Lama Yeshe Ling

Lama Yeshe Ling is a small Dharma Centre in Ontario, Canada with a big heart. We are a multi-location community with programs offered in the cities of Toronto, Kitchener/Waterloo, Oakville, Hamilton, and Burlington, and due to very generous benefactors, for the past year we have rented a home near Lake Ontario which we call The Centre for Compassion & Wisdom. If there is anything different about Lama Yeshe Ling, it is that most of our members, including most of our volunteers, don’t necessarily consider themselves to be Buddhist.
 
The story of Lama Yeshe Ling begins in 2000 when Lillian Too introduced a friend from Toronto to Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Rinpoche offered her gifts, asked her to start a study group in Toronto, and gave the study group the name Lama Yeshe Ling. Lama Yeshe Ling did appear in Mandala Magazine for a few issues, but not much happened and eventually the study group in Toronto was closed. 
 
Our next chapter begins when Venerable Thubten Wangmo came to live with Lynn Shwadchuck in Kitchener Ontario for several months, attracting a regular group of about 20 people to the teachings she offered while she was there. After Venerable Wangmo’s visit, and after doing the Medicine Buddha retreat with Lama Zopa Rinpoche in 2001, Lynn started a study group in Kitchener with the Discovering Buddhism program. Lama Yeshe Ling took rebirth.
 
In 2002, Dekyi-Lee Oldershaw moved back to Ontario from the Chenrezig Nunnery in Australia to care for her father and started teaching monthly Dharma classes in Oakville and Healing workshops in Oakville, Burlington and Hamilton. Lamp on the Path, a non-profit organization with an Essential Education and Healing mission arose from Dekyi-Lee’s work. Many people from this fledgling community attended His Holiness the Dalai Lama's Kalachakra teachings and initiation in Toronto in 2004. In 2005, Lamp on the Path hosted the Maitreya Project Heart Shrine Relic Tour in Burlington and this group of friends, with an Essential Education rather than Buddhist orientation, worked together in regular meetings for months planning for the Relic Tour. An important feature of these meetings was the extensive motivations, visualizations and dedications, which provided guidance, energy, and a sense of goodness and purpose. The results of these meetings were close friendships and a strong sense of community. 
 
Directly after the Maitreya Project Relic Tour, Dave Gould started a Discovering Buddhism group in Hamilton and several months later the Oakville and Hamilton classes asked to become a study group. FPMT Centre services (Claire Isitt at that time) asked us to join with Kitchener Waterloo to become Lama Yeshe Ling also, making us a multi-location study group. 
 
Another defining event occurred when Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche accepted Dekyi-Lee’s request to come to Lama Yeshe Ling to teach in the summer of 2006. A similar planning team formed to host Rinpoche’s visit. Ultimately, Kirti Tsenshap Rinpoche transformed into Lama Zopa Rinpoche when Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche became seriously ill shortly before the time he was to arrive in Canada from Israel. What a time that was! Lama Zopa Rinpoche taught for most of the 10 days he stayed here. Several months after that, we again hosted the Maitreya Project Relic Tour. Lama Yeshe Ling graduated from being a Study Group to becoming a Dharma Centre in 2008 in order to welcome Geshe Thubten Sopa of Arya Tara Institute in Germany to come and teach here. Geshe-la stayed with us for five months and then continued his travels.
 
Because of Dekyi-Lee’s interest and emphasis on Essential Education and healing, we have reached a large number of people in the Oakville-Burlington-Hamilton areas who embrace the values and practices of compassion, wisdom and healing, without considering themselves to be Buddhist. Recognizing the crucial need for being inclusive and the importance of supporting and being supported by so many good hearted people, we created The Centre for Compassion & Wisdom. Among other things, this has given us an Essential Education vehicle for offering the inaugural 16 Guidelines for Life facilitator training in North America. Lama Zopa Rinpoche recommended the 16 Guidelines written by the ancient Tibetan Dharma King Songsten Gampo as one of the first Essential Education projects.
 
