General Spiritual Director
Day 2 ~ Welcome home
Jul 26, 2026
Welcome Home
Peaceful Morning Meditation
The first full day of the Festival starts with a very peaceful morning meditation with Gen Rinchung. The Temple is full of happy campers and Kadampas enjoying the opportunity to meditate in a great assembly. Gen Rinchung gives very simple, essential and clear guidance leading us to a determination to transform our minds into suitable vessels for receiving Dharma.
The Festival Rhythm begins
Coming Home
The Festival rhythm begins and there is a feeling of being home. Physically at our spiritual home, the mother center of the New Kadampa Tradition and Venerable Geshe-la's home for so many years. Also at home with our Kadampa family, gathered together to meditate, listen to Dharma and work together in joyful harmony.
On a deeper level there is a coming home to the inner experience of Dharma and a feeling of connection to our Spiritual Guide deep within. Festivals give us perfect conditions for our spiritual life to come alive!
A Special Enjoyment
Advice from Geshe-la
At the beginning of the teachings Gen-la Sangden shares some beautiful advice given by Geshe-la many years ago at the beginning of a Festival.
"This Festival is our special enjoyment; not a worldly enjoyment but an enjoyment of holy Dharma. We should regard ourselves as spiritual friends or as brothers and sisters of one spiritual family. Gathered together for a spiritual reunion, we should regard the mother center as our spiritual home, because it is the mother center of the New Kadampa Tradition. It is your home."
Overcoming delusions
Finding Happiness inside
Gen-la Sangden helps us to understand where that enjoyment comes from: from developing peaceful minds through practicing Dharma. Over two sessions of teachings Gen-la Sangden leads us skillfully through the essential meditations of the initial and middling scopes of Lamrim - the stages of the path to enlightenment. She reminds us of so many important things: our precious human life, the real meaning of enlightenment, to check what we are really wishing for, and to not be satisfied with temporary freedom from particular sufferings.
She encourages us using Venerable Geshe-la's words to not seek happiness outside, but to seek happiness inside, and that our happiness should not be dependent on others. By improving ourself, improving our capacity and wisdom, then we can benefit others.
A Beautiful Day
Gathering together
It's a beautiful day and it's still not over. As it's the 25th of the month, the day concludes with Offering to the Spiritual Guide prayers in the Temple. Thousands of voices in unison, thousands of minds remembering the kindness of Venerable Geshe-la and powerful communal prayers radiating out into the world.
It's good to be Home
A Joyful Community
There's something truly special about coming together at a Festival at the Mother Center. It's a time to reconnect, celebrate, and experience the joy of community.
