General Spiritual Director
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Apr 15, 2024
Celebrating Buddha's Enlightenment
April 15 is Buddha's Enlightenment Day, when we celebrate Buddha demonstrating how to attain enlightenment. Enlightenment is the inner light of wisdom that is completely free from mistaken appearance and whose function is to bestow mental peace upon each and every living being every day. It is the source of all living beings’ happiness.
Even though he had already attained enlightenment many lives previously, out of great compassion he emanated in our world to demonstrate how we too can follow this path.
Buddha attained enlightenment to free all living beings from suffering
Fulfilling all wishes for happiness
Eventually, through meeting an emanation of Buddha in the form of a Spiritual Guide, everyone will have the opportunity to enter the path to liberation and enlightenment. Buddha's teachings have been given to us through the kindness of our Spiritual Guide, Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche.
In The New Eight Steps to Happiness Venerable Geshe-la says:
The only thing that will never deceive us is the attainment of full enlightenment. It is only by attaining enlightenment that we can fulfil our deepest wish for pure and lasting happiness, for nothing in this impure world has the power to fulfil this wish. Only when we become a fully enlightened Buddha will we experience the profound and lasting peace that comes from a permanent cessation of all delusions and their imprints. We will be free from all faults and mental obscurations, and will possess the qualities needed to help all living beings directly. We will then be an object of refuge for all living beings. Through this understanding we can clearly see that the attainment of enlightenment is the ultimate, supreme goal and real meaning of our precious human life. Since our main wish is to be happy all the time and to be completely free from all faults and suffering, we must develop the strong intention to attain enlightenment. We should think, ‘I need to attain enlightenment because in samsara, the cycle of impure life, there is no real happiness anywhere.
On this day Kadampa Centers everywhere celebrate Buddha's Enlightenment with a special purifying retreat called Nyungnay. Look out for upcoming posts showing these activities.
