesterday, thousands of people around the world came together to meditate for world peace. We meditated on a peace that for most people is impossible even to imagine – the deep peace of Guru Heruka’s mind.
The 2021 Summer Festival was remarkable in so many ways. It is as if we have experienced a modern miracle. A global community of over 6,000 people came together virtually to enjoy the very essence of modern Kadam Dharma, including for the first time ever, the HIghest Yoga Tantra empowerments of Heruka and Vajrayogini transmitted online.