Having a Centre named after Lama Yeshe is special: I recall when Lama Zopa Rinopche visited here, Venerable Tsenla related how Rinpoche was always very pleased to say "Lama Yeshe Ling" – how wonderful! So it may seem curious that we would create an additional name, The Centre for Compassion & Wisdom. Yet as well as traditional Buddha Dharma, we feel connected with Lama Yeshe’s mission for Essential (Universal) Education: preserving the essence of Buddha's teaching without the barriers of language, culture or tradition, in order to effectively reach and inspire far more people. We are discovering how to be an Essential Education FPMT Centre as we go, with all the usual joys and lessons of any Dharma centre. Interestingly, despite our universal outlook, a popular ongoing program we offer is the weekly puja (alternating between Tara, Chenrezig, Medicine Buddha and Vajrasattva) where friends gather to bask in the glow of the expanding good heart, supported by all the holy beings, and for all of our events we dedicate always to be guided by Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Lama Yeshe, in accordance with the wishes of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

 

 

Lama Yeshe Ling Tibetan Buddhist Group is an open hearted community that empowers people to discover and develop their inherent potential for compassion, wisdom and inner peace.  In fact, that is our mission statement. We offer programs in various sites from Toronto west to Kitchener/Waterloo and south to Hamilton, and maintain The Centre for Compassion & Wisdom in Burlington, Ontario, Canada.

Lama Yeshe Ling is part of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) an international Tibetan Buddhist organization started by two Tibetan masters, Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche in the 1960's. In the early years, FPMT was a tightly-knit family of a handful of students looking for answers and two ground-breaking lamas who had profound answers to give. It grew as students decided to bring back what they had learned to their local communities, and FPMT centres began springing up around the world. We are now an international community of over 150 centres, retreat centres, publishing houses, monasteries, and social service projects, and we are still a family.

The Lama Yeshe Ling community is particulary drawn to His Holiness the Dalai Lama's example of authentic practical compassion and wisdom. Recently His Holiness the Dalai Lama said this about Lama Zopa Rinpoche and the FPMT.

 "May whoever comes into contact with this community discover what they are truely seeking; be it healing, friendship, meaning, confidence, an entryway into deeper understanding, a vehicle for kindness, or simple good-hearted fun."

Teachers

 

Gurus

His Holiness the 14 Dalai Lama of Tibet

Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Lama Yeshe, Founder of the FPMT
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Spiritual Director of the FPMT Lama Yeshe, Founder of the FPMT

Guru is from the Sanskrit; it means “heavy, weighty.” A guru is someone who is weighty in the sense of having a substantial presence, someone weighty with good qualities. A qualified Guru will be able to teach you from their own imediate, experiential realizations, because they have become a living embodiment of the Buddha's teaching. This sublime quality inspires, allowing you to open up and discover Dharma truths, and your own true nature easily and without confusion.

A relationship with a Guru is different from being a student of Buddhism in relationship with a Buddhist professor or Dharma instructor or meditation facilitator.  The Guru represents your own potential physically manifest to your senses; the Guru provides direct access to your own latent Buddha potential. The Guru is not only what you seek outside of yourself (through a healthy relationship with your Guru), but is what you seek inside yourself (through a deep heart commitment and practice of his or her teachings and advice). Problems you may have with your Guru amount to problems you have with your own Buddha potential so it is traditional to carefully evaluate a candidate Guru prior to making a heart comittment.

Whether the Guru, who is the active expression of the buddhas’ infinite kindness, manifests to us as a teacher of the Dharma or in the form of ordinary beings, situations, even inanimate objects in our life, whatever the outer form, the guru always serves to reveal to us our minds, our best and worst inner natures, so that we can grow in wisdom and compassion, and surpass our limitations on the path to awakening. It is simply up to us to open our minds to these manifestations of the Guru in our lives.

