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Green Tara Empowerment with Lama Tsang Tsing
July 9, 2023, 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Teacher: Lama Tsang Tsing
Saturday July 8
10:00 AM Vajrasattva Empowerment
2:00 PM Chenrezi Empowerment
Sunday July 9
2:00 PM Green Tara Empowerment
Just as refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha is the key element that makes one Buddhist and just as bodhichitta—the wish to wake up to be able to lead others to awakening—is what makes one a Mahayana Buddhist, empowerment is a key feature of Vajrayana Buddhism. Empowerment is a kind of initiation for a yidam practice where we imagine ourselves as expressions of awakened body, speech, and mind and familiarize oursevles with such to hasten realization. Through the empowerment ritual, a connection is established with the enlightened body, speech, and mind of the yidam that permits us to engage in these practices and confers a resonance that helps us accomplish it. Receiving the same empowerment again and again is encouraged.
The three Vajrayana practices most utilized at KCC are these: Vajrasattva, Chenrezi (Avalokiteshvara), and Green Tara. Chenrezi and Green Tara are part of our weekly programming and Vajrasattva is part of the Bokar Rinpoche Mahamudra Program. Even if you do not have any immediate interest in these practices, this is still a wonderful opportunity. Often when speaking in Tibetan, the word for empowerment is modified with ‘ripening’. That is to say, just receiving an empowerment can create some spiritual momentum in our lives and practice.
It has been many years since empowerments were offered at KCC, and we are delighted to be able to welcome Lama Tsang Tsing of our sister center, Kagyu Dakshang Chuling in Eugene, back to KCC for this weekend. Lama Tsang Tsing spent some of his youth at Tsurphu Monastery in Tibet and later did the second three-year retreat at Sonada under Kyabje Kalu Rinpoche and Bokar Rinpoche. He was later asked to come to the States to be the retreat master for Lama Michael Conklin’s three-year retreat from 1986-1989. Lama Tsang Tsing has since been the resident lama of KDC.
Please note: Lama Tsang Tsing requests that we do not eat meat on this day of the Green Tara Empowerment