Gompa

Kadampa Center will celebrate Losar, the Tibetan New Year, on Sunday, February 18, with traditional prayer and stories,  hosted by Geshe Gelek, with members of the local Tibetan community.

Milk tea, juice, Tibetan rice, and cookies will be served during the celebration.

There will be no classes for the Family Program -- children are invited to remain in the gompa for the festivities.

Join us for a day of meditation. This is the first in a series of one-day retreats that will be offered this year, each focusing on a particular aspect of the lam rim.

About lam rim: The presentation of Buddha’s 84,000 teachings into a step-by-step method is known as “lam-rim” in Tibetan and can be translated as “graduated path.” Indian and Tibetan masters have offered short texts, prayers, commentaries and extensive texts with instruction, all based on this approach.

About this day: We will focus on meditations to develop renunciation, the aspiration wishing to attain freedom from the bonds of karma and affliction. Specific meditations will be on a review of the lam rim, types of suffering, and mental afflictions. Meditations on the types of suffering help us recognize the nature of our current samsaric existence and thereby help us develop the wish to be free of suffering and its causes. Meditations on our afflictions/delusions help us to recognize our own delusions and to develop the ability to overcome them.

To enable participants to keep focus and concentration, the retreat will be silent other than guided meditations and essential communication. To maintain a stable and peaceful retreat environment, participants should commit to attending the entire day.

All students at any level are welcome. Some will be doing this practice in the context of Discovering Buddhism (DB).

Note about DB: If you are working on the requirements for completing the DB Practice Retreats, the Renunciation meditations are required for Day 1 of the Presenting the Path module and Days 1 and 2 of the Samsara and Nirvana module. Please be aware that these mediations will be guided by a fellow student and not an FPMT teacher, so for DB purposes, your approach is similar to if you were preparing for and practicing independently. However, we offer this opportunity in the center’s spiritual setting with other students with the hope that you find the environment beneficial and to cultivate a supportive environment in which we all practice.

Schedule

Please bring food for your day such as snacks and lunch.

8:30 - Center open, check in, make offerings (bookstore open)

9:00 - 9:15 - General information

9:15 - 10:15 - Session 1

10:15 - 10:35 - Break (Silent)

10:35 - 11:35 - Session 2

11:35 - 12:15 - Lunch Break (Silent)

12:15 - 1:15 - Session 3

1:15 - 1:35 - Break (Silent)

1:35 - 2:35 - Session 4

2:35 - 3:00 - Discussion

Clean up, take down offerings (bookstore open)

To REGISTER, enter or select your name and click the blue Next button. Then, answer a few questions and click the blue Next button. Finally, click the Register button. 

We offer this opportunity on a donation basis so that money is never an obstacle to practicing the Dharma. If you are able, please indicate your donation by clicking on one of the following buttons where you will be led to our secure online system. Thank you!!

Set my own amount

$50 - With Love

$75 - With Compassion

$108 - With Joy

Faith and Family Night with the Carolina Hurricanes

Holding these dates for spring retreat at Noland's.

Medicine Buddha puja is a beautiful prayer service that includes lyrical praises to the seven Medicine Buddhas, requests for their help and aspirations for our own spiritual attainments. It is beneficial for mental and physical healing and world peace, and is especially beneficial for those who are experiencing physical or mental illness or those who have recently passed away. This service is very welcoming to newcomers and beginners. Typically we do Medicine Buddha Puja in English. Anyone is welcome to sponsor a puja and offer a dedication to benefit themselves or loved ones. Sponsor this puja here.

More about the benefits of Medicine Buddha puja

From the Service Manual for Spiritual Program Coordinators, FPMT:

Many eons ago, seven bodhisattvas strongly prayed for the temporal and ultimate happiness of all sentient beings, that their names become wish-fulfilling in order to heal both the mental and physical sicknesses and diseases of sentient beings. They vowed that their prayers will be actualized during these degenerate times when the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha are in decline. When they became enlightened, one of the ten powers of a Buddha is the power of prayer - that means that all the prayers that have been made get fulfilled. As the Buddha's holy speech is irrevocable, you can wholly trust in their power to quickly grant blessings to help all sentient beings in these degenerate times. They are called the Seven Medicine Buddhas, the main one is `Lapis Buddha of Medicine, King of Light'. Buddha Shakyamuni taught the teachings on the Medicine Buddha, and according to one tradition, is also considered as one of the Medicine Buddhas, and hence the Eight Medicine Buddhas.

The seven Medicine Buddhas manifested in order to pacify the obstacles to the achievement of temporary happiness, liberation and the ultimate happiness of full enlightenment. They are powerful in healing diseases as well as for purification. The Medicine Buddha practice can be used to help purify those who have already died and liberate them from suffering. It is also very powerful in bringing about success, both temporary and ultimate.

The reason why the Medicine Buddha practice brings success is that in the past when the seven Medicine Buddhas were bodhisattvas practicing the path to enlightenment, they promised and made extensive prayers to actualize all the prayers of living beings of the degenerate time when the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha are in decline. They generated a very strong intention to become enlightened for this reason; this was their motivation for meditating on and actualizing the path.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche says, "It is very important that the elaborate Medicine Buddha puja with extensive offerings be done regularly. The offerings should be as extensive and as beautiful as possible, and done in order to benefit all sentient beings."

Venerable Khando is away at Shravasti Abbey.

Holding these dates for Ven. Robina visit

Most of us who have studied Buddhist teachings for any length of time have heard a great deal about death. It can be summed up in the simple statement:          I’m going to die, that’s for sure. As we go through our days doing our best to have a peaceful and content mind, we are both living well and preparing for death. When death arrives, the most important thing is to have a peaceful mind, and how we live very much influences how we die. How do we prepare for the inevitable? The prayers and practices that sustain us in our everyday lives can also sustain us at the time of death, but if illness or mental incapacity comes before death, we might no longer be able to study, pray and meditate, and do the practices that have cultivated a peaceful mindstream. Having those practices available to us can help ease the transition from this life to the next.

A Dharma will is a way of making clear to ourselves and others what will be help us have a  peaceful mind when we are sick, dying or have died.

In this one-day workshop, we will learn about the dying process and the elements of a Dharma will, and then prepare our own documents that lay out our wishes and needs.

The morning session will be a brief overview of the death process and the elements in a dharma will.

The afternoon session will be an opportunity to begin deciding and documenting what will support us during this time: What we want to hear, see, touch and taste, the practices, mantras and images we want around us when we are sick, dying and during our time in the bardo.

We will have an outline that we can use as a guide to fill in our personal information. By doing this in a group, we can receive an offer support to all of us within the group.

Anyone is welcome to attend the morning session only and continue their day. We request those who come for the afternoon work session please attend the morning session as well.

We will break for lunch when folks can go out or bring their own and chat.

This workshop led by Venerable Ngawang Khando.

Please register for this event!  We will have printed copies of some the materials, and your registration helps us print enough, but not too many!

     Here are links to useful information:

For use at the workshop:  Buddhist Death

The following links are to sources that are useful for helping another person with dying. They are not part of the workshop.

   Listening Well

  Needs of the Dying