Teachers

Geshe Sherab of Kopan Monastery, Nepal

 
Geshe Sherab, Kopan Monastery, Nepal
 Amy Miller (Ven. Lobsang Chodren) Ven. Connie Miller

Geshe Sherab Biography

Geshe Sherab is the young, fluent in English, Headmaster of Kopan Monastery, Nepal, the spiritual centre of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT).  He has lived for several years in the U.S. also, so he is familiar with North American culture, and knows how to relate to the western mind when teaching the Dharma.

Born in Nepal of Tibetan parents, Geshe Sherab received his education at Kopan Monastery from the time he was a boy, and completed his studies at Sera Je Monastic University and at Gyume Tantric College in India. He has lived in the USA working at the FPMT Central office and several nearby Dharma Centres in New Mexico. He returned to Nepal after several years in the U.S.A. to become Headmaster of Kopan Monastery.  Geshe-la has just retired from the Headmaster role in order to have more time to devote to meditation and to teaching internationally.

 

Manadala magazine has a story of Geshe Sherab here.

You can download and listen to several recordings of Geshe Sherab teaching here.

Several community members have met and studied with him personally and two share their impressions of him below...

Suzanne Rhodes met Geshe Sherab two years ago at Kopan Monastery where he ran the English reading groups that she participated in with the young monks.  She writes...

"He's amazing, warm hearted, generous, accessible, and articulate.  He also spent an afternoon going through the Eight Verses of Mind  Training that he zipped through in 2 hours!  He's extremely concise  yet so humorous.  He kept punctuating the important bits by stopping  and asking ‘did you get it? did you get it?’ while laughing.  This  happened so much throughout his teaching that it became our own way  of underlining stuff in our discussion group as it really seems to stamp  ideas and concepts onto the mind.  He is so easily understandable as  his English is great and we really enjoyed him as a teacher because  of his light hearted presentation".

Florence Sicoli also met Geshe Sherab at Kopan during a meditation retreat there last October. She writes....

"I offer here two brief personal observations about Geshe Sherab. During his teachings, a quality that really impressed me is his  enthusiastic intellect. This surfaced when students asked questions, particularly difficult questions. Geshe-la seemed to delight in engaging students in heart-felt debate, very much in the style of the animated  monks’ daily debates in front of Kopan’s main gompa. This is not to  say that he presented himself to us as all knowing. On the contrary, he  frankly admitted if he did not know the answer to a question and quickly added he would consult with his colleagues. Then he would return the  next day to tell us what he and the senior monks had discussed about  the question. I really admired Geshe-la’s dynamic approach to explaining  and discussing dharma".

"Also, during a private meeting when I sought advice from him on a family issue, I found Geshe-la to be very approachable and conducted himself  with a wise, gentle demeanour. He quickly grasped my issue, and his  counsel has helped me develop the compassionate mindset necessary  for me to find positive, respectful ways to approach this ongoing issue."

Here is a portion of an interview with Geshe Sherab taken from the online edition of The Hindu, one of India's national newspapers.

"Love and compassion will help destroy the ‘inner terrorist’ of each person and this purging of negativity from individuals is the only lasting solution to hatred, bigotry and terrorism", Geshe Lama Thubten Gurung (Geshe Sherab) of Kopan Monastery (Nepal) has said.  He was speaking after inaugurating the Pre-Parliament Summit of the Parliament of the World’s Religions to be held at Melbourne, Australia, in 2009. The Summit was organized here on Sunday by the School of Bhagavad Gita.

"Rules and regulations can bring only an outer peace, that too temporarily. If there is hatred and the feeling of revenge inside man’s mind, it is bound to come out some time and then outer peace will disappear. Real peace has to come from a person’s mind", he said.

