Gompa

This month's Management Team meeting will be held online only.

Practices to Develop Lamrim in Our Minds continues online!
Because of the coronavirus, Kadampa Center is remaining closed for gatherings, but we will offer the remainder of this course via online streaming on either Zoom or YouTube.
The course will be streamed on Wednesday nights at 7 pm and will last about 45 minutes. We're sorry, but there will be no option for Q&A.

Registration is required to attend the session via Zoom.

You can access the YouTube streaming at:  https://www.youtube.com/c/MediaKadampaCenter

Lama Tsongkhapa's Lamrim presents the entire path to enlightenment in a step-by-step fashion. Geshe Gelek advises that beyond study, we need meditation and thoughtful engagement in the text in order to have realizations.  Hearing the teachings is just the first step. In addition, we need merit-making practices to open the doors to deeper understanding. These include the great preliminary practices of prostrations to the 35 Confession Buddhas, Vajrasattva practice, making mandala offerings, and reciting the refuge and bodhicitta prayer.

In these practice sessions, we will combinethese preliminary practices, with additional prayer and meditation on selected lamrim texts.

For the online practice sessions, you can download the Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga and Lamrim prayers  from FPMT's Foundation Store

You may also choose to simply listen and meditate on the meaning of the prayers.

The evening will include:

Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga and meditation

Purification practice (on alternating weeks, we will do prostrations to the 35 Confession Buddhas and Vajrasattva practice)

Mandala offerings

Analytical meditation on selected lamrim texts

as well as other prayers

Led by Venerable Lhamo

Discovering Buddhism: Refuge in the Three Jewels continues online!
Because of the coronavirus, Kadampa Center is remaining closed for gatherings, but we will offer the remainder of this course via online-only streaming.
The course will be streamed on Monday nights at 7 pm and will last about 45 minutes. We're sorry, but there will be no option for Q&A.
You can access the streaming at:

This class is led by Robbie Watkins

Investigate what "samsara" is and how we are stuck in it. Find out what "nirvana" is and how to achieve it. Learn how to be free from suffering and empower yourself with practical tools to deal with and eliminate disturbing emotions forever. This course is offered online via YouTube streaming or Zoom. Registration is required for Zoom participants. Click here to register. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Samsara and Nirvana is part of a two-year series of classes called Discovering Buddhism. In this course we explore 13 essential topics in Buddhism, from Meditation to Karma to Death and Rebirth, with much, much more! This is an excellent course of study for those who have the very basics and wish to start going a little deeper into Buddhist philosophy.

DB was developed by our affiliate organization, the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition, and is taught at Kadampa Center by senior lay students with many years of study and practice. Students who take the course together tend to develop great friendships with their Dharma buddies!

In keeping with our long-standing tradition, Kadampa Center does not charge a fee for any Dharma course. These teachings are too precious to allow money to be an obstacle for anyone to hear them!  We do, of course, have expenses to offer the course, so we happily welcome any heart-felt donations.  No pre-registration is required.

Led by Stephanie Smith

Learn the disadvantages of self-cherishing and the advantages of cherishing others. Learn to employ the special techniques of mind training (lojong) to transform problems into happiness. This course is offered online via YouTube streaming or Zoom. Registration is required for Zoom participants. Click here to register. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Transforming Problems is part of a two-year series of classes called Discovering Buddhism. In this course we explore 13 essential topics in Buddhism, from Meditation to Karma to Death and Rebirth, with much, much more! This is an excellent course of study for those who have the very basics and wish to start going a little deeper into Buddhist philosophy.

DB was developed by our affiliate organization, the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition, and is taught at Kadampa Center by senior lay students with many years of study and practice. Students who take the course together tend to develop great friendships with their Dharma buddies!

In keeping with our long-standing tradition, Kadampa Center does not charge a fee for any Dharma course. These teachings are too precious to allow money to be an obstacle for anyone to hear them!  We do, of course, have expenses to offer the course, so we happily welcome any heart-felt donations.  No pre-registration is required to stream on YouTube.

