Summer Festival Diaries 2009

Day 4 - Practising Dharma

On the fourth morning of the Summer Festival, Gen Kelsang Ananda guided a meditation on developing a wish to practise Dharma.

Teaching with Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso
In today’s teaching Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso revealed precious instructions on the practise of exchanging self with others, the very essence of Kadam Dharma.

With great love, Geshe-la emphasised one main point: we need to change our view.

We need to change our ordinary view to a special view – a special view is when we believe that the happiness and freedom of all living beings is important. This view is accomplished by seeing that others are countless and understanding that they have shown us immeasurable kindness. When we change our mind in this way it becomes the source of all happiness and goodness.

Geshe-la then condensed the entire Lamrim into a simple and profound meditation for transforming our mind into a powerful vehicle that takes us directly to enlightenment.

This special meditation incorporates training in going for refuge, renunciation, bodhichitta and the correct view of emptiness – the four wheels of this great vehicle.

Review
In the afternoon, Gen Kelsang Thekchen relayed the essential points of Venerable Geshe-la’s teaching, highlighting how simple the path to happiness can be. We were left feeling incredibly fortunate and confident in our ability to attain enlightenment, permanent inner peace.

Gen Thekchen echoed Geshe-la’s advice to recall our motivation of compassion when meditating on emptiness, thereby continually sowing the seeds of ultimate bodhichitta.

Quote of the day

The root of our suffering is self cherishing. We should blame self cherishing for all our suffering.

Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso


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