International Festivals

Please enjoy and share all the wonderful featured videos that appeared on the Video Wall during the 2020 International Summer Festival

After the Festival play, The Life of Buddha, Gen-la Kelsang Dekyong gave this concluding talk, formally bringing the 2020 Summer Festival to a close and leaving us thoroughly inspired for the journey ahead.

On the final day of the 2020 Summer Festival we enjoy the play of the Life of Buddha and a beautiful talk given by Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche in 2009. As Venerable Geshe-la says in his talk, the play encapsulates the life of Buddha in dramatic form and teaches us how to live a meaningful life by following his example. It is the perfect way to end the Festival.

In every respect this has been an extraordinary Festival – an epic spiritual journey taken by thousands of people of many different nationalities and cultures travelling together under the guidance of kind and skillful Teachers.

With this extraordinary Festival entering its final phase, yesterday we joined Kadam Morten at KMC New York City for three days of blissful retreat on Arya Tara and Kadam Lamrim. Following step by step each piece of advice, we will have a chance to develop a strong and sincere wish to attain enlightenment, and the determination to follow our Spiritual Guide until we achieve enlightenment.

Gen-la explained how the joy of our Kadampa life comes directly from Venerable Geshe-la. From one point of view it is impossible to repay our Spiritual Guide’s kindness, but from another point of view we can greatly delight him by offering our practice of Kadam Lamrim and helping Dharma to flourish to the best of our ability.

Yesterday, Gen-la Jampa began four teachings on Kadam Lamrim based on the famous text Advice from Atisha’s Heart. Atisha is the original author of Kadam Lamrim. He was very close to Tara and she promised him that in the future she would take special care of his followers. For Kadampas, therefore, this is a special opportunity to receive core teachings that are the very backbone of our tradition.