Group meditations give us an opportunity to come together in prayer and to make praises and requests to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Using ancient prayers translated into English we receive the blessings, protection and guidance of the holy beings.
This practice is the heart essence of Kadampa Buddhism. In the first part we visualize our Spiritual Guide as Je Tsongkhapa and make prayers and requests to purify negativity, accumulate merit and receive blessings. This prepares our mind for a twenty-minute meditation on the Lamrim or Stages of the Path to Enlightenment. After the meditation we make prayers to our Dharma Protector. Through this we can overcome obstacles to our practice and create favorable conditions so that we can nurture and increase our pure Dharma realizations. (1 hour)
This is a special Guru yoga of Je Tsongkhapa in conjunction with Highest Yoga Tantra that is a preliminary practice for Vajrayana Mahamudra. The main practice is relying upon our Spiritual Guide as a Buddha and making praises and requests, but it also includes all the essential practices of the stages of the path, and training the mind, as well as both the generation stage and completion stage of Highest Yoga Tantra. By relying upon Je Tsongkhapa our compassion, wisdom and spiritual power naturally increase. This practice includes a tsog offering so please bring a food offering with you if you wish. (2 hours)
This is a more extensive version of Heart Jewel in which we make prayers and requests to Je Tsongkhapa and our Dharma Protector, Dorje Shugdän. We make a special food offering known as a tsog offering to create a vast amount of positive energy for ourselves and others. We invite all the Buddhas and holy beings to come and enjoy a feast of great bliss and then we enjoy the food offering together. Please bring a food offering if you wish. (1 hour)