 

Facilitators

 

Program Facilitators

 
Carmen Orlandis-Habsburgo
Carmen has a background in theatre dance and movement, Goddess devotion and shamanism. She recovered from a long illness using Transformative Mindfulness which is now at the core of her practice. Carmen is a certified 5 Tibetan Yoga and Transformative Mindfulness facilitator, and completed the 16 Guidelines for Life Intensive in November 2008 with Dekyi-Lee Oldershaw and Alison Murdoch.
 
Cynthia Nelson
Cynthia, aka Sham Rang, has a B.Ed and is an experienced educator. Cynthia was propelled by a life threatening illness into a reassessment of her life and now views this illness as the true beginning of her journey into self-awareness and accessing the wisdom of her own body. She continues, with ever increasing awareness, to appreciate the richness and beauty of the physical experience. Certified to teach the 5 Tibetan Yogas and Kundalini Yoga, and to facilitate Transformational Fantasy and Transformative Self-Healing, she currently co-facilitates meditation courses for SIVAM and teaches yoga in Hamilton.
 
Dave Gould
Dave has studied and practiced Dharma since 1984 and became a committed practitioner in the Tibetan tradition in 1993. He has done several month-long retreats with Lama Zopa Rinpoche and leads the Discovering Buddhism program in Hamilton.
 
Dekyi-Lee Oldershaw
Dekyi-Lee is the Director of The Centre for Compassion & Wisdom and Lama Yeshe Ling Tibetan Buddhist Group and is a former Tibetan Buddhist nun. She is the co-author of the book 16 Guidelines for Life, developed Transformative Mindfulness, and is an international trainer of facilitators in 16 Guidelines for Life, Transformative Mindfulness and 5 Tibetan Yogas.
 
Frankie Worobec
Frankie is a retired nurse.  She has had an interest in meditation for several years.  She has completed a 10 week course in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction
 
Fred Roland, Hwiemtun
Fred, Hwiemtun, is from the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island, with a Coast Salish mother and Hawaiian lineage father. He spent many years learning traditional ways from local elders and grandparents, indigenous tribes of Canada, South America, Asia and the West Indies. He shares these teachings, stories and songs in schools and universities internationally and has led youth cultural exchange programs by taking Metis and Caucasian youth to share with tribes in Guyana, Dominica, Peru, Germany and the Amazon. He has been a custodian of the Maitreya Project Relic Tour in North America and Asia.
 
Dr. Gareth Sparham
Dr. Sparham received a PhD in Asian Studies at UBC and was a Buddhist monk for 25 years, studying at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Dharamsala, India. Dr. Sparham has translated a number of books including Khunu Lama’s ‘Vast as the Heavens, Deep as the Sea’.
 
Hart Jansson
Hart began working in the humanitarian field after a 25-year career in telecoms software. Hart has been involved in micro-enterprise and nutrition improvement for the last six years with Malnutrition Matter which is currently involved in nutrition improvement projects in more than a dozen countries, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Hart’s main experience is with nutrition projects in rural India, which began on a volunteer basis in 1989. Hart has been a meditator for over 30 years and has taken various teachings with Buddhist Masters including Lama Zopa, with an Advaita Master, Ramesh Balsekar (Mumbai) and with Dr. David Hawkins (Arizona). He is a trained 5 Tibetan Yogas and Transformative Mindfulness facilitator, and completed the 16 Guidelines for Life Intensive in November 2008 with Dekyi-Lee Oldershaw and Alison Murdoch. 
 
Janice Barrett
Janice is a Reiki Master and Shamanic Healer who has been teaching the 5 Tibetan Yogas daily for a number of years. She studied with Dekyi Lee Oldershaw and feels honoured and blessed to be able to pass these teachings on to others.
 
Judy Horsley
Judy is a retired college professor who found her true spiritual home in Buddhism after attending teachings and Kalachakra initiation with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 2004. She continues to study and explore ways to put Buddhist values into practice.
 
