Through the great kindness of Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche, this evening at 19.30 UK time, Gen-la Kelsang Dekyong, General Spiritual Director of NKT-IKBU, will begin the 2021 Fall Festival with an introductory teaching. Then in the following days she will grant the empowerment of Buddha Green Tara and give teachings on the very blessed Tara practice, The Path to Heaven.

How wonderful! Last night almost 3,500 people around the world came together virtually to listen to Gen-la Kelsang Dekyong’s opening teaching of the 2021 Fall Festival. Gen-la explained that she was going to teach a very rare practice based on the commentary given by Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche in 1997. Teachings she described as a ‘banquet of delight.’

Yesterday, thousands of people around the world received a profound and blissful empowerment of Buddha Green Tara from Gen-la Dekyong. Gen-la began with an introduction to Tara, who is an emanation for the wind element of all the Buddhas . . .

Today is Je Tsongkhapa Day, a special day in the Kadampa Buddhist calendar when we remember the great kindness of Je Tsongkhapa and celebrate the union of Je Tsongkhapa and our Spiritual Guide. And we reflect deeply on our great good fortune at having met such a precious Teacher and received the blessings of this unsurpassed tradition.

Yesterday Gen-la gave another two extraordinary teachings. In the first she taught how to gain deep familiarity with the practice over many sessions, each time staying longer with the experience of our mind mixed with the bliss and emptiness at the heart of Guru Tara, our destination. And in the second – how to understand the emptiness of the self.

Yesterday, we received the concluding teaching of the Festival in which Gen-la Dekyong gave an explanation of the fifth basis of the path to liberation, ultimate truth emptiness. In the afternoon, the Festival moved into a different mode as we sat with Gen Rabten to take the precious teachings to heart in the first retreat sessions.

With the last two sessions of retreat this morning, the 2021 International Fall Festival draws to a close. Now is the time to take all these wonderful teachings and meditations into our daily life. As Gen-la said, to go back to our centers and continue our study and practice, but most of all, continue sharing this precious Dharma with our local community by helping with the work of our center.