Vipassana (Special Insight Meditation), also called analytical meditation, is primarily a practice of wisdom. It is a form of concentration that focuses single-pointedly on the ultimate nature of phenomena through analytical reasoning. Analysing phenomena is a key aspect of Vipassana practice, as it helps develop a definitive understanding of the nature of reality—such as the self, mind, emotions, and thoughts.

As Je Tsongkhapa explains, shamatha (calm abiding) is like a lamp that remains clear and steady in a place without wind, whereas vipassana (special insight) is like seeing the nature of phenomena clearly through such a steady and clear lamp. Therefore, the usual order of these two meditations is: first, achieving calm abiding or mental stability as a foundation, then engaging in special insight meditation through analysis. However, Vipassana meditation can also be practised by analysing and observing sensations, thoughts, and emotions without first achieving shamatha. This practice should still begin with focusing on the breath or another object of meditation. In our case, we will focus on the breath to start analysing the nature of the mind in relation to our sense of self, emotions, and thoughts.

The session begins by focusing on the breath—either the rise and fall of the abdomen or the sensation of air entering and leaving the nostrils. This practice calms the mind and helps establish a deep sense of presence.

Next, we move into a guided body scan, bringing awareness to different parts of the body and observing subtle sensations without judgement. This helps develop a greater connection to your physical experience.

As we proceed, you will practise observing and analysing sensations, thoughts, and emotions as they arise, learning to witness them without attachment or aversion. This fosters a deeper understanding of the impermanence and interconnectedness of the mind and self. Finally, you will rest your mind either in the natural state of awareness or in the analytical clarity gained through observation and reasoning.

Through regular practice, Vipassana meditation cultivates wisdom, encouraging a balanced and objective view of internal experiences. This session is ideal for those seeking greater insight and calmness in their daily lives.

A beautiful practice led by Chrissie and Di.

The Buddhist practice of Giving & Taking (Tonglen in Tibetan) is at its heart a selfless meditation of loving kindness and compassion. You imagine giving all your happiness to others, sometimes using visualisation with the breath, and then taking all the suffering and its causes from others. It’s a powerful practice for the brave-hearted!

Lama Zopa Rinpoche (our organisation’s Spiritual Director) suggested Jamyang Leeds perform these practices to help with the financial obstacles we are currently having. From September 2022, we’ll be reciting this practice as much as we can. See the special newsletter explaining all about the practice here.

This is a longer meditation on Medicine Buddha – to remove obstacles, esp. those relating to health and achieving a favourable rebirth, and activate a swift path to enlightenment.

As Lama Zopa Rinpoche said: “One of the best healing meditations is that on the Medicine Buddha, who is the manifestation of the healing energy of all enlightened beings.”

The puja involves chanting prayers to the Seven Medicine Buddhas and reciting the Medicine Buddha mantras.

It is kindly led by Sande

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

Everflowing Nectar of Bodhichitta – Annihilating the Demon of the Self-Cherishing Mind

Led by Di or Sande

This practice is based on the short text” Eight Verses of Thought Transformation”, which contains the entire technique for transforming the mind into relative bodhichitta (i.e., the wish to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings) and absolute bodhichitta (i.e., the wisdom realizing emptiness).

Join us to fulfill His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s wishes and chant the Names of Noble Manjushri for the swift return of Lama Zopa Rinpoche. 

Please come along even if you havent done the practice before, its quite wonderful and very energising. Please download the text below, you can also listen and practice with the audio clip of Lama Zopa Rinpoche reciting the Chanting the Names of Noble Manjushri.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche (our organisation’s Spiritual Director) suggested Jamyang Leeds perform these practices to help with the financial obstacles we are currently having. From September 2022, we’ll be reciting this practice as much as we can. See the special newsletter explaining all about the practice here.

This international group of Kalachakra practitioners meets weekly and alternates with commentary and practice.

Mind Mandala once a month and six session guru yoga for other sessions:

If you’re already part of this group, please use the details sent in the weekly email to join the practice

If you’d like to join us, please email spc@jamyangleeds.co.uk confirming that you have the appropriate empowerments. You will then be sent a registration form to complete.

Led by Ruth 

Mindfulness of Breathing is universally acknowledged to be of benefit to all living in the modern world. Many feel overloaded with all that is expected of us living this complex and exhausting existence. Developing our awareness in this way is a general prescription for soothing and healing the overworked body and mind.

Practicing focusing the attention on an object such as the breath is also a core practice in Tibetan Buddhism. Gradually over time we are able to hold the object of our attention over longer periods, which enables us to practice other meditations such as Vipassana more successfully.

In September 2024, His Eminence Ling Rinpoche gave us this practice to overcome obstacles to the centre flourishing.

In addition to many benefits of engaging in these practices, Lama Zopa Rinpoche recommended that these two practices are beneficial to helping bring peace to situation between Israel and Palestine.

The Sanskrit name for the White Umbrella deity is Ushnisha Sitatapatra which can also be translated as “The Victorious White Parasol.” The White Umbrella Deity, [Skt. Sitatapatra, Tib. gdugs dkar] is a powerful female deity. She is relied upon for protection; healing illness; dispelling interferences, spirit possession, and harmful forces; quelling disasters; averting obstacles; and bringing auspiciousness.

Ushnisha Sitatapatra is a female form of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Like this Bodhisattva in an elaborate form, she also has a thousand eyes that watch over living beings, and a thousand arms that protect and assist them. Thus she symbolizes the power of active compassion.

Practices of Arya Sitatapatra includes, “The Supreme Accomplishment of Sitatapatra,” and “Praises and Repelling Practices of Sitatapatra.”

IDMT Year Four, The Vajra Ground: Mahamudra and Kriya Tantra

In this culminating fourth year of our journey, our path turns inward to the mind itself—its empty, luminous nature—and outward to the transformative methods of tantra, where the naturally pure nature of our perception is recognized as the very ground of awakening. 

As always, the year will start with generating the mind of awakening, using evocative instructions ranging from Langri Thangpa to Nāgārjuna and Lord Buddha in the famous Bodhisattvapiṭaka. This mind generation we'll cultivate through the four immeasurable thoughts and the support of calm abiding. 

Illuminated by the life stories of the masters of the Gelug Mahāmudrā lineage and beyond, we'll explore its roots in the history of the early Indian Mahāsiddhas, such as Saraha and Tilopa, through the Kagyü master Gampopa's and Je Tsongkhapa's Mañjuśrī lineage up to Paṇchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen's Highway of the Conquerors and its perspective on this practice. In Sūtra Mahāmudrā we will practice resting attention in the empty nature of awareness, recognizing its clarity and openness as inseparable. 

Kriyā Tantra offers a complementary method. Rather than suppress the ordinary, narrow self-narrative that we impose on ourselves and our world, it substitutes for it an extraordinary perspective of pure view. Occasionally, by way of introduction, we'll also taste practices from the higher tantras—glimpsing how afflictive emotions can be met as innate wisdom, and how the dissolution of the death process opens onto the innate mind of clear light. The structured practices of generation and recitation become a rehearsal for transformation, training perception to meet appearances as pure. 

These methods rest on a relationship. We will therefore examine the practice of guru devotion candidly—both as the means by which the lineage's realization is transmitted and as a practice with real pitfalls, requiring discernment as much as trust. Through the Ganden Lha Gyāma, the Yoga of the inseparability of guru and Avalokiteśvara, and supporting sādhanas, devotion is approached not as deference but as the ethical road toward the state of Vajradhara: the full integration of wisdom and method. 

This final year is an invitation to let realization ripen into a way of being. Grounded in bodhicitta and the four immeasurables, sustained by the preliminary practices, and held by the strength of community, we learn to meet the mind without grasping and to meet the world as pure appearance. Our aim is not to accumulate practices, but to bring the path to maturity—wisdom and compassion no longer cultivated separately, but lived as one. 

This four-year online course provides students with long term, in-depth support in their meditative development.

The teacher and course developer is Venerable Losang Gendun. He has trained extensively in meditation in both Theravada and Mahayana Traditions

The In Depth Meditation Training course is also part of The Buddha Project led by Venerable Losang Gendun. You can find out more about Venerable Gendun, the course and who it is suitable for on our FPMT In-Depth Meditation Training webpage

If you have any questions you would like to ask before registering please email our In-Depth Meditation Coordinator Marie Odile on idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk

The zoom link and all materials for the course are provided to registered students.

Donations:

Generosity is one of the cornerstones of the Buddhist path. With your donation we support The Buddha Project and we keep our centre going for the benefit of all sentient beings.

As the course is a collaboration with other FPMT centres it is not possible to offer this as part of our Jamyang Leeds membership programme.

• The recommended donation per calendar month is £45.

• If you are able to practice generosity and sponsor other students we recommend £58 per calendar month.

• If you are on a reduced income it is £31 per calendar month.

There is also the option to donate annually.

If none of the above options are affordable please do still register, we never turn anyone away from the Dharma for financial reasons and we can agree a donation that is affordable for you right now. Please email Marie Odile our IDMT Coordinator idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk if you would like to chat.

Vipassana (Special Insight Meditation), also called analytical meditation, is primarily a practice of wisdom. It is a form of concentration that focuses single-pointedly on the ultimate nature of phenomena through analytical reasoning. Analysing phenomena is a key aspect of Vipassana practice, as it helps develop a definitive understanding of the nature of reality—such as the self, mind, emotions, and thoughts.

As Je Tsongkhapa explains, shamatha (calm abiding) is like a lamp that remains clear and steady in a place without wind, whereas vipassana (special insight) is like seeing the nature of phenomena clearly through such a steady and clear lamp. Therefore, the usual order of these two meditations is: first, achieving calm abiding or mental stability as a foundation, then engaging in special insight meditation through analysis. However, Vipassana meditation can also be practised by analysing and observing sensations, thoughts, and emotions without first achieving shamatha. This practice should still begin with focusing on the breath or another object of meditation. In our case, we will focus on the breath to start analysing the nature of the mind in relation to our sense of self, emotions, and thoughts.

The session begins by focusing on the breath—either the rise and fall of the abdomen or the sensation of air entering and leaving the nostrils. This practice calms the mind and helps establish a deep sense of presence.

Next, we move into a guided body scan, bringing awareness to different parts of the body and observing subtle sensations without judgement. This helps develop a greater connection to your physical experience.

As we proceed, you will practise observing and analysing sensations, thoughts, and emotions as they arise, learning to witness them without attachment or aversion. This fosters a deeper understanding of the impermanence and interconnectedness of the mind and self. Finally, you will rest your mind either in the natural state of awareness or in the analytical clarity gained through observation and reasoning.

Through regular practice, Vipassana meditation cultivates wisdom, encouraging a balanced and objective view of internal experiences. This session is ideal for those seeking greater insight and calmness in their daily lives.

The Yamantaka practice is held on the Mondays weekly. Please note that some weeks it starts at 2:30pm and some at 6pm it doesn’t always alternate weekly.

The Yamantaka study group is held on the first or second Monday monthly at 6pm.

In 2022, after the war in Ukraine started, Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered advice on prayers and practices to do in order to pacify the threats of war. All are welcome to download the booklet, Prayers to Stop War.

At the time, Lama Zopa Rinpoche also gave advice for how to motivate and think when doing these prayers and practices:

At the beginning generate strong bodhicitta, then do these prayers and practices to stop the war. The main purpose is to stop the war immediately. Then also to prevent famine, disease, and all the dangers of earth, water, fire, and wind, for all these dangers to be pacified immediately. To fill the whole world with perfect peace and happiness, including enlightenment, and to generate loving kindness, compassion and bodhicitta in the heart of all sentient beings.

Think that from Guru Padmasambhava’s heart, beams radiate and totally purify all the six realms’ sentient beings, totally purify all the delusions and negative karmas collected from beginningless rebirths, especially anger, attachment, and ignorance; think that these are totally purified. Then recite Sampa Lhundrupma, followed by the Padmasambhava mantra (one or two malas).

With strong faith in Guru Padmasambhava and total reliance, Guru Padmasambhava will definitely help because his compassion embraces all sentient beings. 

Then another way to think is, with strong faith in His Holiness the Dalai Lama in the aspect of Guru Padmasambhava, nectar beams are emitted to all leaders of war, entering the body and totally purifying all negative karma and obscurations; all the dissatisfied mind, desire, ignorance, anger, and selfish mind are totally purified; they generate bodhicitta especially, and then the whole path to enlightenment. Do that very strongly, making strong prayers to His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Then nectar beams are also emitted to all involved, and these purify all the anger and self-cherishing thought. They generate bodhicitta, and stop giving harm to even one sentient being and only benefit sentient beings, up to enlightenment. 

Then recite the Heart Sutra and the prayer to stop wars.

For those who can do the Most Secret Hayagriva sadhana, do this at the beginning of the practice. When reciting the mantra, you can do the same visualizations as above.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave this advice in 2022 to IMI Sangha on prayers and practices they could do in response to the developing war in Ukraine. The above motivation was edited slightly to be more general in order to be relevant for current threats at any time. The original advice can be read here. Please download Prayers to Stop War . 

A beautiful practice led by Chrissie and Di.

The Buddhist practice of Giving & Taking (Tonglen in Tibetan) is at its heart a selfless meditation of loving kindness and compassion. You imagine giving all your happiness to others, sometimes using visualisation with the breath, and then taking all the suffering and its causes from others. It’s a powerful practice for the brave-hearted!