Judy Mair
Judy is a certified facilitator of 5 Tibetan Yogas and Transformative Mindfulness. She has been teaching 5 Tibetan Yogas classes in Hamilton and Burlington for over three years.
 
Katie Keenleyside
Katie is a former elementary teacher, a certified facilitator of Transformative Mindfulness and 5 Tibetan Yogas, and a Hatha Yoga teacher and Phoenix Rising Yoga therapist. Katie completed the 16 Guidelines for Life Intensive in November 2008 with Dekyi-Lee Oldershaw and Alison Murdoch. Katie is currently the Centre’s Registrations Coordinator
 
Kelly Watt
Kelly studied with Lama Yeshe in the 1970’s and brings many years of practice specializing in Vajrasattva.
 
Laurie Dolan
Laurie has combined her career in the Corporate IT world with her interest in people engaging in their potential for a fulfilling life through developing her personal interests as a Certified Myers Briggs and Personality Dimensions Facilitator, and a CTI trained coach. Laurie is a certified 5 Tibetan Yoga facilitator and completed the 16 Guidelines for Life Intensive in November 2008 with Dekyi-Lee Oldershaw and Alison Murdoch.   Laurie is currently the Centre’s Volunteer Coordinator, 16 Guidelines Program Coordinator and Program Co-director. 
 
Lesia Tymochenko
Lesia is an experienced educator and a certified facilitator of Yoga, 5 Tibetan Yogas, Transformative Mindfulness and Meditation. Currently she facilitates meditation classes and has completed the 16 Guidelines for Life Intensive with Dekyi-Lee Oldershaw and Alison Murdoch.
 
Gen Ngawang Choklay
Ngawang was born in Tibet, is a scholar monk trained at Kopan Monastery in Nepal then Sera Je Monastery in India. He has translated and taught in Germany and Spain; has lived and taught in the Toronto since 2005.
 
Roxanne Campbell
Roxanneis a certified facilitator of the 5 Tibetan Yogas and Transformative Mindfulness.
 
Sean Hillman
Sean received his degree from U of T in East Asian Studies, was a Tibetan Buddhist monk for 13 years and studied at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Dharamsala India. He now coordinates the Lama Yeshe Ling Toronto Study Group.
 
Sheilagh Mercer
Sheilagh is a certified facilitator of Transformative Mindfulness and 5 Tibetan Yogas, as well as Hypnotherapy and Reiki. Sheilagh completed the 16 Guidelines for Life Intensive in November 2008 with Dekyi-Lee Oldershaw and Alison Murdoch. Sheilagh has over thirty years experience as an artist and art instructor in floral arts, illustration and wood carving and has taught in various places including Sheridan College.
 
Shelley Urlando
Shelley is a certified facilitator of Transformative Mindfulness and Meditation. Shelley completed the 16 Guidelines for Life Intensive in November 2008 with Dekyi-Lee Oldershaw and Alison Murdoch. She has run experiential learning programs for youth, including Mindblast for Kids, Mindblast for Youth, 16 Guidelines Retreat for Youth, which incorporates a variety of fun experiential visualizations, meditations, simple breathing techniques, co-operative games, journaling and creative expressions through art that bring about a deeper understanding and meaning to life experiences.
 
Sonia Urlando
Sonya is a high school student preparing to go into university in journalism. She is the first youth facilitator of Transformative Mindfulness in Canada, trained by Dekyi-Lee Oldershaw. She has co-facilitated teen retreats based on the 16 Guidelines for Life as well as Transformative Mindfulness.
 
Sonya Janssens
Sonya is an Early Childhood Educator who has been working in the child care field for over 15 years. Sonya completed the 16 Guidelines for Life Intensive in November 2008 with Dekyi-Lee Oldershaw and Alison Murdoch.Her view of children as intelligent, capable and compassionate is reflected in the philosophy of the 16 Guidelines for Life and the program she has implemented into the child care program at the McMaster University Child Care Program.
 
