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Daily Prayers and Meditations
The Center holds regular sessions of chanted prayers, which are often combined with meditation, visualization, and mantra recitation. These meditations have a particularly powerful effect on the mind and create strong positive energy that is shared by all.
Through these meditations we can receive special blessings from Buddha. Each meditation emphasizes a different aspect of our practice. For example, prayers to Medicine Buddha are very beneficial for those experiencing illness or wishing to help others overcome bodily harm.
Below is a list of chanted prayers we do at KMC Washington. Please check the calendar for dates and times.
Heart Jewel Prayers with Lamrim Meditation
Check calendar for specific dates and times
This practice is the heart essence of Kadampa Buddhism. In the first part we visualize our Spiritual Guide as Je Tsongkhapa and make prayers and requests to purify negativity, accumulate merit. and receive blessings. This prepares our mind for a twenty-minute meditation on Stages of the Path to Enlightenment. After the meditation we make prayers to our Dharma Protector, Dorje Shugdän. Through this we can overcome obstacles to our practice and create favorable conditions so that we can nurture and increase our pure Dharma realizations. (1 hour)
Wishfulfilling Jewel Prayers
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This is a more extensive version of Heart Jewel in which we make prayers and requests to Je Tsongkhapa and our Dharma Protector, Dorje Shugdän. We make a special food offering known as a tsog offering to create a vast amount of positive energy for ourselves and others. We invite all the Buddhas and holy beings to come and enjoy a feast of great bliss and then we enjoy the food offering together. Please bring a food offering. (1 hour)
Offering to the Spiritual Guide Prayers
10th and 25th - check monthly calendar for times
This is a special Guru yoga of Je Tsongkhapa in conjunction with Highest Yoga Tantra that is a preliminary practice for Vajrayana Mahamudra. The main practice is relying upon our Spiritual Guide as a Buddha and making praises and requests, but it also includes all the essential practices of the stages of the path, and training the mind, as well as both the generation stage and completion stage of Highest Yoga Tantra. By relying upon Je Tsongkhapa our compassion, wisdom and spiritual power naturally increase. This practice includes a tsog offering so please bring a food offering with you. (2 hours)
Liberation from Sorrow, Praises and Requests to Tara
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Tara is our holy spiritual mother who helps and protects us in all our activities. In particular she helps us to deepen our understanding of Lamrim (the stages of the path to enlightenment). By offering praises and requests to Tara we increase our wisdom and compassion and come under the loving care and protection of an enlightened mother. Occasionally for special reasons we do a 24-hour Tara practice, in which we recite these prayers every four hours for a twenty-four hour period. (1 hour)
Medicine Buddha Prayers
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Medicine Buddha is a Buddha doctor whose function is to release living beings from outer and inner sickness by bestowing blessings upon them. By relying upon Medicine Buddha sincerely, living beings in these impure times can be cured of heavy physical and mental disease and be released from the internal pain of anger, attachment, and ignorance. We receive a special power of body, speech, and mind, which we can then use to help others through healing actions. (1 hour)
Avalokiteshvara Prayers
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Avalokiteshvara is an enlightened being who is the manifestation of the compassion of all Buddhas. If we rely sincerely upon Avalokiteshvara and recite his mantra with strong faith, temporarily we will improve our realizations of the stages of the path, especially our realization of great compassion, and ultimately we will attain supreme Buddhahood in the Pure Land of Bliss. (1 hour)
Vajrasattva Prayers
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Purification is the root of our future happiness and spiritual realizations. If we do not purify the negative karma we have accumulated in the past while we have the chance, we will have to experience great suffering in the future. Through practicing the meditation and recitation of Vajrasattva, we can completely cleanse our mind of delusions and negativity. This is a very powerful method of purification. (1 hour)
The Great Mother (Heart Sutra)
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The Great Mother (also called the Heart Sutra or the Essence of Wisdom Sutra) contains the essence of Buddha's teachings, the ultimate nature of reality. It is a profound and powerful method for overcoming hindrances that afflict both ourselves and others. This practice reveals the meaning of the perfection of wisdom, and explains how to develop and enhance this wisdom. Through engaging in this practice we can overcome negativities and obstacles, and increase our collections of merit and wisdom. (30 minutes)
Quick Path
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Everyone who has received a Highest Yoga Tantra empowerment has a commitment to practice six-session Guru yoga. This six-session yoga has been specially arranged for those who have received a Vajrayogini empowerment. (2 hours).
Long Protector Prayers
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This monthly practice consists principally of prayers to our Dharma Protector, Dorje Shugdän. A Dharma Protector is an emanation of a Buddha or Bodhisattva whose main functions are to avert the inner and outer obstacles that prevent practitioners from attaining spiritual realizations, and to arrange all the necessary conditions for their practice. Dorje Shugdän always helps, guides, and protects pure and faithful practitioners by granting blessings, increasing their wisdom, fulfilling their wishes, and bestowing success on all their virtuous activities. This practice includes a tsog offering so please bring a food offering with you. (3.5 hours)
Powa Ceremony
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Millions of humans and billions of animals die every day from many different causes. The practice of transference of consciousness, known as "powa," is performed to lead countless deceased beings to the Pure Land of a Buddha, where they will experience permanent liberation from suffering and everlasting happiness. We perform this powa practice on behalf of those who have recently died, traditionally within 49 days of their death. This practice helps us develop compassion for all living beings. (1 hour)
Precepts 15th of each month - 6:30 am
The practice of taking and keeping the eight Mahayana precepts is a special practice of moral discipline that is performed with a strong motivation to benefit others. In this practice we take eight precepts and vow to keep them purely for a period of 24 hours. In so doing we acquaint ourself with the practice of pure moral discipline and thereby make our human life meaningful. (1 hour)