Celebration of Lha Bab Düchen
All Rigpa sangha members are invited to join us for an evening of practice and festivity.
Thursday Nov. 17, 7pm.
Lha Bab Düchen is one of the four Great Festivals that are related to the life of Buddha Shakyamuni. On these days, the effects of positive or negative actions are multiplied 10 million times. It occurs on the 22nd day of the ninth Tibetan month.
Buddha’s mother Mayadevi was reborn in Indra’s heaven. To repay her kindness and to liberate her, and also to benefit the gods, Buddha spent three months teachings in the realm of the gods. When he was about to return to this world, Indra and Brahma manifested three stairs of 80,000 yojanas each reaching this world in Sankisa. As the Buddha walked down the central one, they accompanied him to his left and right carrying umbrellas to honour him. He descended to earth in Sankisa, which is located in modern Uttar Pradesh, and which is counted among the eight holy places.
On these days, the Rigpa sangha gathers to perform the practice of tsok, specifically the Tendrel Nyesel tsok practice, a terma revelation of Tertön Sogyal, a teacher to the 13th Dalai Lama.
All practices on the path to buddhahood are methods for gathering the accumulations of merit and wisdom and for purifying our obscurations. These two processes of accumulation and purification go hand in hand; as we accumulate more merit and wisdom, our obscurations automatically diminish. One such method of accumulation and purification is the practice of tsok, which is primarily a practice of offering.
All sangha members are invited to attend, and to practice at their own level, whether it is meditation or ngöndro. There are several sections within the tsok that are open to all to participate, and the tsok practice is also supported by each person’s meditation and ngöndro practice.
As tsok offering includes an offering of food, please feel free to bring food for an offering, which will be included in a potluck dinner afterwards.
If you would like to help set up the shrine room and prepare offerings, please come at 6pm.