Led by Robbie Watkins

During the month of March, we will offer some exciting special programs on Sunday mornings, during the 10:30-noon period. Here's what to look forward to:

March 1 – We return to Lama Yeshe's wise and witty teachings on the Three Principal Aspects of the Path, part 2, in a video presentation.

March 8 – Women in Buddhism, Past and Present.  A brief look at some inspiring women practitioners of the Dharma,  with meditations.  
Led by Donna Seese

March 15 – Bodhicitta Mindfulness – how to bring more mindfulness into everyday life.  Led by Sandy Carlson

March 22 – Cultivating Patience for Ourselves and Others 
Led by Erin Sloan

March 29 – Practicing Non-violent Communication. 
Led by Barb Baranski

Lama Tsongkhapa's Lamrim presents the entire path to enlightenment in a step-by-step fashion. Geshe Gelek advises that beyond study, we need meditation and thoughtful engagement in the text in order to have realizations.  Hearing the teachings is just the first step. In addition, we need merit-making practices to open the doors to deeper understanding. These include the great preliminary practices of prostrations to the 35 Confession Buddhas, Vajrasattva practice, making mandala offerings, and reciting the refuge and bodhicitta prayer.

In these practice sessions, we will combinethese preliminary practices, with additional prayer and meditation on selected lamrim texts.

The evening will include:

Lama Tsongkhapa Guru Yoga and meditation

Purification practice (on alternating weeks, we will do prostrations to the 35 Confession Buddhas and Vajrasattva practice)

Mandala offerings

Analytical meditation on selected lamrim texts

as well as other prayers

Led by Venerable Lhamo

Jim Davis, a long-time leader and participant in our Sunday morning Meditation Circle, passed away February 13. The interfaith memorial service will be co-led by Venerable Ngawang Khando and The Rev. Dr. Jonathan Jeffries of Horne Memorial United Methodist Church in Clayton.

The service will include a presentation of full military honors.

Lhabab Düchen is one of the four major Buddhist holy days of the year. On this day, we celebrate the Buddha’s return to beings in our realm after a three-month separation. During that separation, he had gone to the God Realm of Thirty-Three, a higher realm where his mother was reborn after giving him birth, in order to repay her kindness by giving teachings to liberate her from samsara. His teachings in the God Realm of the Thirty-Three also benefited the Arya Beings who lived there.

As a Buddha holy day, this is an auspicious day for practice, when the karmic effects of actions are multiplied one hundred million times, according to our Spiritual Director, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, citing the Vinaya text The Treasure of Quotations and Logic.

Lhabab Düchen occurs on the 22nd day of the ninth month on the Tibetan lunar calendar.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, encourages students to take the Eight Mahayana Precepts on holy days. For more about the practice of precepts, please read The Direct and Unmistaken Method by Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Rinpoche advises many other practices on holy days as well.

We will celebrate with a Shakyamuni Buddha Puja at 1 pm on Zoom.

Registration is required to participate. Please register here.

Students who have previously taken the Eight Mahayana Precepts from a qualified master are encouraged to take them at home before their altar.

Create merit by sponsoring a Holy Day event!  Sponsoring spiritual events is beneficial on many levels. It benefits the Center by providing the resources to offer the event; it benefits the students who attend the event, and it benefits the donor by deepening the practice of generosity and creating the causes to meet the Dharma again in the future.

Sponsorship of a Holy Day puja is $125, and of general Holy Day events and activities, it's $108.

Supporting the Holy Day event is a two-step process

Step One  is dedicating your generosity (click here).

Step Two  is making the donation or sponsorship (use the button below on this page)

Dedications may be very simple - "For my mother, Rosemary" - or they might encompass more extensive spiritual wishes, such as "May these teachings be the cause to liberate all sentient beings," or wishes for the teacher's long life, to benefit a person who is ill - any heart-felt positive intention!  You also can dedicate for more than one intention.

Sponsor Holy Day Activities $108

Sponsor Holy Day Puja ~ $125