MAHAKALA PUJA CEREMONY

SATURDAY 14TH, SUNDAY 15TH, MONDAY 16TH FEBRUARY 2026

Traditionally we finish the year (according to the Tibetan calendar) by offering prayers to the Dharma Protector Mahakala to clear away obstacles, so we begin the new year afresh. This practice is aimed at clearing away any obstacles remaining from the old year so that the New Year will bring peace and harmony and abundance, both on a personal level and to the world in general. It is an effective way of letting go of negativity of body, speech and mind for the year ahead.

CHIMLHU HEALING AND LONG LIFE CEREMONY
MONDAY 16TH FEBRUARY 2026
This is an extremely beneficial ceremony which helps with the removal of sickness and disease.

NUDRUP LENCHOK BLESSING CEREMONY
TUESDAY 17TH FEBRUARY 2026
Nudrup Lenchok means to attain Siddhi or Accomplishment from Mahakala, the Great Protector of the Kagyu Lineage. The Nudrup Lenchok Blessing Ceremony is a very special and powerful ceremony which is only offered once a year so Venerable Lama Tsewang would like to encourage everybody to embrace this opportunity to attend such a very beneficial start to the New Year.

WEDNESDAY 18TH FEBRUARY 2026
Celebrations involve reciting long life prayers, followed by a rice and tea ceremony. Everyone will have the opportunity to offer the traditional white silk khatas (scarves) to the throne of His Holiness the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa and Guru Vajradhara His Holiness Chamgon Kenting Tai Situpa. Making offerings is an opportunity to practice generosity and generates merit and positive karma.

PRAYER FLAG HANGING and SANG PUJA
FRIDAY 20TH FEBRUARY 2026
The hanging of prayer flags followed by a Sang Puja (Fire Puja) for the removal of obstacles and the increasing of prosperity. Birthday Celebrations for GURU VAJRADHARA HH CHAMGON KENTING TAI SITU SUNDAY 22ND FEBRUARY 2026

Long life prayers and celebrations marking the 73rd Birthday of HH Tai Situpa.

MONDAY 2ND MARCH 2026
In the Tibetan Tradition, Tsog is a Tantric Yoga Practice, a ritual offering expressing gratitude to teachers and the lineage. It is an opportunity to repair and renew our sacred commitments or vows. Offering Tsog is one of the most important practices for the accumulation of merit and wisdom. As tsog, the food becomes transformed through visualisation into nectar

CHOTRUL DUCHEN
28 FEBRUARY – 14th MARCH 2025
The first month of the Tibetan New Year is known as Miracle Month. Historically the Buddha performed miracles on each of the first 15 days of this month so as to instil devotion and increase merit among followers.

SAGA DAWA DUCHEN
12-14th JUNE 2025
Falling on the fourth month of the Tibetan Calendar, the religious festivities of Saga Dawa peak on the 15th Lunar Day when there is a full moon. This day is associated with three major events in the life of the Buddha – his birth, his enlightenment on a full moon night, and his Parinirvana. It is a very powerful time to practice and increase one’s commitment to both practice and study. It represents one of the holiest and most sacred days in Tibetan Buddhism.

CHOKHOR DUCHEN
This observance marks when the Lord Buddha first taught Dharma and is often referred to as the first turning of the wheel of Dharma (Dharmachakra Day). The literal interpretation of Dharma means truth and refers to the teachings of the Buddha and the term Chakra means wheel, henceforth the term, turning the wheel of Dharma. The Tibetans use the term “the wheel of transformation” The wheel is a representation of the cycle of samsara, or rebirth. The cycle can only be broken by following the Buddha’s teachings.

The first discourse at Deer Park in Sarnath which is near Varanasi (a holy city situated on the banks of the River Ganges in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh) is known as the “first turning of the wheel of dharma.” Here the Buddha taught Dharma to his five disciples after attaining enlightenment and taught the Four Noble Truths and the Eight Fold Noble Path. Subsequent discourses at Rajgir and Shravasti are known as the “second and third turnings of the wheel of dharma.”

LHA BAB DUCHEN
This auspicious day is celebrated to observe the descent of Buddha from the Tushita God Realm to Sankhasa in the city of Kashi. Buddha Shakyamuni is said to have travelled at the age of forty-one to Tushita (the heaven of the thirty three) for three months in order to give innumerable teachings to benefit the gods in the desire realms and to repay the kindness of his mother Mahamaya who had taken rebirth as one of the gods by liberating her from Samsara.

It is part of the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition to engage in virtuous activities and prayers at these times, as the effects of positive and negative actions are multiplied by ten million. Meritorious activities revolve around sila (morality), dana (generosity) and bhavana (meditation).

Original Purity

Level 3, Original Purity: meditations connected with Buddha nature, which is the basis of Vajrayana, the last of Buddha’s teachings, will allow students to discover their enlightened nature, the primordial purity of the mind and the universe, and to experience pure perception of everyone and everything.

In this level students will:

1. Discover the primordial purity of their own mind and the universe
By discovering through advanced insight their own Buddha nature and the original purity of everything.
2. Learn how to reveal that purity
By appreciating and developing gratitude for one’s own enlightened mind, by meditating on guru yoga, and by learning about creation and completion stage meditations according to the Vajrayana.

Awakened Heart

Level 2, Awakened Heart: through meditations on loving kindness, compassion, joy, equanimity, and so forth, students will learn to awaken their hearts and discover their innate goodness, further enriching the calm state of mind and deepening their meditation through recognition of emptiness, which is the essence of the Mahayana.

In this level students will:

1. Discover their inner goodness
By discovering and cultivating love, compassion, appreciation or joy, and equanimity.
By developing their potential through six perfect states of mind, the six paramitas.
By training their mind to transform defilements into love and compassion.
2. Widen their motivation and outlook and gain deeper insight
By learning about and meditating on bodhicitta, the awakening mind.
By gaining an advanced insight that understands selflessness through direct experience.

Inner Peace

Level 1, Inner Peace: focuses on calming the mind and developing insight and wisdom through some simple yet profound study, meditations, and contemplations derived from the Shravakayana teachings of the Buddha. Awareness meditations and precise knowledge will allow students to discover inner peace, accept and let go of worldly concerns without grasping at or rejecting them, and develop a stable aspiration for genuine freedom. Guided meditations and question-and-answer sessions will help students learn how to start a daily meditation practice at home.

In this level students will:

1. Learn the essence of meditation
Develop and nurture awareness and inner peace using breath, body, feelings, thoughts, emotions, and phenomena as a support for meditation.
2. Learn the basics of Buddhism through knowledge and advanced insight meditation
Understand the shortcomings of one’s life and the world, the origins and cessation of suffering, and the means to reach that cessation, along with understanding refuge-the starting point of the path to an everlasting state of well-being, rich with innate goodness and radiant pure qualities.
Develop advanced insight meditation mainly based on experiential observation of the natural flow of everything as being impermanent.