Lama Zopa Rinpoche (our organisation’s Spiritual Director) suggested Jamyang Leeds perform these practices to help with the financial obstacles we are currently having. From September 2022, we’ll be reciting this practice as much as we can. See the special newsletter explaining all about the practice here.

This is a longer meditation on Medicine Buddha – to remove obstacles, esp. those relating to health and achieving a favourable rebirth, and activate a swift path to enlightenment.

As Lama Zopa Rinpoche said: “One of the best healing meditations is that on the Medicine Buddha, who is the manifestation of the healing energy of all enlightened beings.”

The puja involves chanting prayers to the Seven Medicine Buddhas and reciting the Medicine Buddha mantras.

It is kindly led by Sande

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

Everflowing Nectar of Bodhichitta – Annihilating the Demon of the Self-Cherishing Mind

Led by Di or Sande

This practice is based on the short text” Eight Verses of Thought Transformation”, which contains the entire technique for transforming the mind into relative bodhichitta (i.e., the wish to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings) and absolute bodhichitta (i.e., the wisdom realizing emptiness).

Join us to fulfill His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s wishes and chant the Names of Noble Manjushri for the swift return of Lama Zopa Rinpoche. 

Please come along even if you havent done the practice before, its quite wonderful and very energising. Please download the text below, you can also listen and practice with the audio clip of Lama Zopa Rinpoche reciting the Chanting the Names of Noble Manjushri.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche (our organisation’s Spiritual Director) suggested Jamyang Leeds perform these practices to help with the financial obstacles we are currently having. From September 2022, we’ll be reciting this practice as much as we can. See the special newsletter explaining all about the practice here.

This international group of Kalachakra practitioners meets weekly and alternates with commentary and practice.

Mind Mandala once a month and six session guru yoga for other sessions:

If you’re already part of this group, please use the details sent in the weekly email to join the practice

If you’d like to join us, please email spc@jamyangleeds.co.uk confirming that you have the appropriate empowerments. You will then be sent a registration form to complete.

Led by Ruth 

Mindfulness of Breathing is universally acknowledged to be of benefit to all living in the modern world. Many feel overloaded with all that is expected of us living this complex and exhausting existence. Developing our awareness in this way is a general prescription for soothing and healing the overworked body and mind.

Practicing focusing the attention on an object such as the breath is also a core practice in Tibetan Buddhism. Gradually over time we are able to hold the object of our attention over longer periods, which enables us to practice other meditations such as Vipassana more successfully.

In September 2024, His Eminence Ling Rinpoche gave us this practice to overcome obstacles to the centre flourishing.

In addition to many benefits of engaging in these practices, Lama Zopa Rinpoche recommended that these two practices are beneficial to helping bring peace to situation between Israel and Palestine.

The Sanskrit name for the White Umbrella deity is Ushnisha Sitatapatra which can also be translated as “The Victorious White Parasol.” The White Umbrella Deity, [Skt. Sitatapatra, Tib. gdugs dkar] is a powerful female deity. She is relied upon for protection; healing illness; dispelling interferences, spirit possession, and harmful forces; quelling disasters; averting obstacles; and bringing auspiciousness.

Ushnisha Sitatapatra is a female form of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Like this Bodhisattva in an elaborate form, she also has a thousand eyes that watch over living beings, and a thousand arms that protect and assist them. Thus she symbolizes the power of active compassion.

Practices of Arya Sitatapatra includes, “The Supreme Accomplishment of Sitatapatra,” and “Praises and Repelling Practices of Sitatapatra.”

IDMT Year Four, The Vajra Ground: Mahamudra and Kriya Tantra

In this culminating fourth year of our journey, our path turns inward to the mind itself—its empty, luminous nature—and outward to the transformative methods of tantra, where the naturally pure nature of our perception is recognized as the very ground of awakening. 

As always, the year will start with generating the mind of awakening, using evocative instructions ranging from Langri Thangpa to Nāgārjuna and Lord Buddha in the famous Bodhisattvapiṭaka. This mind generation we'll cultivate through the four immeasurable thoughts and the support of calm abiding. 

 Illuminated by the life stories of the masters of the Gelug Mahāmudrā lineage and beyond, we'll explore its roots in the history of the early Indian Mahāsiddhas, such as Saraha and Tilopa, through the Kagyü master Gampopa's and Je Tsongkhapa's Mañjuśrī lineage up to Paṇchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen's Highway of the Conquerors and its perspective on this practice. In Sūtra Mahāmudrā we will practice resting attention in the empty nature of awareness, recognizing its clarity and openness as inseparable. 

 Kriyā Tantra offers a complementary method. Rather than suppress the ordinary, narrow self-narrative that we impose on ourselves and our world, it substitutes for it an extraordinary perspective of pure view. Occasionally, by way of introduction, we'll also taste practices from the higher tantras—glimpsing how afflictive emotions can be met as innate wisdom, and how the dissolution of the death process opens onto the innate mind of clear light. The structured practices of generation and recitation become a rehearsal for transformation, training perception to meet appearances as pure. 

 These methods rest on a relationship. We will therefore examine the practice of guru devotion candidly—both as the means by which the lineage's realization is transmitted and as a practice with real pitfalls, requiring discernment as much as trust. Through the Ganden Lha Gyāma, the Yoga of the inseparability of guru and Avalokiteśvara, and supporting sādhanas, devotion is approached not as deference but as the ethical road toward the state of Vajradhara: the full integration of wisdom and method. 

 This final year is an invitation to let realization ripen into a way of being. Grounded in bodhicitta and the four immeasurables, sustained by the preliminary practices, and held by the strength of community, we learn to meet the mind without grasping and to meet the world as pure appearance. Our aim is not to accumulate practices, but to bring the path to maturity—wisdom and compassion no longer cultivated separately, but lived as one.

This four-year online course provides students with long term, in-depth support in their meditative development.

The teacher and course developer is Venerable Losang Gendun. He has trained extensively in meditation in both Theravada and Mahayana Traditions

The In Depth Meditation Training course is also part of The Buddha Project led by Venerable Losang Gendun. You can find out more about Venerable Gendun, the course and who it is suitable for on our FPMT In-Depth Meditation Training webpage

If you have any questions you would like to ask before registering please email our In-Depth Meditation Coordinator Marie Odile on idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk

The zoom link and all materials for the course are provided to registered students.

Donations:

Generosity is one of the cornerstones of the Buddhist path. With your donation we support The Buddha Project and we keep our centre going for the benefit of all sentient beings.

As the course is a collaboration with other FPMT centres it is not possible to offer this as part of our Jamyang Leeds membership programme.

• The recommended donation per calendar month is £45.

• If you are able to practice generosity and sponsor other students we recommend £58 per calendar month.

• If you are on a reduced income it is £31 per calendar month.

There is also the option to donate annually.

If none of the above options are affordable please do still register, we never turn anyone away from the Dharma for financial reasons and we can agree a donation that is affordable for you right now. Please email Marie Odile our IDMT Coordinator idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk if you would like to chat.

Vipassana (Special Insight Meditation), also called analytical meditation, is primarily a practice of wisdom. It is a form of concentration that focuses single-pointedly on the ultimate nature of phenomena through analytical reasoning. Analysing phenomena is a key aspect of Vipassana practice, as it helps develop a definitive understanding of the nature of reality—such as the self, mind, emotions, and thoughts.

As Je Tsongkhapa explains, shamatha (calm abiding) is like a lamp that remains clear and steady in a place without wind, whereas vipassana (special insight) is like seeing the nature of phenomena clearly through such a steady and clear lamp. Therefore, the usual order of these two meditations is: first, achieving calm abiding or mental stability as a foundation, then engaging in special insight meditation through analysis. However, Vipassana meditation can also be practised by analysing and observing sensations, thoughts, and emotions without first achieving shamatha. This practice should still begin with focusing on the breath or another object of meditation. In our case, we will focus on the breath to start analysing the nature of the mind in relation to our sense of self, emotions, and thoughts.

The session begins by focusing on the breath—either the rise and fall of the abdomen or the sensation of air entering and leaving the nostrils. This practice calms the mind and helps establish a deep sense of presence.

Next, we move into a guided body scan, bringing awareness to different parts of the body and observing subtle sensations without judgement. This helps develop a greater connection to your physical experience.

As we proceed, you will practise observing and analysing sensations, thoughts, and emotions as they arise, learning to witness them without attachment or aversion. This fosters a deeper understanding of the impermanence and interconnectedness of the mind and self. Finally, you will rest your mind either in the natural state of awareness or in the analytical clarity gained through observation and reasoning.

Through regular practice, Vipassana meditation cultivates wisdom, encouraging a balanced and objective view of internal experiences. This session is ideal for those seeking greater insight and calmness in their daily lives.

About the Course:

The Lamrim — "Stages of the Path" in Tibetan — is a systematic presentation of the entire Buddhist path to Awakening, written by the great Tibetan master Je Tsongkhapa in the 14th and early 15th century, based on writings of the Indian master Atisha. It arranges every essential teaching of the Buddha into a single, coherent, graduated sequence tailored to your mind, exactly as it is right now. Its true power lies not in study alone, but in practice. Each teaching is carefully arranged to meet the mind where it is and guide it—step by step—toward genuine change.

The uncommon preliminary practices (ngöndro) are powerful methods to purify the mind and prepare it for lasting transformation.

Over the first eleven months the common foundations, renunciation, bodhicitta, and the view of emptiness, are explored based on the Lamrim. For the remaining five months the focus is on the uncommon practices, Vajrasattva purification, mandala offerings, and guru yoga. Weekly sessions each introduce a new topic that examines different ways to meditate and why, in combination with a guided meditation.  

The training helps establish a consistent daily meditative practice in supports of its overall aim: to engage in contemplative meditation in a way that genuinely transforms the mind's outlook on the world and gives one's life a new direction. Students gain a deep understanding of how to accumulate merit and purify unskillful karma while cultivating a healthy relationship with the Three Jewels and their teacher. The emphasis is on learning to meditate in a personally tailored way, in accordance with one’s psychological makeup and life conditions.

The Ngondro Lamrim Training teaching sessions are pre-recorded.

Each week, a 90-minute teaching together with two guided meditations are uploaded. On other days, advanced students contribute additional guided meditations. The teacher, Venerable Gendun, offers regular online Q&A sessions. For those who have already studied the Lamrim or the FPMT Basic Program, the training also offers specialized opportunities to learn how to guide others in meditation.

Year 1: Definite Emergence and Mind of Awakening  

• Prepare the mind for śamatha, vipaśyanā, and tantra

• Explore renunciation and bodhicitta, the first two Principles of the Path

• Develop genuine urgency through Lamrim contemplation

• Cultivate the aspiration to Awakening for all beings

FPMT Ngondro Lamrim Taining is also part of The Buddha Project led by Venerable Losang Gendun. You can find out more about Venerable Gendun, the course and who it is suitable for on our FPMT Ngondro Lamrim Training webpage

If you have any questions you would like to ask before registering please email our In-Depth Meditation Coordinator Marie Odile on idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk

All materials for the course are provided to registered students.

Donations:

Generosity is one of the cornerstones of the Buddhist path. Donations help support both the centre and The Buddha Project as well as providing a donation for the teachings to Venerable Gendun.  There are different levels depending on your income. There are three terms a year, each approximately 3 months long

As the course is a collaboration with other FPMT centres it is not possible to offer this as part of our Jamyang Leeds membership programme.

• For those with a regular income the recommended donation is £95 per term

• The sponsorhsip level is £115 per term

• Ordained Sangha are free

If this isn’t affordable please do register, we never turn anyone away from the Dharma for financial reasons and we can agree a donation that is affordable for you at the current time. Please email Marie-Odile our IDMT Coordinator idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk if you would like to chat.

The Yamantaka practice is held on Mondays weekly. Please note that some weeks it starts at 2:30pm and some at 6pm it doesn’t always alternate weekly.

A beautiful practice led by Chrissie and Di.

The Buddhist practice of Giving & Taking (Tonglen in Tibetan) is at its heart a selfless meditation of loving kindness and compassion. You imagine giving all your happiness to others, sometimes using visualisation with the breath, and then taking all the suffering and its causes from others. It’s a powerful practice for the brave-hearted!

Lama Zopa Rinpoche (our organisation’s Spiritual Director) suggested Jamyang Leeds perform these practices to help with the financial obstacles we are currently having. From September 2022, we’ll be reciting this practice as much as we can. See the special newsletter explaining all about the practice here.

This is a longer meditation on Medicine Buddha – to remove obstacles, esp. those relating to health and achieving a favourable rebirth, and activate a swift path to enlightenment.

As Lama Zopa Rinpoche said: “One of the best healing meditations is that on the Medicine Buddha, who is the manifestation of the healing energy of all enlightened beings.”

The puja involves chanting prayers to the Seven Medicine Buddhas and reciting the Medicine Buddha mantras.

It is kindly led by Sande

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

Everflowing Nectar of Bodhichitta – Annihilating the Demon of the Self-Cherishing Mind

Led by Di or Sande

This practice is based on the short text” Eight Verses of Thought Transformation”, which contains the entire technique for transforming the mind into relative bodhichitta (i.e., the wish to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings) and absolute bodhichitta (i.e., the wisdom realizing emptiness).

Join us to fulfill His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s wishes and chant the Names of Noble Manjushri for the swift return of Lama Zopa Rinpoche. 

Please come along even if you havent done the practice before, its quite wonderful and very energising. Please download the text below, you can also listen and practice with the audio clip of Lama Zopa Rinpoche reciting the Chanting the Names of Noble Manjushri.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche (our organisation’s Spiritual Director) suggested Jamyang Leeds perform these practices to help with the financial obstacles we are currently having. From September 2022, we’ll be reciting this practice as much as we can. See the special newsletter explaining all about the practice here.

This international group of Kalachakra practitioners meets weekly and alternates with commentary and practice.

Mind Mandala once a month and six session guru yoga for other sessions:

If you’re already part of this group, please use the details sent in the weekly email to join the practice

If you’d like to join us, please email spc@jamyangleeds.co.uk confirming that you have the appropriate empowerments. You will then be sent a registration form to complete.

Led by Ruth 

Mindfulness of Breathing is universally acknowledged to be of benefit to all living in the modern world. Many feel overloaded with all that is expected of us living this complex and exhausting existence. Developing our awareness in this way is a general prescription for soothing and healing the overworked body and mind.

Practicing focusing the attention on an object such as the breath is also a core practice in Tibetan Buddhism. Gradually over time we are able to hold the object of our attention over longer periods, which enables us to practice other meditations such as Vipassana more successfully.

Dzambhala practice is said to bring wealth, prosperity, success, good fortune and luck, long life and wisdom.

Please come and join in with this monthly practice to help the centre, the FPMT and Buddha Dharma to flourish and be free from obstacles.

To do this practice in full, it is best to have a Kriya tantra empowerment of Chenrezig. However, one may still do this practice without such an empowerment by simply skipping the

self-generation on page 3. The Torma Offering on page 15 requires empowerment

Dzambhala is an emanation of Ratnasambhava, one of the five buddha families, whose enlightened activity is increasing and whose essence is generosity. Some people practice Dzambhala to

achieve spiritual prosperity, although this deity is also associated with wealth and prosperity in the material world. Dzambhala practice is said to bring wealth, prosperity, success, good fortune

and luck, long life and wisdom. He is depicted holding a mongoose spouting jewels.

There are five different wealth Dzambhala, each has their own practice and mantra to help eliminate poverty and create financial stability.

Through the power of compassionate intention, visualization, and mantra recitation, as well as a wealth-stimulating ritual, this practice ripens and enhances our karma for an abundance of

resources. When done with single-pointed concentration and faith, this ritual easily increases one’s financial prosperity.

In September 2024, His Eminence Ling Rinpoche gave us this practice to overcome obstacles to the centre flourishing.

In addition to many benefits of engaging in these practices, Lama Zopa Rinpoche recommended that these two practices are beneficial to helping bring peace to situation between Israel and Palestine.

The Sanskrit name for the White Umbrella deity is Ushnisha Sitatapatra which can also be translated as “The Victorious White Parasol.” The White Umbrella Deity, [Skt. Sitatapatra, Tib. gdugs dkar] is a powerful female deity. She is relied upon for protection; healing illness; dispelling interferences, spirit possession, and harmful forces; quelling disasters; averting obstacles; and bringing auspiciousness.

Ushnisha Sitatapatra is a female form of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Like this Bodhisattva in an elaborate form, she also has a thousand eyes that watch over living beings, and a thousand arms that protect and assist them. Thus she symbolizes the power of active compassion.

Practices of Arya Sitatapatra includes, “The Supreme Accomplishment of Sitatapatra,” and “Praises and Repelling Practices of Sitatapatra.”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche advised that Dharma centers should perform the Medicine Buddha puja to bring peace and happiness, as well as inner and outer prosperity. Here we share Rinpoche discussing these benefits of Medicine Buddha practice in a teaching excerpt from the 36th Kopan Course held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in 2003. 

“Medicine Buddha is very important, to make everything easy, so you can work with less pressure, so you can meditate on the lamrim, and you have more time to have an easy-going life.”
— Lama Zopa Rinpoche

“In the past, why Buddhism spread so well in Tibet and was able to go for a long time, why so many people were able to learn, to practice and to become bodhisattvas and why so many became enlightened, it is said, was because the Medicine Buddha practice spread out so much. I think especially the Fifth Dalai Lama very strongly emphasized the Medicine Buddha practice. I think the Fifth Dalai Lama composed this long version of the Medicine Buddha practice. Because of that, so much development happened in Tibet, to be able to practice the Dharma, to spread the Dharma, and there was so much peace and happiness in Tibet. It is explained this is due to the practice of Medicine Buddha. All sentient beings’ wishes were fulfilled, and there was inner prosperity and outer prosperity, wealth.

“So, if centers have many expenses and need financial support, if they need external prosperity and inner prosperity, I would like to emphasize this. I did mention this to one person at a center in America, and I would like to emphasis that all the centers on the Tibetan eighth [of the month] should do Medicine Buddha puja. As the Fifth Dalai Lama explained how great success happened in Tibet because of this, it is the same with our centers. So, on the Tibetan eighth, please do Medicine Buddha puja. Normally many centers do Tara puja, especially the older centers, but I want to emphasize that all the centers, especially the organization, do Medicine Buddha puja. Many people love to do Tara puja, as a female deity, so you can do Tara puja in the afternoon or evening and do the Medicine Buddha puja in the morning, because you have to abstain from black food: onions, garlic and meat, things like that. Therefore, it’s good to do it in the morning, before the meal.

“So, I thought that within the organization, the organizers don’t have to suffer, they don’t have to struggle with finances, they don’t have to struggle with so many things and they can have a very easy life with inner and outer prosperity. The organization has been developed over so many years with so much struggle, so many hardships, so much pain, struggling how to make the center more beneficial for sentient beings, how to make the center more accessible. With so much worry and fear, how to keep the center running, how to survive the next month. With many years of learning, going through so many hardships, so much pain, they have become really developed now, so beneficial; they are able to establish very good programs, good education, so people can learn Buddhist philosophy and do retreats. They have been able to create the conditions to offer this. Now, it is much better, much easier, because they have gained so much experience, building the experience for many, many years on how to do things. In the beginning, they had so much difficulty.”Please continue to read this full advice on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. 

Excerpted from a teaching given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the 36th Kopan Course held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in 2003. Lightly edited by Gordon McDougall.

IDMT Year Four, The Vajra Ground: Mahamudra and Kriya Tantra

In this culminating fourth year of our journey, our path turns inward to the mind itself—its empty, luminous nature—and outward to the transformative methods of tantra, where the naturally pure nature of our perception is recognized as the very ground of awakening. 

 As always, the year will start with generating the mind of awakening, using evocative instructions ranging from Langri Thangpa to Nāgārjuna and Lord Buddha in the famous Bodhisattvapiṭaka. This mind generation we'll cultivate through the four immeasurable thoughts and the support of calm abiding. 

 Illuminated by the life stories of the masters of the Gelug Mahāmudrā lineage and beyond, we'll explore its roots in the history of the early Indian Mahāsiddhas, such as Saraha and Tilopa, through the Kagyü master Gampopa's and Je Tsongkhapa's Mañjuśrī lineage up to Paṇchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen's Highway of the Conquerors and its perspective on this practice. In Sūtra Mahāmudrā we will practice resting attention in the empty nature of awareness, recognizing its clarity and openness as inseparable. 

 Kriyā Tantra offers a complementary method. Rather than suppress the ordinary, narrow self-narrative that we impose on ourselves and our world, it substitutes for it an extraordinary perspective of pure view. Occasionally, by way of introduction, we'll also taste practices from the higher tantras—glimpsing how afflictive emotions can be met as innate wisdom, and how the dissolution of the death process opens onto the innate mind of clear light. The structured practices of generation and recitation become a rehearsal for transformation, training perception to meet appearances as pure. 

 These methods rest on a relationship. We will therefore examine the practice of guru devotion candidly—both as the means by which the lineage's realization is transmitted and as a practice with real pitfalls, requiring discernment as much as trust. Through the Ganden Lha Gyāma, the Yoga of the inseparability of guru and Avalokiteśvara, and supporting sādhanas, devotion is approached not as deference but as the ethical road toward the state of Vajradhara: the full integration of wisdom and method. 

 This final year is an invitation to let realization ripen into a way of being. Grounded in bodhicitta and the four immeasurables, sustained by the preliminary practices, and held by the strength of community, we learn to meet the mind without grasping and to meet the world as pure appearance. Our aim is not to accumulate practices, but to bring the path to maturity—wisdom and compassion no longer cultivated separately, but lived as one.

This four-year online course provides students with long term, in-depth support in their meditative development.

The teacher and course developer is Venerable Losang Gendun. He has trained extensively in meditation in both Theravada and Mahayana Traditions

The In Depth Meditation Training course is also part of The Buddha Project led by Venerable Losang Gendun. You can find out more about Venerable Gendun, the course and who it is suitable for on our FPMT In-Depth Meditation Training webpage

If you have any questions you would like to ask before registering please email our In-Depth Meditation Coordinator Marie Odile on idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk

The zoom link and all materials for the course are provided to registered students.

Donations:

Generosity is one of the cornerstones of the Buddhist path. With your donation we support The Buddha Project and we keep our centre going for the benefit of all sentient beings.

As the course is a collaboration with other FPMT centres it is not possible to offer this as part of our Jamyang Leeds membership programme.

• The recommended donation per calendar month is £45.

• If you are able to practice generosity and sponsor other students we recommend £58 per calendar month.

• If you are on a reduced income it is £31 per calendar month.

There is also the option to donate annually.

If none of the above options are affordable please do still register, we never turn anyone away from the Dharma for financial reasons and we can agree a donation that is affordable for you right now. Please email Marie Odile our IDMT Coordinator idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk if you would like to chat.

Vipassana (Special Insight Meditation), also called analytical meditation, is primarily a practice of wisdom. It is a form of concentration that focuses single-pointedly on the ultimate nature of phenomena through analytical reasoning. Analysing phenomena is a key aspect of Vipassana practice, as it helps develop a definitive understanding of the nature of reality—such as the self, mind, emotions, and thoughts.

As Je Tsongkhapa explains, shamatha (calm abiding) is like a lamp that remains clear and steady in a place without wind, whereas vipassana (special insight) is like seeing the nature of phenomena clearly through such a steady and clear lamp. Therefore, the usual order of these two meditations is: first, achieving calm abiding or mental stability as a foundation, then engaging in special insight meditation through analysis. However, Vipassana meditation can also be practised by analysing and observing sensations, thoughts, and emotions without first achieving shamatha. This practice should still begin with focusing on the breath or another object of meditation. In our case, we will focus on the breath to start analysing the nature of the mind in relation to our sense of self, emotions, and thoughts.

The session begins by focusing on the breath—either the rise and fall of the abdomen or the sensation of air entering and leaving the nostrils. This practice calms the mind and helps establish a deep sense of presence.

Next, we move into a guided body scan, bringing awareness to different parts of the body and observing subtle sensations without judgement. This helps develop a greater connection to your physical experience.

As we proceed, you will practise observing and analysing sensations, thoughts, and emotions as they arise, learning to witness them without attachment or aversion. This fosters a deeper understanding of the impermanence and interconnectedness of the mind and self. Finally, you will rest your mind either in the natural state of awareness or in the analytical clarity gained through observation and reasoning.

Through regular practice, Vipassana meditation cultivates wisdom, encouraging a balanced and objective view of internal experiences. This session is ideal for those seeking greater insight and calmness in their daily lives.

Dedicated to the Swift return of Lama Zopa Rinpoche as a bright, unmistaken child.

During the practice of Lama Choepa, we invoke all the lamas of the graduated path lineage, beginning with Shakyamuni Buddha himself, extending to our present direct teachers who have shown us the path. We pay homage to them, make offerings, and request each of them to please bless our minds with the same realizations that they themselves have generated. By offering sincere, heartfelt requests, we make our minds ripe to receive the full blessings of this precious lineage and quickly actualize the realizations we need to attain enlightenment. If we wish to experience realisations quickly, the practice of Lama Choepa is indispensable.

“If you are able to do the practice of Guru Puja in your daily life, it contains all the important points of sutra and tantra. It is a complete practice, and it shows the heart of the instruction of Lama Tsongkhapa’s tradition. Even if one can’t do much else in daily life, Guru Puja is the essential practice.”

Open to all Buddhists, no empowerments needed.

Please arrive early and bring flowers, incense, vegetarian food and drink as offerings for the altar.

More information can also be found on this FPMT page.

About the Course:

The Lamrim — "Stages of the Path" in Tibetan — is a systematic presentation of the entire Buddhist path to Awakening, written by the great Tibetan master Je Tsongkhapa in the 14th and early 15th century, based on writings of the Indian master Atisha. It arranges every essential teaching of the Buddha into a single, coherent, graduated sequence tailored to your mind, exactly as it is right now. Its true power lies not in study alone, but in practice. Each teaching is carefully arranged to meet the mind where it is and guide it—step by step—toward genuine change.

The uncommon preliminary practices (ngöndro) are powerful methods to purify the mind and prepare it for lasting transformation.

Over the first eleven months the common foundations, renunciation, bodhicitta, and the view of emptiness, are explored based on the Lamrim. For the remaining five months the focus is on the uncommon practices, Vajrasattva purification, mandala offerings, and guru yoga. Weekly sessions each introduce a new topic that examines different ways to meditate and why, in combination with a guided meditation.  

