This empowerment is a sublime guided meditation through which we make a deep connection with Arya Green Tara and gain insight on how to rely on her blessings in our spiritual practice.
Arya Tara is a female Buddha, a manifestation of the ultimate wisdom of all enlightened beings. “Tara” means rescuer; if we rely on Tara with strong faith she will care for us throughout this life and all our future lives.
The event includes the blessing empowerment of Arya Green Tara, instructions on how to receive her enlightened care and blessings in our daily life, and the opportunity to engage in group practice to strengthen our connection to Tara.
Through this empowerment we will receive the special blessings of Amitayus, the Buddha of long life, wisdom and merit.
Then, based on Eight Verses of Training the Mind, Gen-la Khyenrab will explain how we can transform all the problems and difficulties of our daily life into opportunities for developing authentic love and compassion, and for finding true and lasting happiness.
'If everyone were to practise cherishing others, many of the major problems of the world would be solved in a few years.'
Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche The New Eight Steps to Happiness
This is an excerpt of the Heart Sutra, viewed to be the quintessence of Buddha's explanation of emptiness, or "ultimate truth". From one point of view, it is utterly simple and a bare revelation of the truth. From another angle, it is like a beautiful puzzle to be explored and understood that will yield never-ending insights. Its raw power, when recited with a compassionate motivation, shifts the mind and empowers change.
To aid our understanding of this profound practice, we will receive the empowerment of Buddha Prajnaparamita. Prajnaparamita is the embodiment of the higher perfection of wisdom. Empowerments are blissful, guided meditations that help facilitate a connection with a certain enlightened being. Through receiving this blessing empowerment, we will gain inspiration to understand these deep truths of the Heart Sutra and feel energized to make positive change in our life. Everyone welcome!
Intro: Nyungnay - Compassion Fasting Retreat
Tuesday, April 7
7:00-8:30pm
Participants are encouraged to attend the introductory talk for this retreat. Instructions and reading materials will be available.
Introductory talk is FREE
Everyone is welcome!
In this retreat, we’ll learn to recognize the incredible kindness we have received from others — from our mother of this life, from countless beings who provide for us, and from those who guide and inspire our spiritual growth.
Through guided meditations and practical teachings, we’ll gradually open our hearts to see all living beings as our mothers and awaken a deep appreciation for the limitless kindness we have received since beginningless time.
With gentle meditation sessions, peaceful reflection, and the calming presence of the ocean, this retreat gives you the chance to relax, refresh, and connect with a warmer, more open heart.
Return home uplifted, inspired, and motivated to bring greater kindness into your life and the world around you.
An away retreat with Pacific Northwest Resident Teachers
~ A blissful weekend at Ocean Park Retreat Center ~
Intro: Refuge Retreat
7:00 pm - 8:30pm
Participants are encouraged to attend the introductory talk for this retreat. Instructions and reading materials will be available at each session.
Everyone is welcome!
MOVIE NIGHT: Life of Buddha
7:00 pm
Join us for a special movie screening of ‘The Life of Buddha’ in our meditation room. Movie length: 1 hour, 53 minutes
This film, The Life of Buddha, was filmed in the Temple for World Peace at Manjushri Kadampa Meditation Center, UK, from plays performed and produced by dedicated volunteers during the NKT-IKBU Summer Festivals between 2006 and 2012.
Join us for a movie night and refreshments afterward.
Everyone is welcome!
Join us for a Community Talk and Preyers with Gen Gomlam 6:30pm and 7:00pm Offering to the Spiritual Guide Prayers.
Bring a Tsong offering
Kadampa Festival Journey Evening & Potluck
6:30 - potluck
7:30-8:30pm - Kadampa Festivals presentation and discussion
Did you know that Kadampa Buddhism is a worldwide tradition? At our international festivals, we meet Kadampa Buddhists from all over the world, speaking more than 20 different languages, and get to enjoy our truly global community. At this relaxed evening at Kadampa Meditation Center, learn all about Kadampa Festivals, through the experiences of local practitioners.
Bring one of your favorite dishes to share!
FREE EVENT
Everyone is welcome.
