Fall Festival 2025 Day 1

International Fall Festival 2025 diaries

Kadampa-Fall-Festival-2025-–-Buddha-Dorje-Shugden-Merged-2x (1)

At International Kadampa Retreat Center

Grand Canyon

International Kadampa Fall Festivals are held at different venues each year; this year we are returning to the International Kadampa Retreat Center near the Grand Canyon in Arizona. For the first time since it opened in 2019 there is a huge international gathering taking place and now, after months of preparations, it is the first day of the Festival.

Day 1 ~ Welcome back to international Kadampa retreat center Grand canyon

After driving through the heat of desert scrub land, past log cabins and a wide variety of cacti, gradually the environment becomes more alpine, with ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, spruce forests and mountains on the horizon. Then just a few turns off Route 66 and the golden 5-tiered roof of the Temple comes into view. It's an impressive and welcome sight and within minutes there are the warm smiles of well organized Kadampa volunteers, directing cars and buses, greeting new arrivals and keeping everything flowing so that everyone can get settled and organized before the first teaching in the evening.

Feature video ~ everybody welcome!

The first day is a whirlwind of final touches for those organizing the Festival, and a chance for new arrivals to get orientated and join in with volunteering so that the magic that is a Kadampa Festival can occur.

time to gather together in the temple

Finally as the light fades, everyone streams into the Temple, taking in the vast shrine and the ornate decorations. Then, sitting all together, we bring our minds in and enjoy listening to Dharma. Gen-la Jampa encourages us that now we are here we can just completely forget whatever worries or problems we had. In this lovely environment we can completely relax and enjoy Kadam Dharma with our international Sangha. He helps us to rejoice in our good fortune to have this incredible opportunity and to appreciate how it is so rare and precious.

The main focus of his teaching is to share how we can use the special OM AH HUM breathing meditation from The New Meditation Handbook to develop a compassionate bodhichitta motivation for receiving the empowerment.

Then, tired from our travels but happy to be here, everyone heads to their beds, some under the stars in tents, some sharing rooms, some taking shuttle buses to nearby hotels. We look forward to cultivating this special good heart in the morning; to receiving the empowerment of Dorje Shugden, the Great Protector, in the afternoon; and to all the Dharma Jewels that we will receive during the Festival from Gen-la Dekyong.