The training helps establish a consistent daily meditative practice in supports of its overall aim: to engage in contemplative meditation in a way that genuinely transforms the mind's outlook on the world and gives one's life a new direction. Students gain a deep understanding of how to accumulate merit and purify unskillful karma while cultivating a healthy relationship with the Three Jewels and their teacher. The emphasis is on learning to meditate in a personally tailored way, in accordance with one’s psychological makeup and life conditions.

The Ngondro Lamrim Training teaching sessions are pre-recorded.

Each week, a 90-minute teaching together with two guided meditations are uploaded. On other days, advanced students contribute additional guided meditations. The teacher, Venerable Gendun, offers regular online Q&A sessions. For those who have already studied the Lamrim or the FPMT Basic Program, the training also offers specialized opportunities to learn how to guide others in meditation.

Year 1: Definite Emergence and Mind of Awakening  

• Prepare the mind for śamatha, vipaśyanā, and tantra

• Explore renunciation and bodhicitta, the first two Principles of the Path

• Develop genuine urgency through Lamrim contemplation

• Cultivate the aspiration to Awakening for all beings

FPMT Ngondro Lamrim Taining is also part of The Buddha Project led by Venerable Losang Gendun. You can find out more about Venerable Gendun, the course and who it is suitable for on our FPMT Ngondro Lamrim Training webpage

If you have any questions you would like to ask before registering please email our In-Depth Meditation Coordinator Marie Odile on idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk

All materials for the course are provided to registered students.

Donations:

Generosity is one of the cornerstones of the Buddhist path. Donations help support both the centre and The Buddha Project as well as providing a donation for the teachings to Venerable Gendun.  There are different levels depending on your income. There are three terms a year, each approximately 3 months long

As the course is a collaboration with other FPMT centres it is not possible to offer this as part of our Jamyang Leeds membership programme.

• For those with a regular income the recommended donation is £95 per term

• The sponsorhsip level is £115 per term

• Ordained Sangha are free

If this isn’t affordable please do register, we never turn anyone away from the Dharma for financial reasons and we can agree a donation that is affordable for you at the current time. Please email Marie-Odile our IDMT Coordinator idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk if you would like to chat.

The Yamantaka practice is held on the Mondays weekly. Please note that some weeks it starts at 2:30pm and some at 6pm it doesn’t always alternate weekly.

A beautiful practice led by Chrissie and Di.

The Buddhist practice of Giving & Taking (Tonglen in Tibetan) is at its heart a selfless meditation of loving kindness and compassion. You imagine giving all your happiness to others, sometimes using visualisation with the breath, and then taking all the suffering and its causes from others. It’s a powerful practice for the brave-hearted!

Lama Zopa Rinpoche (our organisation’s Spiritual Director) suggested Jamyang Leeds perform these practices to help with the financial obstacles we are currently having. From September 2022, we’ll be reciting this practice as much as we can. See the special newsletter explaining all about the practice here.

This is a longer meditation on Medicine Buddha – to remove obstacles, esp. those relating to health and achieving a favourable rebirth, and activate a swift path to enlightenment.

As Lama Zopa Rinpoche said: “One of the best healing meditations is that on the Medicine Buddha, who is the manifestation of the healing energy of all enlightened beings.”

The puja involves chanting prayers to the Seven Medicine Buddhas and reciting the Medicine Buddha mantras.

It is kindly led by Sande

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

Everflowing Nectar of Bodhichitta – Annihilating the Demon of the Self-Cherishing Mind

Led by Di or Sande

This practice is based on the short text” Eight Verses of Thought Transformation”, which contains the entire technique for transforming the mind into relative bodhichitta (i.e., the wish to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings) and absolute bodhichitta (i.e., the wisdom realizing emptiness).

Join us to fulfill His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s wishes and chant the Names of Noble Manjushri for the swift return of Lama Zopa Rinpoche. 

Please come along even if you havent done the practice before, its quite wonderful and very energising. Please download the text below, you can also listen and practice with the audio clip of Lama Zopa Rinpoche reciting the Chanting the Names of Noble Manjushri.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche (our organisation’s Spiritual Director) suggested Jamyang Leeds perform these practices to help with the financial obstacles we are currently having. From September 2022, we’ll be reciting this practice as much as we can. See the special newsletter explaining all about the practice here.

This international group of Kalachakra practitioners meets weekly and alternates with commentary and practice.

Mind Mandala once a month and six session guru yoga for other sessions:

If you’re already part of this group, please use the details sent in the weekly email to join the practice

If you’d like to join us, please email spc@jamyangleeds.co.uk confirming that you have the appropriate empowerments. You will then be sent a registration form to complete.

Led by Ruth 

Mindfulness of Breathing is universally acknowledged to be of benefit to all living in the modern world. Many feel overloaded with all that is expected of us living this complex and exhausting existence. Developing our awareness in this way is a general prescription for soothing and healing the overworked body and mind.

Practicing focusing the attention on an object such as the breath is also a core practice in Tibetan Buddhism. Gradually over time we are able to hold the object of our attention over longer periods, which enables us to practice other meditations such as Vipassana more successfully.

In September 2024, His Eminence Ling Rinpoche gave us this practice to overcome obstacles to the centre flourishing.

In addition to many benefits of engaging in these practices, Lama Zopa Rinpoche recommended that these two practices are beneficial to helping bring peace to situation between Israel and Palestine.

The Sanskrit name for the White Umbrella deity is Ushnisha Sitatapatra which can also be translated as “The Victorious White Parasol.” The White Umbrella Deity, [Skt. Sitatapatra, Tib. gdugs dkar] is a powerful female deity. She is relied upon for protection; healing illness; dispelling interferences, spirit possession, and harmful forces; quelling disasters; averting obstacles; and bringing auspiciousness.

Ushnisha Sitatapatra is a female form of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Like this Bodhisattva in an elaborate form, she also has a thousand eyes that watch over living beings, and a thousand arms that protect and assist them. Thus she symbolizes the power of active compassion.

Practices of Arya Sitatapatra includes, “The Supreme Accomplishment of Sitatapatra,” and “Praises and Repelling Practices of Sitatapatra.”

IDMT Year Four, The Vajra Ground: Mahamudra and Kriya Tantra

In this culminating fourth year of our journey, our path turns inward to the mind itself—its empty, luminous nature—and outward to the transformative methods of tantra, where the naturally pure nature of our perception is recognized as the very ground of awakening. 

 As always, the year will start with generating the mind of awakening, using evocative instructions ranging from Langri Thangpa to Nāgārjuna and Lord Buddha in the famous Bodhisattvapiṭaka. This mind generation we'll cultivate through the four immeasurable thoughts and the support of calm abiding. 

 Illuminated by the life stories of the masters of the Gelug Mahāmudrā lineage and beyond, we'll explore its roots in the history of the early Indian Mahāsiddhas, such as Saraha and Tilopa, through the Kagyü master Gampopa's and Je Tsongkhapa's Mañjuśrī lineage up to Paṇchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen's Highway of the Conquerors and its perspective on this practice. In Sūtra Mahāmudrā we will practice resting attention in the empty nature of awareness, recognizing its clarity and openness as inseparable. 

 Kriyā Tantra offers a complementary method. Rather than suppress the ordinary, narrow self-narrative that we impose on ourselves and our world, it substitutes for it an extraordinary perspective of pure view. Occasionally, by way of introduction, we'll also taste practices from the higher tantras—glimpsing how afflictive emotions can be met as innate wisdom, and how the dissolution of the death process opens onto the innate mind of clear light. The structured practices of generation and recitation become a rehearsal for transformation, training perception to meet appearances as pure. 

 These methods rest on a relationship. We will therefore examine the practice of guru devotion candidly—both as the means by which the lineage's realization is transmitted and as a practice with real pitfalls, requiring discernment as much as trust. Through the Ganden Lha Gyāma, the Yoga of the inseparability of guru and Avalokiteśvara, and supporting sādhanas, devotion is approached not as deference but as the ethical road toward the state of Vajradhara: the full integration of wisdom and method. 

 This final year is an invitation to let realization ripen into a way of being. Grounded in bodhicitta and the four immeasurables, sustained by the preliminary practices, and held by the strength of community, we learn to meet the mind without grasping and to meet the world as pure appearance. Our aim is not to accumulate practices, but to bring the path to maturity—wisdom and compassion no longer cultivated separately, but lived as one.

This four-year online course provides students with long term, in-depth support in their meditative development.

The teacher and course developer is Venerable Losang Gendun. He has trained extensively in meditation in both Theravada and Mahayana Traditions

The In Depth Meditation Training course is also part of The Buddha Project led by Venerable Losang Gendun. You can find out more about Venerable Gendun, the course and who it is suitable for on our FPMT In-Depth Meditation Training webpage

If you have any questions you would like to ask before registering please email our In-Depth Meditation Coordinator Marie Odile on idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk

The zoom link and all materials for the course are provided to registered students.

Donations:

Generosity is one of the cornerstones of the Buddhist path. With your donation we support The Buddha Project and we keep our centre going for the benefit of all sentient beings.

As the course is a collaboration with other FPMT centres it is not possible to offer this as part of our Jamyang Leeds membership programme.

• The recommended donation per calendar month is £45.

• If you are able to practice generosity and sponsor other students we recommend £58 per calendar month.

• If you are on a reduced income it is £31 per calendar month.

There is also the option to donate annually.

If none of the above options are affordable please do still register, we never turn anyone away from the Dharma for financial reasons and we can agree a donation that is affordable for you right now. Please email Marie Odile our IDMT Coordinator idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk if you would like to chat.

Vipassana (Special Insight Meditation), also called analytical meditation, is primarily a practice of wisdom. It is a form of concentration that focuses single-pointedly on the ultimate nature of phenomena through analytical reasoning. Analysing phenomena is a key aspect of Vipassana practice, as it helps develop a definitive understanding of the nature of reality—such as the self, mind, emotions, and thoughts.

As Je Tsongkhapa explains, shamatha (calm abiding) is like a lamp that remains clear and steady in a place without wind, whereas vipassana (special insight) is like seeing the nature of phenomena clearly through such a steady and clear lamp. Therefore, the usual order of these two meditations is: first, achieving calm abiding or mental stability as a foundation, then engaging in special insight meditation through analysis. However, Vipassana meditation can also be practised by analysing and observing sensations, thoughts, and emotions without first achieving shamatha. This practice should still begin with focusing on the breath or another object of meditation. In our case, we will focus on the breath to start analysing the nature of the mind in relation to our sense of self, emotions, and thoughts.

The session begins by focusing on the breath—either the rise and fall of the abdomen or the sensation of air entering and leaving the nostrils. This practice calms the mind and helps establish a deep sense of presence.

Next, we move into a guided body scan, bringing awareness to different parts of the body and observing subtle sensations without judgement. This helps develop a greater connection to your physical experience.

As we proceed, you will practise observing and analysing sensations, thoughts, and emotions as they arise, learning to witness them without attachment or aversion. This fosters a deeper understanding of the impermanence and interconnectedness of the mind and self. Finally, you will rest your mind either in the natural state of awareness or in the analytical clarity gained through observation and reasoning.

Through regular practice, Vipassana meditation cultivates wisdom, encouraging a balanced and objective view of internal experiences. This session is ideal for those seeking greater insight and calmness in their daily lives.

About the Course:

The Lamrim — "Stages of the Path" in Tibetan — is a systematic presentation of the entire Buddhist path to Awakening, written by the great Tibetan master Je Tsongkhapa in the 14th and early 15th century, based on writings of the Indian master Atisha. It arranges every essential teaching of the Buddha into a single, coherent, graduated sequence tailored to your mind, exactly as it is right now. Its true power lies not in study alone, but in practice. Each teaching is carefully arranged to meet the mind where it is and guide it—step by step—toward genuine change.

The uncommon preliminary practices (ngöndro) are powerful methods to purify the mind and prepare it for lasting transformation.

Over the first eleven months the common foundations, renunciation, bodhicitta, and the view of emptiness, are explored based on the Lamrim. For the remaining five months the focus is on the uncommon practices, Vajrasattva purification, mandala offerings, and guru yoga. Weekly sessions each introduce a new topic that examines different ways to meditate and why, in combination with a guided meditation.  

The training helps establish a consistent daily meditative practice in supports of its overall aim: to engage in contemplative meditation in a way that genuinely transforms the mind's outlook on the world and gives one's life a new direction. Students gain a deep understanding of how to accumulate merit and purify unskillful karma while cultivating a healthy relationship with the Three Jewels and their teacher. The emphasis is on learning to meditate in a personally tailored way, in accordance with one’s psychological makeup and life conditions.

The Ngondro Lamrim Training teaching sessions are pre-recorded.

Each week, a 90-minute teaching together with two guided meditations are uploaded. On other days, advanced students contribute additional guided meditations. The teacher, Venerable Gendun, offers regular online Q&A sessions. For those who have already studied the Lamrim or the FPMT Basic Program, the training also offers specialized opportunities to learn how to guide others in meditation.

