It’s the day before the Summer Festival, and it is a very special day: today is the ordination ceremony with Gen-la Dekyong.

It's day one of the Festival, and there are happy, peaceful and busy Kadampas everywhere. People are greeting each other fondly, happy to meet again and looking forward to spending one or two weeks together immersed in Kadampa life.

Our International Kadampa Summer Festival 2025 begins in earnest in the most wonderful way, with a day dedicated to contemplating the deep meaning of refuge, culminating in a beautiful, extremely blessed and powerful refuge ceremony.

The overarching theme of the Festival is how to be a Kadampa, a qualified Kadampa practitioner that strives to emulate the pure examples of our Kadampa Iineage Gurus, and especially the pure example of our own Spiritual Guide.

Kadampa Festivals are really very unusual and wonderful as holiday destinations. The real holiday location is the inner pure land of Lamrim and the real enjoyment is our own genuine happiness and peace that comes as our mind concentrates on virtuous objects.

Today we received teachings on contentment from Gen-la Jampa: how to be satisfied with our inner and outer conditions with a good motivation, how to let go of the endless discontent that drives us to constantly seek and never find satisfaction in external things. Our endless scrolling, our endless acquiring.

The Festival Retreat is a powerful and peaceful experience, providing an opportunity to concentrate in silence and in the company of thousands of people. Everyone is sincerely trying to generate these virtuous intentions and maintain them in their mind.

We are very fortunate at this Festival to be in such a blessed environment, surrounded by exquisitely detailed images of enlightenment that uplift our minds. Even from the back of the Temple, the shrine is radiant. Up close, you can spend a long time taking in the individual Buddhas on the hand-painted thangkas or the carefully crafted statues arranged on the shrine.

It is the free day at the Festival, the midpoint between week 1 and 2. Those staying the whole period use the free day to rest a little, to absorb the teachings from week 1 and to reset ready for week 2. It is also a chance to get practical things done: to do laundry, get some shopping in town or communicate with loved ones back home.

It's a beautiful sunny day and there is a happy anticipation in the air that this afternoon we will meet Mother Tara in the empowerment with Gen-la Dekyong. To prepare we engage in a series of meditations with Kadam Bridget Heyes to develop our compassionate motivation into a strong wish for enlightenment, so that we have the actual power to help others.

The day begins with a meditation on faith in Arya Tara, guided by Kadam Bridget, together with Liberation from Sorrow chanted prayers. As a great assembly of practitioners we sing together in unison, the Kadampa Temple fills with faith and devotion, a powerful expression of our collective reliance on the Enlightened Mother Tara.

At the heart of the New Kadampa Tradition are the Collected Works of Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche. His wisdom and compassion appear in words that teach and guide us along the path, illuminating the Dharma of past Buddhist masters and making it practical and accessible for modern day practitioners.

Alongside receiving teachings and deeping our understanding and practice of Dharma, Kadampa festivals allow us to have many auspicious meetings and some truly unique opportunities.

This calm period of retreat lends itself to quiet moments in the Temple, peaceful walks under the green canopy of the trees in the woodland areas, or enjoying the vast spacious views of Morecambe Bay at the beach. Although many people continue to work joyfully together to run the Festival, there is stillness in the midst of busyness. Such is the magic of retreat!

The day began with several sessions of retreat on Advice from Atisha's Heart with Gen Rabten. We continued to enjoy the opportunity to take the meaning of the advice deeper into our hearts. It is incredible how happy developing and strengthening pure intentions makes us.

Although our Festival is nearing completion, due to the 24 hour Tara practice we are literally meditating and dedicating throughout the day and the night.

Summer Festival 2025 has been very powerful and special. Now, as we near its completion, it is ending so strongly. Following the collective effort of attending the six sessions of the Tara retreat, on the final morning everyone is happy and grateful to gather again in the Temple to make a beautiful thanking offering to our precious Spiritual Guide and Founder, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche.