General Spiritual Director
Day 4 ~ Practicing for Others
Jul 28, 2026
Cherishing Others
How to Make Ourselves Happy
Gen-la Sangden helps us to take to heart Venerable Geshe-la's advice that during this spiritual holiday we should learn how to make ourselves happy and that cherishing others is the method for doing this.
There is no doubt that even temporarily this is the most important practice in human society. It doesn’t matter whether religious or non-religious - we should all do this to make ourselves happy.
Connect with Others
Strong Intention to Benefit All Living Beings
The Joy of Benefitting Others
Putting the Teachings into Practice
Everywhere between sessions we see the results of people putting the teachings into practice. The whole goal of Lamrim is to become someone able to benefit each and every living being every day, able to alleviate suffering and taking responsibility for Dharma to flourish in the world.
Here at the Festival we not only have a holiday from our ordinary lives in order to learn more Dharma but it also gives us the opportunity to work actively for Dharma and benefit others more intently. It is an uncommon characteristic of Kadampa Festivals that everyone joins in with the running of the Festival.
At the end of each session hundreds of people get into position for their areas, keeping everyone safe, fed and cared for in countless ways. We see how interconnected we all are and have the opportunity to experience the happiness of working selflessly for the benefit of others. We discover the joy, power and meaning of benefitting others and how it protects our mind from suffering.
It also leads to a lot of rejoicing and appreciation of the kindness of others. Everywhere you look you see it in action: people looking out for each other and being in the service of each other in myriad ways.
The Three Study Programs: The Foundation for Practicing Tantra
with Gen-la Sangden
Exchanging Self with Others
Others' Happiness and Freedom is Important
Gen-la Sangden encourages us to commit to the profound practice of exchanging self with others, thinking others’ happiness and freedom are important, and on the basis of this deep love for others to put it into practice in our daily lives. First we change our view, then we change our intentions and finally our actions naturally change.
This is the beauty of Lamrim. Through meditating on the path to enlightenment in a regular, systematic way we not only prevent deluded patterns of thinking, feeling and acting from arising but we also replace them with strong and stable virtuous patterns based on wisdom rather than ignorance. Day four is all about wisdom, and Gen-la shares clear, insightful teachings on ultimate truth emptiness, together with helpful stories and analogies.
Beautiful Teachings
Dedications to Receive Deep Inner Experience of the Teachings
The teachings finish with beautiful dedications and prayers and thousands of heartfelt requests to gain deep inner experience of the teachings we have received.
Thank you Gen-la Sangden, Gen Rinchung and most of all thank you to our kind Spiritual Guide, Venerable Geshe-la, for giving us the gift of Kadam Dharma and our International Festivals.
Now we look forward to some days of retreat.