Year 1: Definite Emergence and Mind of Awakening  

• Prepare the mind for śamatha, vipaśyanā, and tantra

• Explore renunciation and bodhicitta, the first two Principles of the Path

• Develop genuine urgency through Lamrim contemplation

• Cultivate the aspiration to Awakening for all beings

FPMT Ngondro Lamrim Taining is also part of The Buddha Project led by Venerable Losang Gendun. You can find out more about Venerable Gendun, the course and who it is suitable for on our FPMT Ngondro Lamrim Training webpage

If you have any questions you would like to ask before registering please email our In-Depth Meditation Coordinator Marie Odile on idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk

All materials for the course are provided to registered students.

Donations:

Generosity is one of the cornerstones of the Buddhist path. Donations help support both the centre and The Buddha Project as well as providing a donation for the teachings to Venerable Gendun.  There are different levels depending on your income. There are three terms a year, each approximately 3 months long

As the course is a collaboration with other FPMT centres it is not possible to offer this as part of our Jamyang Leeds membership programme.

• For those with a regular income the recommended donation is £95 per term

• The sponsorhsip level is £115 per term

• Ordained Sangha are free

If this isn’t affordable please do register, we never turn anyone away from the Dharma for financial reasons and we can agree a donation that is affordable for you at the current time. Please email Marie-Odile our IDMT Coordinator idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk if you would like to chat.

The Yamantaka practice is held on Mondays weekly. Please note that some weeks it starts at 2:30pm and some at 6pm it doesn’t always alternate weekly.

Tara Puja dedicated to world peace is held on a monthly basis.

Led by Ondy Willson and translated by Venerable Tenzin into Russian for Russian and Ukrainian students

Please join us, occasionally or regularly, at 17.45 UK time to show our support for the courageous spiritual communities both in Ukraine & Russia and also in Israel and Gaza. May we all nurture compassion & peace in the face of destruction & violence.

By coming together like this we send a powerful message that comes from the depths of our being. We value peace, harmony and the enlightened qualities we aspire to embody, as generated in the 21 Taras Sadhana.

By the power of our merit may there be a non-violent and bloodless revolution of consciousness so that enlightened democracies based on social wellbeing flourish everywhere.

Please forward this invitation to anyone who you think may be interested in this free and beneficial session.

The puja will last approximately 45 minutes to include some guidance on harnessing the positive power of the prayers in generating the particular qualities of compassion and fearlessness.

Ondy Willson, a touring FPMT teacher since 2007, has students in Russia & Ukraine, so felt particularly moved to offer these pujas both to connect with & support those who are suffering on the front line. So these pujas have provided, not just an opportunity to deal with fear and pray for peace, but to meet directly together as a global community and interact with our Ukrainian and Russian dharma friends.  At the end of one week’s puja, participants in Ukraine & Russia shared their stories & experiences, which was very moving for us all to hear.

A beautiful practice led by Chrissie and Di.

The Buddhist practice of Giving & Taking (Tonglen in Tibetan) is at its heart a selfless meditation of loving kindness and compassion. You imagine giving all your happiness to others, sometimes using visualisation with the breath, and then taking all the suffering and its causes from others. It’s a powerful practice for the brave-hearted!

Lama Zopa Rinpoche (our organisation’s Spiritual Director) suggested Jamyang Leeds perform these practices to help with the financial obstacles we are currently having. From September 2022, we’ll be reciting this practice as much as we can. See the special newsletter explaining all about the practice here.

This is a longer meditation on Medicine Buddha – to remove obstacles, esp. those relating to health and achieving a favourable rebirth, and activate a swift path to enlightenment.

As Lama Zopa Rinpoche said: “One of the best healing meditations is that on the Medicine Buddha, who is the manifestation of the healing energy of all enlightened beings.”

The puja involves chanting prayers to the Seven Medicine Buddhas and reciting the Medicine Buddha mantras.

It is kindly led by Sande

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

Everflowing Nectar of Bodhichitta – Annihilating the Demon of the Self-Cherishing Mind

Led by Di or Sande

This practice is based on the short text” Eight Verses of Thought Transformation”, which contains the entire technique for transforming the mind into relative bodhichitta (i.e., the wish to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings) and absolute bodhichitta (i.e., the wisdom realizing emptiness).

Join us to fulfill His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s wishes and chant the Names of Noble Manjushri for the swift return of Lama Zopa Rinpoche. 

Please come along even if you havent done the practice before, its quite wonderful and very energising. Please download the text below, you can also listen and practice with the audio clip of Lama Zopa Rinpoche reciting the Chanting the Names of Noble Manjushri.

This international group of Kalachakra practitioners meets weekly and alternates with commentary and practice.

Mind Mandala once a month and six session guru yoga for other sessions:

If you’re already part of this group, please use the details sent in the weekly email to join the practice

If you’d like to join us, please email spc@jamyangleeds.co.uk confirming that you have the appropriate empowerments. You will then be sent a registration form to complete.

Led by Ruth 

Mindfulness of Breathing is universally acknowledged to be of benefit to all living in the modern world. Many feel overloaded with all that is expected of us living this complex and exhausting existence. Developing our awareness in this way is a general prescription for soothing and healing the overworked body and mind.

Practicing focusing the attention on an object such as the breath is also a core practice in Tibetan Buddhism. Gradually over time we are able to hold the object of our attention over longer periods, which enables us to practice other meditations such as Vipassana more successfully.

IDMT Year Four, The Vajra Ground: Mahamudra and Kriya Tantra

In this culminating fourth year of our journey, our path turns inward to the mind itself—its empty, luminous nature—and outward to the transformative methods of tantra, where the naturally pure nature of our perception is recognized as the very ground of awakening. 

As always, the year will start with generating the mind of awakening, using evocative instructions ranging from Langri Thangpa to Nāgārjuna and Lord Buddha in the famous Bodhisattvapiṭaka. This mind generation we'll cultivate through the four immeasurable thoughts and the support of calm abiding. 

Illuminated by the life stories of the masters of the Gelug Mahāmudrā lineage and beyond, we'll explore its roots in the history of the early Indian Mahāsiddhas, such as Saraha and Tilopa, through the Kagyü master Gampopa's and Je Tsongkhapa's Mañjuśrī lineage up to Paṇchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen's Highway of the Conquerors and its perspective on this practice. In Sūtra Mahāmudrā we will practice resting attention in the empty nature of awareness, recognizing its clarity and openness as inseparable. 

Kriyā Tantra offers a complementary method. Rather than suppress the ordinary, narrow self-narrative that we impose on ourselves and our world, it substitutes for it an extraordinary perspective of pure view. Occasionally, by way of introduction, we'll also taste practices from the higher tantras—glimpsing how afflictive emotions can be met as innate wisdom, and how the dissolution of the death process opens onto the innate mind of clear light. The structured practices of generation and recitation become a rehearsal for transformation, training perception to meet appearances as pure. 

These methods rest on a relationship. We will therefore examine the practice of guru devotion candidly—both as the means by which the lineage's realization is transmitted and as a practice with real pitfalls, requiring discernment as much as trust. Through the Ganden Lha Gyāma, the Yoga of the inseparability of guru and Avalokiteśvara, and supporting sādhanas, devotion is approached not as deference but as the ethical road toward the state of Vajradhara: the full integration of wisdom and method. 

This final year is an invitation to let realization ripen into a way of being. Grounded in bodhicitta and the four immeasurables, sustained by the preliminary practices, and held by the strength of community, we learn to meet the mind without grasping and to meet the world as pure appearance. Our aim is not to accumulate practices, but to bring the path to maturity—wisdom and compassion no longer cultivated separately, but lived as one.

This four-year online course provides students with long term, in-depth support in their meditative development.

The teacher and course developer is Venerable Losang Gendun. He has trained extensively in meditation in both Theravada and Mahayana Traditions

The In Depth Meditation Training course is also part of The Buddha Project led by Venerable Losang Gendun. You can find out more about Venerable Gendun, the course and who it is suitable for on our FPMT In-Depth Meditation Training webpage

If you have any questions you would like to ask before registering please email our In-Depth Meditation Coordinator Marie Odile on idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk

The zoom link and all materials for the course are provided to registered students.

Donations:

Generosity is one of the cornerstones of the Buddhist path. With your donation we support The Buddha Project and we keep our centre going for the benefit of all sentient beings.

As the course is a collaboration with other FPMT centres it is not possible to offer this as part of our Jamyang Leeds membership programme.

• The recommended donation per calendar month is £45.

• If you are able to practice generosity and sponsor other students we recommend £58 per calendar month.

• If you are on a reduced income it is £31 per calendar month.

There is also the option to donate annually.

If none of the above options are affordable please do still register, we never turn anyone away from the Dharma for financial reasons and we can agree a donation that is affordable for you right now. Please email Marie Odile our IDMT Coordinator idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk if you would like to chat.

Vipassana (Special Insight Meditation), also called analytical meditation, is primarily a practice of wisdom. It is a form of concentration that focuses single-pointedly on the ultimate nature of phenomena through analytical reasoning. Analysing phenomena is a key aspect of Vipassana practice, as it helps develop a definitive understanding of the nature of reality—such as the self, mind, emotions, and thoughts.

As Je Tsongkhapa explains, shamatha (calm abiding) is like a lamp that remains clear and steady in a place without wind, whereas vipassana (special insight) is like seeing the nature of phenomena clearly through such a steady and clear lamp. Therefore, the usual order of these two meditations is: first, achieving calm abiding or mental stability as a foundation, then engaging in special insight meditation through analysis. However, Vipassana meditation can also be practised by analysing and observing sensations, thoughts, and emotions without first achieving shamatha. This practice should still begin with focusing on the breath or another object of meditation. In our case, we will focus on the breath to start analysing the nature of the mind in relation to our sense of self, emotions, and thoughts.

The session begins by focusing on the breath—either the rise and fall of the abdomen or the sensation of air entering and leaving the nostrils. This practice calms the mind and helps establish a deep sense of presence.

Next, we move into a guided body scan, bringing awareness to different parts of the body and observing subtle sensations without judgement. This helps develop a greater connection to your physical experience.

As we proceed, you will practise observing and analysing sensations, thoughts, and emotions as they arise, learning to witness them without attachment or aversion. This fosters a deeper understanding of the impermanence and interconnectedness of the mind and self. Finally, you will rest your mind either in the natural state of awareness or in the analytical clarity gained through observation and reasoning.

Through regular practice, Vipassana meditation cultivates wisdom, encouraging a balanced and objective view of internal experiences. This session is ideal for those seeking greater insight and calmness in their daily lives.

Dedicated to the Swift return of Lama Zopa Rinpoche as a bright, unmistaken child.

During the practice of Lama Choepa, we invoke all the lamas of the graduated path lineage, beginning with Shakyamuni Buddha himself, extending to our present direct teachers who have shown us the path. We pay homage to them, make offerings, and request each of them to please bless our minds with the same realizations that they themselves have generated. By offering sincere, heartfelt requests, we make our minds ripe to receive the full blessings of this precious lineage and quickly actualize the realizations we need to attain enlightenment. If we wish to experience realisations quickly, the practice of Lama Choepa is indispensable.

“If you are able to do the practice of Guru Puja in your daily life, it contains all the important points of sutra and tantra. It is a complete practice, and it shows the heart of the instruction of Lama Tsongkhapa’s tradition. Even if one can’t do much else in daily life, Guru Puja is the essential practice.”

Open to all Buddhists, no empowerments needed.

Please arrive early and bring flowers, incense, vegetarian food and drink as offerings for the altar.

More information can also be found on this FPMT page.

About the Course:

The Lamrim — "Stages of the Path" in Tibetan — is a systematic presentation of the entire Buddhist path to Awakening, written by the great Tibetan master Je Tsongkhapa in the 14th and early 15th century, based on writings of the Indian master Atisha. It arranges every essential teaching of the Buddha into a single, coherent, graduated sequence tailored to your mind, exactly as it is right now. Its true power lies not in study alone, but in practice. Each teaching is carefully arranged to meet the mind where it is and guide it—step by step—toward genuine change.

The uncommon preliminary practices (ngöndro) are powerful methods to purify the mind and prepare it for lasting transformation.

Over the first eleven months the common foundations, renunciation, bodhicitta, and the view of emptiness, are explored based on the Lamrim. For the remaining five months the focus is on the uncommon practices, Vajrasattva purification, mandala offerings, and guru yoga. Weekly sessions each introduce a new topic that examines different ways to meditate and why, in combination with a guided meditation.  

The training helps establish a consistent daily meditative practice in supports of its overall aim: to engage in contemplative meditation in a way that genuinely transforms the mind's outlook on the world and gives one's life a new direction. Students gain a deep understanding of how to accumulate merit and purify unskillful karma while cultivating a healthy relationship with the Three Jewels and their teacher. The emphasis is on learning to meditate in a personally tailored way, in accordance with one’s psychological makeup and life conditions.

The Ngondro Lamrim Training teaching sessions are pre-recorded.

Each week, a 90-minute teaching together with two guided meditations are uploaded. On other days, advanced students contribute additional guided meditations. The teacher, Venerable Gendun, offers regular online Q&A sessions. For those who have already studied the Lamrim or the FPMT Basic Program, the training also offers specialized opportunities to learn how to guide others in meditation.

Year 1: Definite Emergence and Mind of Awakening  

• Prepare the mind for śamatha, vipaśyanā, and tantra

• Explore renunciation and bodhicitta, the first two Principles of the Path

• Develop genuine urgency through Lamrim contemplation

• Cultivate the aspiration to Awakening for all beings

FPMT Ngondro Lamrim Taining is also part of The Buddha Project led by Venerable Losang Gendun. You can find out more about Venerable Gendun, the course and who it is suitable for on our FPMT Ngondro Lamrim Training webpage

If you have any questions you would like to ask before registering please email our In-Depth Meditation Coordinator Marie Odile on idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk

All materials for the course are provided to registered students.

Donations:

Generosity is one of the cornerstones of the Buddhist path. Donations help support both the centre and The Buddha Project as well as providing a donation for the teachings to Venerable Gendun.  There are different levels depending on your income. There are three terms a year, each approximately 3 months long

As the course is a collaboration with other FPMT centres it is not possible to offer this as part of our Jamyang Leeds membership programme.

• For those with a regular income the recommended donation is £95 per term

• The sponsorhsip level is £115 per term

• Ordained Sangha are free

If this isn’t affordable please do register, we never turn anyone away from the Dharma for financial reasons and we can agree a donation that is affordable for you at the current time. Please email Marie-Odile our IDMT Coordinator idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk if you would like to chat.

The Yamantaka practice is held on the Mondays weekly. Please note that some weeks it starts at 2:30pm and some at 6pm it doesn’t always alternate weekly.

The Yamantaka study group is held on the first or second Monday monthly at 6pm.

In 2022, after the war in Ukraine started, Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered advice on prayers and practices to do in order to pacify the threats of war. All are welcome to download the booklet, Prayers to Stop War.

At the time, Lama Zopa Rinpoche also gave advice for how to motivate and think when doing these prayers and practices:

At the beginning generate strong bodhicitta, then do these prayers and practices to stop the war. The main purpose is to stop the war immediately. Then also to prevent famine, disease, and all the dangers of earth, water, fire, and wind, for all these dangers to be pacified immediately. To fill the whole world with perfect peace and happiness, including enlightenment, and to generate loving kindness, compassion and bodhicitta in the heart of all sentient beings.

Think that from Guru Padmasambhava’s heart, beams radiate and totally purify all the six realms’ sentient beings, totally purify all the delusions and negative karmas collected from beginningless rebirths, especially anger, attachment, and ignorance; think that these are totally purified. Then recite Sampa Lhundrupma, followed by the Padmasambhava mantra (one or two malas).

With strong faith in Guru Padmasambhava and total reliance, Guru Padmasambhava will definitely help because his compassion embraces all sentient beings. 

Then another way to think is, with strong faith in His Holiness the Dalai Lama in the aspect of Guru Padmasambhava, nectar beams are emitted to all leaders of war, entering the body and totally purifying all negative karma and obscurations; all the dissatisfied mind, desire, ignorance, anger, and selfish mind are totally purified; they generate bodhicitta especially, and then the whole path to enlightenment. Do that very strongly, making strong prayers to His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Then nectar beams are also emitted to all involved, and these purify all the anger and self-cherishing thought. They generate bodhicitta, and stop giving harm to even one sentient being and only benefit sentient beings, up to enlightenment. 

Then recite the Heart Sutra and the prayer to stop wars.

For those who can do the Most Secret Hayagriva sadhana, do this at the beginning of the practice. When reciting the mantra, you can do the same visualizations as above.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave this advice in 2022 to IMI Sangha on prayers and practices they could do in response to the developing war in Ukraine. The above motivation was edited slightly to be more general in order to be relevant for current threats at any time. The original advice can be read here. Please download Prayers to Stop War . 

A beautiful practice led by Chrissie and Di.

The Buddhist practice of Giving & Taking (Tonglen in Tibetan) is at its heart a selfless meditation of loving kindness and compassion. You imagine giving all your happiness to others, sometimes using visualisation with the breath, and then taking all the suffering and its causes from others. It’s a powerful practice for the brave-hearted!

Everflowing Nectar of Bodhichitta – Annihilating the Demon of the Self-Cherishing Mind

Led by Di or Sande

This practice is based on the short text” Eight Verses of Thought Transformation”, which contains the entire technique for transforming the mind into relative bodhichitta (i.e., the wish to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings) and absolute bodhichitta (i.e., the wisdom realizing emptiness).

Join us to fulfill His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s wishes and chant the Names of Noble Manjushri for the swift return of Lama Zopa Rinpoche. 

Please come along even if you havent done the practice before, its quite wonderful and very energising. Please download the text below, you can also listen and practice with the audio clip of Lama Zopa Rinpoche reciting the Chanting the Names of Noble Manjushri.

This international group of Kalachakra practitioners meets weekly and alternates with commentary and practice.

Mind Mandala once a month and six session guru yoga for other sessions:

If you’re already part of this group, please use the details sent in the weekly email to join the practice

If you’d like to join us, please email spc@jamyangleeds.co.uk confirming that you have the appropriate empowerments. You will then be sent a registration form to complete.

Led by Ruth 

Mindfulness of Breathing is universally acknowledged to be of benefit to all living in the modern world. Many feel overloaded with all that is expected of us living this complex and exhausting existence. Developing our awareness in this way is a general prescription for soothing and healing the overworked body and mind.

Practicing focusing the attention on an object such as the breath is also a core practice in Tibetan Buddhism. Gradually over time we are able to hold the object of our attention over longer periods, which enables us to practice other meditations such as Vipassana more successfully.

IDMT Year Four, The Vajra Ground: Mahamudra and Kriya Tantra

In this culminating fourth year of our journey, our path turns inward to the mind itself—its empty, luminous nature—and outward to the transformative methods of tantra, where the naturally pure nature of our perception is recognized as the very ground of awakening. 

As always, the year will start with generating the mind of awakening, using evocative instructions ranging from Langri Thangpa to Nāgārjuna and Lord Buddha in the famous Bodhisattvapiṭaka. This mind generation we'll cultivate through the four immeasurable thoughts and the support of calm abiding. 

Illuminated by the life stories of the masters of the Gelug Mahāmudrā lineage and beyond, we'll explore its roots in the history of the early Indian Mahāsiddhas, such as Saraha and Tilopa, through the Kagyü master Gampopa's and Je Tsongkhapa's Mañjuśrī lineage up to Paṇchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen's Highway of the Conquerors and its perspective on this practice. In Sūtra Mahāmudrā we will practice resting attention in the empty nature of awareness, recognizing its clarity and openness as inseparable. 

Kriyā Tantra offers a complementary method. Rather than suppress the ordinary, narrow self-narrative that we impose on ourselves and our world, it substitutes for it an extraordinary perspective of pure view. Occasionally, by way of introduction, we'll also taste practices from the higher tantras—glimpsing how afflictive emotions can be met as innate wisdom, and how the dissolution of the death process opens onto the innate mind of clear light. The structured practices of generation and recitation become a rehearsal for transformation, training perception to meet appearances as pure. 

These methods rest on a relationship. We will therefore examine the practice of guru devotion candidly—both as the means by which the lineage's realization is transmitted and as a practice with real pitfalls, requiring discernment as much as trust. Through the Ganden Lha Gyāma, the Yoga of the inseparability of guru and Avalokiteśvara, and supporting sādhanas, devotion is approached not as deference but as the ethical road toward the state of Vajradhara: the full integration of wisdom and method. 

This final year is an invitation to let realization ripen into a way of being. Grounded in bodhicitta and the four immeasurables, sustained by the preliminary practices, and held by the strength of community, we learn to meet the mind without grasping and to meet the world as pure appearance. Our aim is not to accumulate practices, but to bring the path to maturity—wisdom and compassion no longer cultivated separately, but lived as one.

This four-year online course provides students with long term, in-depth support in their meditative development.

The teacher and course developer is Venerable Losang Gendun. He has trained extensively in meditation in both Theravada and Mahayana Traditions

The In Depth Meditation Training course is also part of The Buddha Project led by Venerable Losang Gendun. You can find out more about Venerable Gendun, the course and who it is suitable for on our FPMT In-Depth Meditation Training webpage

If you have any questions you would like to ask before registering please email our In-Depth Meditation Coordinator Marie Odile on idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk

The zoom link and all materials for the course are provided to registered students.

Donations:

Generosity is one of the cornerstones of the Buddhist path. With your donation we support The Buddha Project and we keep our centre going for the benefit of all sentient beings.

As the course is a collaboration with other FPMT centres it is not possible to offer this as part of our Jamyang Leeds membership programme.

• The recommended donation per calendar month is £45.

• If you are able to practice generosity and sponsor other students we recommend £58 per calendar month.

• If you are on a reduced income it is £31 per calendar month.

There is also the option to donate annually.

If none of the above options are affordable please do still register, we never turn anyone away from the Dharma for financial reasons and we can agree a donation that is affordable for you right now. Please email Marie Odile our IDMT Coordinator idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk if you would like to chat.

Vipassana (Special Insight Meditation), also called analytical meditation, is primarily a practice of wisdom. It is a form of concentration that focuses single-pointedly on the ultimate nature of phenomena through analytical reasoning. Analysing phenomena is a key aspect of Vipassana practice, as it helps develop a definitive understanding of the nature of reality—such as the self, mind, emotions, and thoughts.

As Je Tsongkhapa explains, shamatha (calm abiding) is like a lamp that remains clear and steady in a place without wind, whereas vipassana (special insight) is like seeing the nature of phenomena clearly through such a steady and clear lamp. Therefore, the usual order of these two meditations is: first, achieving calm abiding or mental stability as a foundation, then engaging in special insight meditation through analysis. However, Vipassana meditation can also be practised by analysing and observing sensations, thoughts, and emotions without first achieving shamatha. This practice should still begin with focusing on the breath or another object of meditation. In our case, we will focus on the breath to start analysing the nature of the mind in relation to our sense of self, emotions, and thoughts.

The session begins by focusing on the breath—either the rise and fall of the abdomen or the sensation of air entering and leaving the nostrils. This practice calms the mind and helps establish a deep sense of presence.

Next, we move into a guided body scan, bringing awareness to different parts of the body and observing subtle sensations without judgement. This helps develop a greater connection to your physical experience.

As we proceed, you will practise observing and analysing sensations, thoughts, and emotions as they arise, learning to witness them without attachment or aversion. This fosters a deeper understanding of the impermanence and interconnectedness of the mind and self. Finally, you will rest your mind either in the natural state of awareness or in the analytical clarity gained through observation and reasoning.

Through regular practice, Vipassana meditation cultivates wisdom, encouraging a balanced and objective view of internal experiences. This session is ideal for those seeking greater insight and calmness in their daily lives.

About the Course:

The Lamrim — "Stages of the Path" in Tibetan — is a systematic presentation of the entire Buddhist path to Awakening, written by the great Tibetan master Je Tsongkhapa in the 14th and early 15th century, based on writings of the Indian master Atisha. It arranges every essential teaching of the Buddha into a single, coherent, graduated sequence tailored to your mind, exactly as it is right now. Its true power lies not in study alone, but in practice. Each teaching is carefully arranged to meet the mind where it is and guide it—step by step—toward genuine change.

The uncommon preliminary practices (ngöndro) are powerful methods to purify the mind and prepare it for lasting transformation.

Over the first eleven months the common foundations, renunciation, bodhicitta, and the view of emptiness, are explored based on the Lamrim. For the remaining five months the focus is on the uncommon practices, Vajrasattva purification, mandala offerings, and guru yoga. Weekly sessions each introduce a new topic that examines different ways to meditate and why, in combination with a guided meditation.  

The training helps establish a consistent daily meditative practice in supports of its overall aim: to engage in contemplative meditation in a way that genuinely transforms the mind's outlook on the world and gives one's life a new direction. Students gain a deep understanding of how to accumulate merit and purify unskillful karma while cultivating a healthy relationship with the Three Jewels and their teacher. The emphasis is on learning to meditate in a personally tailored way, in accordance with one’s psychological makeup and life conditions.

The Ngondro Lamrim Training teaching sessions are pre-recorded.

Each week, a 90-minute teaching together with two guided meditations are uploaded. On other days, advanced students contribute additional guided meditations. The teacher, Venerable Gendun, offers regular online Q&A sessions. For those who have already studied the Lamrim or the FPMT Basic Program, the training also offers specialized opportunities to learn how to guide others in meditation.

Year 1: Definite Emergence and Mind of Awakening  

• Prepare the mind for śamatha, vipaśyanā, and tantra

• Explore renunciation and bodhicitta, the first two Principles of the Path

• Develop genuine urgency through Lamrim contemplation

• Cultivate the aspiration to Awakening for all beings

FPMT Ngondro Lamrim Taining is also part of The Buddha Project led by Venerable Losang Gendun. You can find out more about Venerable Gendun, the course and who it is suitable for on our FPMTNgondro Lamrim Training webpage

If you have any questions you would like to ask before registering please email our In-Depth Meditation Coordinator Marie Odile on idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk

All materials for the course are provided to registered students.

Donations:

Generosity is one of the cornerstones of the Buddhist path. Donations help support both the centre and The Buddha Project as well as providing a donation for the teachings to Venerable Gendun.  There are different levels depending on your income. There are three terms a year, each approximately 3 months long

As the course is a collaboration with other FPMT centres it is not possible to offer this as part of our Jamyang Leeds membership programme.

• For those with a regular income the recommended donation is £95 per term

• The sponsorhsip level is £115 per term

• Ordained Sangha are free

If this isn’t affordable please do register, we never turn anyone away from the Dharma for financial reasons and we can agree a donation that is affordable for you at the current time. Please email Marie-Odile our IDMT Coordinator idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk if you would like to chat.