Una West
Una is a Holistic Practitioner and Workshop Facilitator, and is certified by Dekyi-Lee Oldershaw in Transformative Mindfulness and 5 Tibetan Yogas.  Una completed the 16 Guidelines for Life Intensive in November 2008 with Dekyi-Lee Oldershaw and Alison Murdoch She has had her own private practice in Dundas for the past 13 years.
 
Valerie Spironello
Valerie is a social worker in health care. She privately offers Wellness Counseling. Valerie has been studying meditation with teachers such as Dekyi Lee Oldershaw, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Saki Santorelli and Tara Brach. In 2008 Valerie studied “Mindfulness Meditation in Clinical Practice” with Michael Stone of Centre of Gravity, Toronto. Valerie was a co-facilitator in Transformative Mindfulness with Dekyi Lee.  She leads a meditation class at Shanti Yoga Studio in Hamilton.
 

 

 

 

 

Centre for Compassion and Wisdom

Centre for Compassion and Wisdom. 

Mission, relationship, distinction to Lama Yeshe Ling etc.

This page could simply point over to http://lamayesheling.org/oakville_burlington_group, which has until now existed in the Programs section, but in any event there may be some wish to revision this material.

 lets try a little edit here.

Hamilton

Hamilton Discovering Buddhism Study Group

This group has taken a pause to integrate what they have learned in the past year for January and February 2012 and will resume in April. Please call to confirm actual date or check this site.

The Hamilton study group discusses and practices Buddha's teachings at an introductory level, based on the Stages of the Path to Buddhahood from the FPMT program called Discovering Buddhism.

By donation

For questions please contact Lama Yeshe Ling at (905)-296-3728.

Location and Directions

The Discovering Buddhism discussion group in Hamilton meets at the Blue Heron Dharma Centre.

The Blue Heron Dharma Centre:
74 Alpine Avenue
Hamilton, ON


View Larger Map

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Centre for Compassion & Wisdom Oakville/Burlington

Our Oakville/Burlington Group now meets at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Burlington

Anyone is most welcome to participate in any activities of this group, begun originally in Oakville when they were led by Dekyi Lee Oldershaw, former nun and founder of Lamp on the Path. The Centre for Compassion & Wisdom now holds meditation courses, events at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, 3455 Lakeshore Road, Burlington, ON (west of Walker’s Line).

Programs designed to deepen compassion and wisdom for those not interested in traditional Buddhism are offered by the Centre.

Check our Calendar and our Home Page for dates and further details. For events that require advance registration, please call us at 905 296-3728 to leave a voicemail and we will contact you to confirm your registration.

The Centre Shop

SHOP HOURS:  The Shop is open whenever the Centre is holding an event....which is most evenings. Please drop by when you come for an event and check us out!  Prices are reasonable and cash and cheques accepted.

The next time you visit the Centre please check out our great little shop. A new shipment of books and jewellery and other items from Nepal have just arrived.  There are “OM Mani” rings, bracelets, hand-crafted prayer beads/malas, incense, postcards & handmade greeting cards, photos, beautiful Tibetan embroidered hanging brocades and hemp bags & wallets, silk shawls, Buddhas, Tibetan singing bowls, CD’s, katas/silk white blessing scarves, Buddhist rings and pendants, batik prints, original framed art and much more.

From Malaysia we have an assortment of full length as well as wrist malas made of crystal, tiger eye, quartz, amber, green stone and lapis lazuli (from $8 to $60); new CD’s: The Heart Sutra, Om Mani Padme Hum, The Chant of Metta (Loving-Kindness), Medicine Buddha Dharani, The Wisdom of Manjusri Bodhisattva, The Great Compassion mantra, and Mantra of the Green Tara; hand-held & table mounted Om Mani Prayer Wheels; Tibetan sacred art tables, and for those of you wishing to advance your mantra and or prostration counting to the next level, handheld electronic digital counters.

Thanks from our Centre Shop co-ordinator volunteers.

Waterloo

Kitchener Waterloo Study Group

 

The Lama Yeshe Ling Tibetan Buddhist Study Group in Kitchener/Waterloo has been meeting for over 8 years.

After the summer break, our KW group had its first meeting on Sunday September 18th, and will be meeting again on Sunday, October 2nd from 9:30 to 11:00 am for discussion and meditation. After Thanksgiving, this group will meet weekly on Sunday mornings. Please contact Jean McFarlane at 519-578-7228 for location details. By donation

The Lama Yeshe Ling Board of Directors

Lama Yeshe Ling is a non-profit organization which means it has a volunteer board of directors.

The board members are:

Laurie Dolan (President), Frankie Worobec (Chair), Deborah Seigel (Centre Director/Manager), Theresa Horak (Treasurer), Joan Urquart (Secretary) and Dave Gould

The board meets about once every two months. 

As well as the board, there are teams for planning programs, publicity, and special events.  If you are interested in getting involved, consider visiting our volunteer page.

 

Practices

These are the practices we do or have done, on a regular basis at Lam Yeshe Ling.

Chenrezig

We practice Chenrezig or Avalokiteshvara in Sanskrit - the Buddha of Compassion about once a month.

 

More to come...

 

Diamond Cutter Sutra

We have practiced the Diamond Cutter Sutra, with group recitations, and by the Sutra Circle for success in some of our projects, on the advice of Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

For more detail on this Sutra, and to download this sutra, visit here.

 

 

 

Five Tibetan Yogas

Five Tibetan Yogas

 

Green Tara

Green Tara

More to come...

Guru Puja

Guru Puja

Heart Sutra

We recite the Heart Sutra prior to most teachings.

 

You can download a copy of the Heart Sutra here.

 

 

 

Lam Rim

Lam Rim Meditation with Guru Shakyamuni Budha

More to come... 

Medicine Buddha

We do a group practice of the Medicine Buddha healing practice about once a month.

You can download a copy of the text we use,  from a page of advice Lama Zopa Rinpoche composed for the SARS scare a few years ago.

 

A more extensive Medicine Buddha practice in both English and Tibetan can be downloaded here.

 

 

Sanghata Sutra

The Sanghata Sutra is a direct teaching by the Buddha that promises to transform all who read or recite it. It is one of a special set of sutras called 'transformative teachings' that function to transform those who hear or recite them.  In general, the recitation of Mahayana sutras is one of the six virtuous practices specifically recommended for purification, and the recitation of this sutra in particular has far-reaching karmic consequences that last for many lifetimes. The recitation can bestow a powerful blessing on the place where it is recited. 

At www.sanghatasutra.net, visitors can learn all about this sutra, read stories of how others have been changed by the text, and get tips on reciting the text. 

 

 

 

 

 

Sixteen Guidelines

Based on an original text from King Songtsen Gampo in 7th century Tibet, the 16 Guidelines offer a practical introduction to secular ethics, starting with Humility and ending with Courage. They are divided into four wisdom themes: How we think (the power of the mind); How we act (that every action brings a result); How we relate to others (that we are all interdependent) and How we find meaning (impermanence).

Learn more here.

Sutra of Golden Light

 

Reciting the Sutra of Golden Light is a practice that brings peace. Peace and protection to the individual, peace and blessings to the place where it is recited, and peace to the world through promoting enlightening government leadership. It is one of a special set of sutras called ‘transformative teachings’ that function to transform those who hear or recite them.  You can read more about the Sutra of Golden Light here and here.

 

 

 

 

Transformative Mindfulness

Transformative Mindfulness

More to come...

Vajrasattva

Vajrasattva

More to come... 

White Tara

We do a group practice of the White Tara healing practice about once a month.

You can download a copy of the text we use,  from a page of advice Lama Zopa Rinpoche composed for the SARS scare a few years ago.