Refuge at Christmas

Many Kadampa centers offered short retreats and courses over the Christmas period, giving people space to cultivate peaceful minds of love and compassion while enjoying the companionship of their spiritual friends. Here you can see the events at Tharpaland KMC, KMC Austin, KBC Samudra and KMC Barcelona.

Tharpaland Kadampa Meditation Center

To fulfil Venerable Geshe-la's wish, Tharpaland KMC opened its doors for a special Christmas event for people who wished to experience Christmas away from normal. Gen Gogden, Resident Teacher at KMC Karlsruhe, kindly guided four days of retreat with the title "Peace - the Best Gift" focussing on the meditations on compassion.

People from Berlin and other close-by areas came and stayed for this retreat which was based on the practice of "Prayers for World Peace".

In between sessions friendships were refreshed or new ones made, along with traditional Christmas meals on Christmas eve and on Christmas day.

Many guests already blocked off time to come back next Christmas. 🎄

Kadampa Meditation Center Austin, Texas

KMC Austin had a full house for our holiday service. Candles were lit and Tara prayers were chanted in English and Spanish. A new center tradition!

Samudra Kadampa Buddhist Center

Samudra KBC inLausanne began their Christmas with an advent calendar! Every day we took a card from the calendar and discovered a verse from the inspiring Request to the Lord of all Lineages prayer. Our year ended with powerful teachings and the Wheel of Life movie, which inspired us to practice Dharma in 2024.