The Yamantaka practice is held on Mondays weekly. Please note that some weeks it starts at 2:30pm and some at 6pm it doesn’t always alternate weekly.

A beautiful practice led by Chrissie and Di.

The Buddhist practice of Giving & Taking (Tonglen in Tibetan) is at its heart a selfless meditation of loving kindness and compassion. You imagine giving all your happiness to others, sometimes using visualisation with the breath, and then taking all the suffering and its causes from others. It’s a powerful practice for the brave-hearted!

Everflowing Nectar of Bodhichitta – Annihilating the Demon of the Self-Cherishing Mind

Led by Di or Sande

This practice is based on the short text” Eight Verses of Thought Transformation”, which contains the entire technique for transforming the mind into relative bodhichitta (i.e., the wish to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings) and absolute bodhichitta (i.e., the wisdom realizing emptiness).

Join us to fulfill His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s wishes and chant the Names of Noble Manjushri for the swift return of Lama Zopa Rinpoche. 

Please come along even if you havent done the practice before, its quite wonderful and very energising. Please download the text below, you can also listen and practice with the audio clip of Lama Zopa Rinpoche reciting the Chanting the Names of Noble Manjushri.

This international group of Kalachakra practitioners meets weekly and alternates with commentary and practice.

Mind Mandala once a month and six session guru yoga for other sessions:

If you’re already part of this group, please use the details sent in the weekly email to join the practice

If you’d like to join us, please email spc@jamyangleeds.co.uk confirming that you have the appropriate empowerments. You will then be sent a registration form to complete.

Led by Ruth 

Mindfulness of Breathing is universally acknowledged to be of benefit to all living in the modern world. Many feel overloaded with all that is expected of us living this complex and exhausting existence. Developing our awareness in this way is a general prescription for soothing and healing the overworked body and mind.

Practicing focusing the attention on an object such as the breath is also a core practice in Tibetan Buddhism. Gradually over time we are able to hold the object of our attention over longer periods, which enables us to practice other meditations such as Vipassana more successfully.

Dzambhala practice is said to bring wealth, prosperity, success, good fortune and luck, long life and wisdom.

Please come and join in with this monthly practice to help the centre, the FPMT and Buddha Dharma to flourish and be free from obstacles.

To do this practice in full, it is best to have a Kriya tantra empowerment of Chenrezig. However, one may still do this practice without such an empowerment by simply skipping the

self-generation on page 3. The Torma Offering on page 15 requires empowerment

Dzambhala is an emanation of Ratnasambhava, one of the five buddha families, whose enlightened activity is increasing and whose essence is generosity. Some people practice Dzambhala to

achieve spiritual prosperity, although this deity is also associated with wealth and prosperity in the material world. Dzambhala practice is said to bring wealth, prosperity, success, good fortune

and luck, long life and wisdom. He is depicted holding a mongoose spouting jewels.

There are five different wealth Dzambhala, each has their own practice and mantra to help eliminate poverty and create financial stability.

Through the power of compassionate intention, visualization, and mantra recitation, as well as a wealth-stimulating ritual, this practice ripens and enhances our karma for an abundance of

resources. When done with single-pointed concentration and faith, this ritual easily increases one’s financial prosperity.

IDMT Year Four, The Vajra Ground: Mahamudra and Kriya Tantra

In this culminating fourth year of our journey, our path turns inward to the mind itself—its empty, luminous nature—and outward to the transformative methods of tantra, where the naturally pure nature of our perception is recognized as the very ground of awakening. 

As always, the year will start with generating the mind of awakening, using evocative instructions ranging from Langri Thangpa to Nāgārjuna and Lord Buddha in the famous Bodhisattvapiṭaka. This mind generation we'll cultivate through the four immeasurable thoughts and the support of calm abiding. 

Illuminated by the life stories of the masters of the Gelug Mahāmudrā lineage and beyond, we'll explore its roots in the history of the early Indian Mahāsiddhas, such as Saraha and Tilopa, through the Kagyü master Gampopa's and Je Tsongkhapa's Mañjuśrī lineage up to Paṇchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen's Highway of the Conquerors and its perspective on this practice. In Sūtra Mahāmudrā we will practice resting attention in the empty nature of awareness, recognizing its clarity and openness as inseparable. 

Kriyā Tantra offers a complementary method. Rather than suppress the ordinary, narrow self-narrative that we impose on ourselves and our world, it substitutes for it an extraordinary perspective of pure view. Occasionally, by way of introduction, we'll also taste practices from the higher tantras—glimpsing how afflictive emotions can be met as innate wisdom, and how the dissolution of the death process opens onto the innate mind of clear light. The structured practices of generation and recitation become a rehearsal for transformation, training perception to meet appearances as pure. 

These methods rest on a relationship. We will therefore examine the practice of guru devotion candidly—both as the means by which the lineage's realization is transmitted and as a practice with real pitfalls, requiring discernment as much as trust. Through the Ganden Lha Gyāma, the Yoga of the inseparability of guru and Avalokiteśvara, and supporting sādhanas, devotion is approached not as deference but as the ethical road toward the state of Vajradhara: the full integration of wisdom and method. 

This final year is an invitation to let realization ripen into a way of being. Grounded in bodhicitta and the four immeasurables, sustained by the preliminary practices, and held by the strength of community, we learn to meet the mind without grasping and to meet the world as pure appearance. Our aim is not to accumulate practices, but to bring the path to maturity—wisdom and compassion no longer cultivated separately, but lived as one.

This four-year online course provides students with long term, in-depth support in their meditative development.

The teacher and course developer is Venerable Losang Gendun. He has trained extensively in meditation in both Theravada and Mahayana Traditions

The In Depth Meditation Training course is also part of The Buddha Project led by Venerable Losang Gendun. You can find out more about Venerable Gendun, the course and who it is suitable for on our FPMT In-Depth Meditation Training webpage

If you have any questions you would like to ask before registering please email our In-Depth Meditation Coordinator Marie Odile on idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk

The zoom link and all materials for the course are provided to registered students.

Donations:

Generosity is one of the cornerstones of the Buddhist path. With your donation we support The Buddha Project and we keep our centre going for the benefit of all sentient beings.

As the course is a collaboration with other FPMT centres it is not possible to offer this as part of our Jamyang Leeds membership programme.

• The recommended donation per calendar month is £45.

• If you are able to practice generosity and sponsor other students we recommend £58 per calendar month.

• If you are on a reduced income it is £31 per calendar month.

There is also the option to donate annually.

If none of the above options are affordable please do still register, we never turn anyone away from the Dharma for financial reasons and we can agree a donation that is affordable for you right now. Please email Marie Odile our IDMT Coordinator idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk if you would like to chat.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche advised that Dharma centers should perform the Medicine Buddha puja to bring peace and happiness, as well as inner and outer prosperity. Here we share Rinpoche discussing these benefits of Medicine Buddha practice in a teaching excerpt from the 36th Kopan Course held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in 2003. 

“Medicine Buddha is very important, to make everything easy, so you can work with less pressure, so you can meditate on the lamrim, and you have more time to have an easy-going life.”
— Lama Zopa Rinpoche

“In the past, why Buddhism spread so well in Tibet and was able to go for a long time, why so many people were able to learn, to practice and to become bodhisattvas and why so many became enlightened, it is said, was because the Medicine Buddha practice spread out so much. I think especially the Fifth Dalai Lama very strongly emphasized the Medicine Buddha practice. I think the Fifth Dalai Lama composed this long version of the Medicine Buddha practice. Because of that, so much development happened in Tibet, to be able to practice the Dharma, to spread the Dharma, and there was so much peace and happiness in Tibet. It is explained this is due to the practice of Medicine Buddha. All sentient beings’ wishes were fulfilled, and there was inner prosperity and outer prosperity, wealth.

“So, if centers have many expenses and need financial support, if they need external prosperity and inner prosperity, I would like to emphasize this. I did mention this to one person at a center in America, and I would like to emphasis that all the centers on the Tibetan eighth [of the month] should do Medicine Buddha puja. As the Fifth Dalai Lama explained how great success happened in Tibet because of this, it is the same with our centers. So, on the Tibetan eighth, please do Medicine Buddha puja. Normally many centers do Tara puja, especially the older centers, but I want to emphasize that all the centers, especially the organization, do Medicine Buddha puja. Many people love to do Tara puja, as a female deity, so you can do Tara puja in the afternoon or evening and do the Medicine Buddha puja in the morning, because you have to abstain from black food: onions, garlic and meat, things like that. Therefore, it’s good to do it in the morning, before the meal.

“So, I thought that within the organization, the organizers don’t have to suffer, they don’t have to struggle with finances, they don’t have to struggle with so many things and they can have a very easy life with inner and outer prosperity. The organization has been developed over so many years with so much struggle, so many hardships, so much pain, struggling how to make the center more beneficial for sentient beings, how to make the center more accessible. With so much worry and fear, how to keep the center running, how to survive the next month. With many years of learning, going through so many hardships, so much pain, they have become really developed now, so beneficial; they are able to establish very good programs, good education, so people can learn Buddhist philosophy and do retreats. They have been able to create the conditions to offer this. Now, it is much better, much easier, because they have gained so much experience, building the experience for many, many years on how to do things. In the beginning, they had so much difficulty.”Please continue to read this full advice on the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. 

Excerpted from a teaching given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche at the 36th Kopan Course held at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, in 2003. Lightly edited by Gordon McDougall.

Vipassana (Special Insight Meditation), also called analytical meditation, is primarily a practice of wisdom. It is a form of concentration that focuses single-pointedly on the ultimate nature of phenomena through analytical reasoning. Analysing phenomena is a key aspect of Vipassana practice, as it helps develop a definitive understanding of the nature of reality—such as the self, mind, emotions, and thoughts.

As Je Tsongkhapa explains, shamatha (calm abiding) is like a lamp that remains clear and steady in a place without wind, whereas vipassana (special insight) is like seeing the nature of phenomena clearly through such a steady and clear lamp. Therefore, the usual order of these two meditations is: first, achieving calm abiding or mental stability as a foundation, then engaging in special insight meditation through analysis. However, Vipassana meditation can also be practised by analysing and observing sensations, thoughts, and emotions without first achieving shamatha. This practice should still begin with focusing on the breath or another object of meditation. In our case, we will focus on the breath to start analysing the nature of the mind in relation to our sense of self, emotions, and thoughts.

The session begins by focusing on the breath—either the rise and fall of the abdomen or the sensation of air entering and leaving the nostrils. This practice calms the mind and helps establish a deep sense of presence.

Next, we move into a guided body scan, bringing awareness to different parts of the body and observing subtle sensations without judgement. This helps develop a greater connection to your physical experience.

As we proceed, you will practise observing and analysing sensations, thoughts, and emotions as they arise, learning to witness them without attachment or aversion. This fosters a deeper understanding of the impermanence and interconnectedness of the mind and self. Finally, you will rest your mind either in the natural state of awareness or in the analytical clarity gained through observation and reasoning.

Through regular practice, Vipassana meditation cultivates wisdom, encouraging a balanced and objective view of internal experiences. This session is ideal for those seeking greater insight and calmness in their daily lives.

About the Course:

The Lamrim — "Stages of the Path" in Tibetan — is a systematic presentation of the entire Buddhist path to Awakening, written by the great Tibetan master Je Tsongkhapa in the 14th and early 15th century, based on writings of the Indian master Atisha. It arranges every essential teaching of the Buddha into a single, coherent, graduated sequence tailored to your mind, exactly as it is right now. Its true power lies not in study alone, but in practice. Each teaching is carefully arranged to meet the mind where it is and guide it—step by step—toward genuine change.

The uncommon preliminary practices (ngöndro) are powerful methods to purify the mind and prepare it for lasting transformation.

Over the first eleven months the common foundations, renunciation, bodhicitta, and the view of emptiness, are explored based on the Lamrim. For the remaining five months the focus is on the uncommon practices, Vajrasattva purification, mandala offerings, and guru yoga. Weekly sessions each introduce a new topic that examines different ways to meditate and why, in combination with a guided meditation.  

The training helps establish a consistent daily meditative practice in supports of its overall aim: to engage in contemplative meditation in a way that genuinely transforms the mind's outlook on the world and gives one's life a new direction. Students gain a deep understanding of how to accumulate merit and purify unskillful karma while cultivating a healthy relationship with the Three Jewels and their teacher. The emphasis is on learning to meditate in a personally tailored way, in accordance with one’s psychological makeup and life conditions.

The Ngondro Lamrim Training teaching sessions are pre-recorded.

Each week, a 90-minute teaching together with two guided meditations are uploaded. On other days, advanced students contribute additional guided meditations. The teacher, Venerable Gendun, offers regular online Q&A sessions. For those who have already studied the Lamrim or the FPMT Basic Program, the training also offers specialized opportunities to learn how to guide others in meditation.

Year 1: Definite Emergence and Mind of Awakening  

• Prepare the mind for śamatha, vipaśyanā, and tantra

• Explore renunciation and bodhicitta, the first two Principles of the Path

• Develop genuine urgency through Lamrim contemplation

• Cultivate the aspiration to Awakening for all beings

FPMT Ngondro Lamrim Taining is also part of The Buddha Project led by Venerable Losang Gendun. You can find out more about Venerable Gendun, the course and who it is suitable for on our FPMTNgondro Lamrim Training webpage

If you have any questions you would like to ask before registering please email our In-Depth Meditation Coordinator Marie Odile on idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk

All materials for the course are provided to registered students.