Have your own unforgettable experiences, by attending one of the upcoming festivals!
Join us for our Ballard Open House, coffee and FREE pancake breakfast from 8am-12 noon
Drop-in to a 15-minute Guided Meditation at 9:30am, 10:30am and 11:30am
Enjoy delicious pancakes, tour our beautiful meditation room and shrine, see the Kid's Class classroom, visit our bookstore and garden, and enjoy community
Join us for our biggest gathering of the year, the 2026 Northwest Dharma Celebration!
This year our Western National Spiritual Director and visiting Teacher Gen Kelsang Gomlam will grant the blessing empowerment of Buddha White Tara. An empowerment is a uniquely qualified guided meditation in which we receive special blessings into our mind. Gen Gomlam will also offer teachings on subtle impermenance, one of the “Four Seals” of Buddhism.
We all wish for spiritual realizations, but these depend upon creating certain inner conditions such as purifying negativity, accumulating merit, and receiving blessings. To do this we need to practice the four great preliminary guides. As a result, we will gain mahamudra realizations – the quick path to enlightenment. In this retreat we focus on the preliminary practices of receiving blessings and accumulating merit.
During this 2-day retreat, we practice fasting, making prostrations, and offering chanted prayers to the protector of the world, the Buddha of Compassion Avalokiteshvara.
This beautiful practice emphasizes compassion for all living beings and is a powerful way to purify negativity, pacify strong delusions, receive blessings, and increase our love, compassion, and Bodhichitta.
You are welcome to participate in one or both days. Both retreat days begin with taking the Mahayana precepts at dawn. The precepts involve maintaining a fast with only a simple meal at lunch, however you can drink water, juice, tea, etc. throughout the 24 hour period.
Participants are encouraged to attend the introductory talk for this retreat.
Going for refuge is the first of the four great preliminary guides which lead us to the state of full enlightenment. Through training in sincerely going for refuge we enter the gateway to Buddhism; and training in the compassionate mind of bodhichitta we enter the gateway to the Mahayana – the main path to the state of enlightenment.
Time races by! We can often feel like we are not fully seizing our life’s real purpose, as if we are just sleep-walking through life while our time is running out.
Lamrim meditation offers us the precious opportunity to seize our life’s real purpose, guiding us on how to transform our busy daily life into a spiritual journey to profound peace.
Lamrim means “stages of the path to enlightenment” and is a sequence of meditations that are a condensation of all Buddha's teachings. These meditations are easy to understand and put into practice, enabling us to gain deep meditative insights of every step of our journey to the supreme permanent peace of mind that is enlightenment. Through learning these meditations and practicing them day by day, we will definitely accomplish the real meaning of our precious human life.
Only practitioners with Highest Yoga Tantra empowerments can participate in this retreat.
Deepen your experience of the profound meditations on Mahamudra Tantra, the union of great bliss and emptiness – the most subtle mind that experiences great bliss and realizes ultimate truth, the way things actually exist.
Meditating on emptiness, channels, drops and winds as presented in The Oral Instructions of Mahamudra, we will take a journey into the blissful heart of reality that is the meaning of our precious human life. All sessions will be guided by Kadam Trina.
Highest Yoga Tantra empowerments are required to attend.
RSVP is required. Please email education@meditateinseattle.org by January 3rd to confirm your participation. Thank you.
Once we have completed a Vajrayogini close retreat of actions and a fire puja, we are qualified to perform self-initiation practice. This renews and strengthens our Bodhisattva and Tantric vows. Through taking self-initiation regularly we open the door to successful practice of generation stage and completion stage, we will be cared for by Heruka and Vajrayogini in all our lives and receive their blessings so that we quickly attain the Pure Land of Vajrayogini.
Please bring tantric instruments, the “New Guide to Dakini Land” or the Self-Initiation Sadhana “Feast of Great Bliss”, mandala kits, and red offerings, and please plan to help finish setting up at 1pm.
Kadampa Meditation Center Washington is a 501(c)3 non-profit. Member of the New Kadampa Tradition - International Kadampa Buddhist Union.
