Festival Diaries

It’s been a very special, blessed festival, and now like a pure dream, the festival draws to a close, but leaves everyone forever changed.

After receiving a wealth of teachings, we complete the Festival with a day and a half of retreat beautifully and skilfully guided by Gen Rabten. The emphasis is on the first of the eleven reversals, taking us step by step through the meditation on relying on the Spiritual Guide from the book Mirror of Dharma with additions. He gives everyone a lot of time to contemplate, find their own object of meditation and meditate to deepen our familiarity with that object. Then we engage in the Medicine Buddha Sadhana as an extension of our faith, visualising our Spiritual Guide in this pure, healing aspect. Each day concludes with the Medicine Buddha Prayers, where we use the connection we have made with Medicine Guru to make powerful prayers and visualisations to heal the mental continuum of all living beings.

After another wonderful meditation session on Medicine Buddha we had the final two teachings from Gen-la Khyenrab. In the first teaching he completed the commentary to the practice of the 11 reversals.

Alongside the practice of Medicine Buddha, we are learning about the Eleven Reversals. As Gen-la Khyenrab explained this is another way of dividing up and practising Lamrim.

Everyone is enjoying their spiritual holiday in the beautiful environment of KMC Spain. Venerable Geshe-la often called our festivals spiritual holidays because he saw it gave us a very meaningful opportunity not only to be immersed in the teachings but to enjoy a relaxing time with spiritual friends in a blessed environment

The first full day of festival dawns with beautiful skies lightening from behind the stunning mountain ranges that surround the temple.

Tonight the International Kadampa Fall Festival begins and apart from a few last minute preparations everything is ready to welcome the Festival goers.