Fall Festival 2024 ~ Day 3
Today we prepare a pure mind ready to receive the priceless jewel of the Highest Yoga Tantra empowerments into our minds. First a morning of guided meditations with Gen Mudita using the the Prayer to the Lord of all...
MikeTyes
This way of relying on the Request to the Lord of All Lineages as a preliminary practice, Gen-la Dekyong explained is a special method she received permission from Venerable Geshe-la to use on certain special occasions. She described how blessed and powerful this prayer is for us, the people of the modern world, because it is a teaching from Geshe-la's heart to our heart on the interdependence of every stage of Sutra and Tantra. Each verse has two purposes: to receive blessings and to develop the determination to put the meaning of each verse into practice. Geshe-la himself practiced in this way for a long time and explained his great confidence in this prayer to lead people to the correct paths of Sutra and Tantra.
In the afternoon the actual Heruka Preparations begin with Gen-la Dekyong who, with great kindness, guides us through 10 stages of preparation, the most important being our becoming a qualified Vajrayana disciple. At various stages we draw strongly on the correct view of emptiness, to develop a motivation free from selfish intention and to enhance the power of letting go of our ordinary self and instead begin to impute ourselves correctly as Buddha Heruka according to the instructions. We also have the opportunity to take and renew our Bodhisattva and Tantric vows.
The whole session feels very pure, peaceful and blessed. We leave with pure vows and the determination to bind our minds with love, symbolized by binding our left arms with the knotted blessing cord, reciting obstacle dispelling mantras and looking forward to receiving the actual empowerments in the morning.
The Festival site is infused with love as Kadampas from around the world share in this profound experience.