Donations:

Generosity is one of the cornerstones of the Buddhist path. Donations help support both the centre and The Buddha Project as well as providing a donation for the teachings to Venerable Gendun.  There are different levels depending on your income. There are three terms a year, each approximately 3 months long

As the course is a collaboration with other FPMT centres it is not possible to offer this as part of our Jamyang Leeds membership programme.

• For those with a regular income the recommended donation is £95 per term

• The sponsorhsip level is £115 per term

• Ordained Sangha are free

If this isn’t affordable please do register, we never turn anyone away from the Dharma for financial reasons and we can agree a donation that is affordable for you at the current time. Please email Marie-Odile our IDMT Coordinator idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk if you would like to chat.

The Yamantaka practice is held on the Mondays weekly. Please note that some weeks it starts at 2:30pm and some at 6pm it doesn’t always alternate weekly.

A beautiful practice led by Chrissie and Di.

The Buddhist practice of Giving & Taking (Tonglen in Tibetan) is at its heart a selfless meditation of loving kindness and compassion. You imagine giving all your happiness to others, sometimes using visualisation with the breath, and then taking all the suffering and its causes from others. It’s a powerful practice for the brave-hearted!

Everflowing Nectar of Bodhichitta – Annihilating the Demon of the Self-Cherishing Mind

Led by Di or Sande

This practice is based on the short text” Eight Verses of Thought Transformation”, which contains the entire technique for transforming the mind into relative bodhichitta (i.e., the wish to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings) and absolute bodhichitta (i.e., the wisdom realizing emptiness).

Join us to fulfill His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s wishes and chant the Names of Noble Manjushri for the swift return of Lama Zopa Rinpoche. 

Please come along even if you havent done the practice before, its quite wonderful and very energising. Please download the text below, you can also listen and practice with the audio clip of Lama Zopa Rinpoche reciting the Chanting the Names of Noble Manjushri.

This international group of Kalachakra practitioners meets weekly and alternates with commentary and practice.

Mind Mandala once a month and six session guru yoga for other sessions:

If you’re already part of this group, please use the details sent in the weekly email to join the practice

If you’d like to join us, please email spc@jamyangleeds.co.uk confirming that you have the appropriate empowerments. You will then be sent a registration form to complete.

Led by Ruth 

Mindfulness of Breathing is universally acknowledged to be of benefit to all living in the modern world. Many feel overloaded with all that is expected of us living this complex and exhausting existence. Developing our awareness in this way is a general prescription for soothing and healing the overworked body and mind.

Practicing focusing the attention on an object such as the breath is also a core practice in Tibetan Buddhism. Gradually over time we are able to hold the object of our attention over longer periods, which enables us to practice other meditations such as Vipassana more successfully.

IDMT Year Four, The Vajra Ground: Mahamudra and Kriya Tantra

In this culminating fourth year of our journey, our path turns inward to the mind itself—its empty, luminous nature—and outward to the transformative methods of tantra, where the naturally pure nature of our perception is recognized as the very ground of awakening. 

As always, the year will start with generating the mind of awakening, using evocative instructions ranging from Langri Thangpa to Nāgārjuna and Lord Buddha in the famous Bodhisattvapiṭaka. This mind generation we'll cultivate through the four immeasurable thoughts and the support of calm abiding. 

Illuminated by the life stories of the masters of the Gelug Mahāmudrā lineage and beyond, we'll explore its roots in the history of the early Indian Mahāsiddhas, such as Saraha and Tilopa, through the Kagyü master Gampopa's and Je Tsongkhapa's Mañjuśrī lineage up to Paṇchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen's Highway of the Conquerors and its perspective on this practice. In Sūtra Mahāmudrā we will practice resting attention in the empty nature of awareness, recognizing its clarity and openness as inseparable. 

Kriyā Tantra offers a complementary method. Rather than suppress the ordinary, narrow self-narrative that we impose on ourselves and our world, it substitutes for it an extraordinary perspective of pure view. Occasionally, by way of introduction, we'll also taste practices from the higher tantras—glimpsing how afflictive emotions can be met as innate wisdom, and how the dissolution of the death process opens onto the innate mind of clear light. The structured practices of generation and recitation become a rehearsal for transformation, training perception to meet appearances as pure. 

These methods rest on a relationship. We will therefore examine the practice of guru devotion candidly—both as the means by which the lineage's realization is transmitted and as a practice with real pitfalls, requiring discernment as much as trust. Through the Ganden Lha Gyāma, the Yoga of the inseparability of guru and Avalokiteśvara, and supporting sādhanas, devotion is approached not as deference but as the ethical road toward the state of Vajradhara: the full integration of wisdom and method. 

This final year is an invitation to let realization ripen into a way of being. Grounded in bodhicitta and the four immeasurables, sustained by the preliminary practices, and held by the strength of community, we learn to meet the mind without grasping and to meet the world as pure appearance. Our aim is not to accumulate practices, but to bring the path to maturity—wisdom and compassion no longer cultivated separately, but lived as one.

This four-year online course provides students with long term, in-depth support in their meditative development.

The teacher and course developer is Venerable Losang Gendun. He has trained extensively in meditation in both Theravada and Mahayana Traditions

The In Depth Meditation Training course is also part of The Buddha Project led by Venerable Losang Gendun. You can find out more about Venerable Gendun, the course and who it is suitable for on our FPMT In-Depth Meditation Training webpage

If you have any questions you would like to ask before registering please email our In-Depth Meditation Coordinator Marie Odile on idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk

The zoom link and all materials for the course are provided to registered students.

Donations:

Generosity is one of the cornerstones of the Buddhist path. With your donation we support The Buddha Project and we keep our centre going for the benefit of all sentient beings.

As the course is a collaboration with other FPMT centres it is not possible to offer this as part of our Jamyang Leeds membership programme.

• The recommended donation per calendar month is £45.

• If you are able to practice generosity and sponsor other students we recommend £58 per calendar month.

• If you are on a reduced income it is £31 per calendar month.

There is also the option to donate annually.

If none of the above options are affordable please do still register, we never turn anyone away from the Dharma for financial reasons and we can agree a donation that is affordable for you right now. Please email Marie Odile our IDMT Coordinator idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk if you would like to chat.

Vipassana (Special Insight Meditation), also called analytical meditation, is primarily a practice of wisdom. It is a form of concentration that focuses single-pointedly on the ultimate nature of phenomena through analytical reasoning. Analysing phenomena is a key aspect of Vipassana practice, as it helps develop a definitive understanding of the nature of reality—such as the self, mind, emotions, and thoughts.

As Je Tsongkhapa explains, shamatha (calm abiding) is like a lamp that remains clear and steady in a place without wind, whereas vipassana (special insight) is like seeing the nature of phenomena clearly through such a steady and clear lamp. Therefore, the usual order of these two meditations is: first, achieving calm abiding or mental stability as a foundation, then engaging in special insight meditation through analysis. However, Vipassana meditation can also be practised by analysing and observing sensations, thoughts, and emotions without first achieving shamatha. This practice should still begin with focusing on the breath or another object of meditation. In our case, we will focus on the breath to start analysing the nature of the mind in relation to our sense of self, emotions, and thoughts.

The session begins by focusing on the breath—either the rise and fall of the abdomen or the sensation of air entering and leaving the nostrils. This practice calms the mind and helps establish a deep sense of presence.

Next, we move into a guided body scan, bringing awareness to different parts of the body and observing subtle sensations without judgement. This helps develop a greater connection to your physical experience.

As we proceed, you will practise observing and analysing sensations, thoughts, and emotions as they arise, learning to witness them without attachment or aversion. This fosters a deeper understanding of the impermanence and interconnectedness of the mind and self. Finally, you will rest your mind either in the natural state of awareness or in the analytical clarity gained through observation and reasoning.

Through regular practice, Vipassana meditation cultivates wisdom, encouraging a balanced and objective view of internal experiences. This session is ideal for those seeking greater insight and calmness in their daily lives.

About the Course:

The Lamrim — "Stages of the Path" in Tibetan — is a systematic presentation of the entire Buddhist path to Awakening, written by the great Tibetan master Je Tsongkhapa in the 14th and early 15th century, based on writings of the Indian master Atisha. It arranges every essential teaching of the Buddha into a single, coherent, graduated sequence tailored to your mind, exactly as it is right now. Its true power lies not in study alone, but in practice. Each teaching is carefully arranged to meet the mind where it is and guide it—step by step—toward genuine change.

The uncommon preliminary practices (ngöndro) are powerful methods to purify the mind and prepare it for lasting transformation.

Over the first eleven months the common foundations, renunciation, bodhicitta, and the view of emptiness, are explored based on the Lamrim. For the remaining five months the focus is on the uncommon practices, Vajrasattva purification, mandala offerings, and guru yoga. Weekly sessions each introduce a new topic that examines different ways to meditate and why, in combination with a guided meditation.  

The training helps establish a consistent daily meditative practice in supports of its overall aim: to engage in contemplative meditation in a way that genuinely transforms the mind's outlook on the world and gives one's life a new direction. Students gain a deep understanding of how to accumulate merit and purify unskillful karma while cultivating a healthy relationship with the Three Jewels and their teacher. The emphasis is on learning to meditate in a personally tailored way, in accordance with one’s psychological makeup and life conditions.

The Ngondro Lamrim Training teaching sessions are pre-recorded.

Each week, a 90-minute teaching together with two guided meditations are uploaded. On other days, advanced students contribute additional guided meditations. The teacher, Venerable Gendun, offers regular online Q&A sessions. For those who have already studied the Lamrim or the FPMT Basic Program, the training also offers specialized opportunities to learn how to guide others in meditation.

Year 1: Definite Emergence and Mind of Awakening  

• Prepare the mind for śamatha, vipaśyanā, and tantra

• Explore renunciation and bodhicitta, the first two Principles of the Path

• Develop genuine urgency through Lamrim contemplation

• Cultivate the aspiration to Awakening for all beings

FPMT Ngondro Lamrim Taining is also part of The Buddha Project led by Venerable Losang Gendun. You can find out more about Venerable Gendun, the course and who it is suitable for on our FPMTNgondro Lamrim Training webpage

If you have any questions you would like to ask before registering please email our In-Depth Meditation Coordinator Marie Odile on idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk

All materials for the course are provided to registered students.

Donations:

Generosity is one of the cornerstones of the Buddhist path. Donations help support both the centre and The Buddha Project as well as providing a donation for the teachings to Venerable Gendun.  There are different levels depending on your income. There are three terms a year, each approximately 3 months long

As the course is a collaboration with other FPMT centres it is not possible to offer this as part of our Jamyang Leeds membership programme.

• For those with a regular income the recommended donation is £95 per term

• The sponsorhsip level is £115 per term

• Ordained Sangha are free

If this isn’t affordable please do register, we never turn anyone away from the Dharma for financial reasons and we can agree a donation that is affordable for you at the current time. Please email Marie-Odile our IDMT Coordinator idmt@jamyangleeds.co.uk if you would like to chat.

The Yamantaka practice is held on Mondays weekly. Please note that some weeks it starts at 2:30pm and some at 6pm it doesn’t always alternate weekly.

Tara Puja dedicated to world peace is held on a monthly basis.

Led by Ondy Willson and translated by Venerable Tenzin into Russian for Russian and Ukrainian students

Please join us, occasionally or regularly, at 17.45 UK time to show our support for the courageous spiritual communities both in Ukraine & Russia and also in Israel and Gaza. May we all nurture compassion & peace in the face of destruction & violence.

By coming together like this we send a powerful message that comes from the depths of our being. We value peace, harmony and the enlightened qualities we aspire to embody, as generated in the 21 Taras Sadhana.

By the power of our merit may there be a non-violent and bloodless revolution of consciousness so that enlightened democracies based on social wellbeing flourish everywhere.

Please forward this invitation to anyone who you think may be interested in this free and beneficial session.

The puja will last approximately 45 minutes to include some guidance on harnessing the positive power of the prayers in generating the particular qualities of compassion and fearlessness.

Ondy Willson, a touring FPMT teacher since 2007, has students in Russia & Ukraine, so felt particularly moved to offer these pujas both to connect with & support those who are suffering on the front line. So these pujas have provided, not just an opportunity to deal with fear and pray for peace, but to meet directly together as a global community and interact with our Ukrainian and Russian dharma friends.  At the end of one week’s puja, participants in Ukraine & Russia shared their stories & experiences, which was very moving for us all to hear.

A beautiful practice led by Chrissie and Di.

The Buddhist practice of Giving & Taking (Tonglen in Tibetan) is at its heart a selfless meditation of loving kindness and compassion. You imagine giving all your happiness to others, sometimes using visualisation with the breath, and then taking all the suffering and its causes from others. It’s a powerful practice for the brave-hearted!

Everflowing Nectar of Bodhichitta – Annihilating the Demon of the Self-Cherishing Mind

Led by Di or Sande

This practice is based on the short text” Eight Verses of Thought Transformation”, which contains the entire technique for transforming the mind into relative bodhichitta (i.e., the wish to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings) and absolute bodhichitta (i.e., the wisdom realizing emptiness).