Sunday Morning Meditation Practice

Led by Venerable Losang Rinpoche, or (generally) by one of our senior teaching students when Losang is out of town, mantra meditation, shamatha (calm abiding) meditation, Vajrayana guided meditations and visualizations, and traditional Buddhist prayers typically comprise the first hour of our Sunday mornings.  Then, following a short break for light snacks and light conversation, we continue for a second hour of Dharma teachings, often on a given text, and animated by lively discussion, friendly debate, questions and answers.  Our Sunday mornings are truly wonderful.  A donation of $10 for non-members is suggested.

With Rinpoche-la on his annual summer retreat in Dharmsala, India, and our regular Senior Teachers also away for the July 4th, Independence Day, holiday weekend, this Sunday, we will have a lovely Sunday Sangha for those in town, conducted by TBC member Tony Boris.  (Ven. Amy Miller it turns out will be unable to join us this weekend, but we hope to see her again soon.)  It is July 4th, U.S. Independence Day.  Just underway a mile or two to our east will be the Tibet Independence Demonstration, and march to Washington, D.C.  (see website entry)  And July 6th is the birthday of His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso.  Our lives are teeming with significant events and subjects for our consideration.

While not a teaching per se, the offering on this date will draw from passages from Tsong-Kha-Pa's Lam Rim Chen Mo, as well as the profound Eight Verses for Training the Mind, by Kadampa Geshe Langri Thangpa.

For now however, this -

 

Praise in One Hundred and Fifty Verses (Sata-pancasatka-nama-stotra) from Lam Rim Chen Mo (Tsong-Kha-Pa), Ch. 11, Going for Refuge to the Three Jewels ... The good qualities of the Buddha's speech.

Your face is so captivating;
Listening to your pleasant speech
Is like seeing nectar
Flow from the moon.

Your speech, like a rain cloud,
Settles the dust of attachment;
Like the garuda,
It expels the snake of hostility.

Again and again, it is like a sun
Dispelling the darkness of ignorance.
Since it razes the mountain of pride,
It is also like the vajra.

Because you see the truth, your speech never misleads;
Since it is faultless, it is correct;
Since it is well-composed, it is easy to understand.
Your words are well-spoken.

At first your speech
Captivates the listeners' minds;
Then if they give it thought,
It clears away attachment and delusion.

It relieves the destitute,
Protects the unruly,
And induces the reveler to renounce -
Your speech accords with everyone's needs.

It delights the learned,
Improves the minds of the middling;
And dispels the darkness of the lowly -
This speech is medicine for all living beings.

 

 

The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, Lam Rim Chen Mo (Tsong-Kha-Pa), Joshua W.C. Cutler, Editor-in-Chief, Guy Newland, Editor, The LamRim Translation Committee, Snow Lion Publications.