Upcoming Event

Choden Rinpoche
Losang Dragpa Buddhist Centre

Programme

Commentary on the Heart Sutra

April 12,14 7.30pm

April 13 3.00pm

Tara Puja with Choden Rinpoche

April 13 7.30pm

Guru Puja with Choden Rinpoche

April 15 7.30pm

Teaching on Calm Abiding

April 16-17 7.30pm

Black Manjushri Initiation

April 18 7.30pm

Qualities of Kyabje Choden Rinpoche

Kyabje Choden Rinpoche is a revered meditation master and devoted spiritual practitioner.From his wealth of experience and understanding, Rinpoche offers practical advice on how to stimulate inner reflection, deepen our wisdom and compassion, understand the true nature of our minds and ultimately achieve a greater degree of peace and happiness.

Quotes from Lama Zopa Rinpoche::

“Rinpoche has vast knowledge and experience – not only having vast intellectual understanding but also His holy mind enriched with oceans of realizations as vast as space, being soft-minded, having completed the mind-training in good heart, being pure and possessing all the qualities of the learned ones.”

“The other thing I want to say is that my feeling is that each word Rinpoche says is coming from His own realization and that is why each word is very, very effective.”

“And Rinpoche is someone whose mind is always in the practice, in the pure Dharma, without even one second’s break. So if one really meditates as Rinpoche gives teaching and really puts effort, there can be some change, one can really have some experience, development in the heart due to Rinpoche’s blessing – His realizations and His pure samaya with His Gurus.”

“If one puts effort to meditate at the same time as Rinpoche is teaching, definitely you will have realizations. There are many people who achieve realizations during teachings – while the Lama is teaching their mind gets moved and they get realizations.”

“Also He has the highest realization of emptiness according to the Prasangika School, not just a lower school view of emptiness such as Svatantrika or Mind Only, which could be implied by the quality of “great insight”. Then, Rinpoche is extremely skillful in the way He teaches – able to make the teachings very effective, has compassion and no upsetness in guiding the disciples, in revealing the teaching.”

Quotes taken from talk given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Land of Medicine Buddha, Oct 13, 2002.

COMMENTARY ON THE HEART SUTRA

12,14 April 7.30pm 13 April 3pm

The Heart Sutra is the shortest and the most popular sutra in Buddhism. The six hundred volumes of the Maha Prajna Sutra are summarized by the Diamond Sutra in around 5000 words, and the Diamond Sutra is summarized by the Heart Sutra in around 250 words.

The Heart Sutra is regarded as the summation of the wisdom of Buddha. It expresses perfectly the insight attained by non-attachment, the doctrine of emptiness. The Heart Sutra reveals the entire secret of truth of the universe and life.

* Emptiness refers to the fact that no thing -- including human existence -- has ultimate substantiality, which in turn means that no thing is permanent and no thing is totally independent of everything else. In other words, everything in this world is interconnected and in constant flux. A deep appreciation of this idea of emptiness thus saves us from the suffering caused by our egos, our attachments, and our resistance to change and loss.

TEACHING ON CALM ABIDING

16,17 APRIL 7.30pm

Why we should learn Calm Abiding meditation

• The ability to control the mind is one of the profound advantages of calm abiding. It brings peace and emotional stability.

• It makes all meditations more forceful. When the mind is powerful because of having developed calm abiding, you generate a real strong experience in the meditation. It really helps us to gain realizations and we become closer to liberation and enlightenment.

• It also helps all of our other practices become stronger. For example, when we do purification practice, if we do with calm abiding then those practices become stronger and purification of our negative karma will be very effective.

• It helps develop our visualization abilities.