Overview Vajrasattva Practice
DATE: Lhabab Duchen: 1st November
TIME: 7:00pm-7:30pm
LOCATION: Zoom
LEVEL: Buddhist Practices – All Welcome
SUGGESTED DONATION: £4
Lhabab Duchen, one of the four great holy days of the Buddhist calendar, falls this year on November 1st.
Lhabab Duchen celebrates Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s return to Earth from the God Realm of the Thirty-Three after teaching Dharma for three months to the gods, including his mother, Mayadevi, who had died a week after Buddha’s birth and been reborn there. As a merit-multiplying day, the karmic results of actions done on this day are multiplied 100 million times. This amazing result is taught in the vinaya text Treasure of Quotations and Logic.
This is a wonderful day to develop merit through our practice and purify unskilful actions.
Purification here means looking at our past unskillful actions which have created seeds of negative karma in our minds, and using visualisation and mantra recitation to remove those seeds in a healthy and productive way. Vajrasattva is the embodiment of all the Buddha’s cleaning and purifying energy. We all make mistakes, and how we deal with them is key to making spiritual progress. We’ll be using a short text composed by Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Other practices you may like to consider as advised by Lama Zopa Rinpoche can be seen below:
How Best to Celebrate Lhabab Duchen - Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Specific practices recommended by Lama Zopa Rinpoche for merit-multiplying days can be found on the fpmt.org website on our “Practice on the Four Great Holy Days” page.
Specific practices recommended by Lama Zopa Rinpoche for merit-multiplying days include:
Taking the eight Mahayana precepts—students can receive the lineage of these precepts from a specially produced video of Lama Zopa Rinpoche granting them
Reciting the Sutra Remembering the Three Jewels
In accordance with the advice of Ven. Choden Rinpoche, one of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachers, Lama Zopa Rinpoche observed all the auspicious dates in the Buddhist calendar by Indian Standard Time, instead of any other local time.
Conclusion of the Global Mani Retreat
After five extraordinary months, the FPMT Global Mani Retreat ends on Lhabab Duchen. Please report any mantras you or your community recited so we can accurately count this worldwide effort!
Swift Return Prayers for Lama Zopa Rinpoche – taking advantage of this merit-making opportunity!
For any activities at your center during Lhabab Duchen, please take the opportunity to dedicate all merit generated to the swift return of our most precious Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Please read the latest advice offered by His Holiness to continue reciting Chanting the Names of Noble Manjushri as well as Migtsema.
Offerings on Lhabab Duchen
On Lhabab Duchen the FPMT Puja Fund will be sponsoring numerous pujas including the recitation of the Prajnaparamita Sutra, Lama Chopa, Medicine Buddha Puja, Drugchuma and Chanting the Names of Manjushri. The stupas of Boudhanath and Swambyunath in Nepal will be freshly painted and the umbrellas will be offered at the pinnacle of each stupa. A new set of robes will be offered to the Buddha statue in the Mahabodhi temple in Bodhgaya. Additionally, animals will be liberated, sutras recited and printed, and offerings will be made to all of Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s gurus and to all the IMI Sangha communities in FPMT.