March 16 2014 was the Tibetan festival day of Chotrul Duchen, the full moon day that marks the end of the 15 Days of Miracles and this day is considered to be very auspicious for practice.
Buddhists and admirers of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in the McLeod Ganj area (including Tushita’s staff, volunteers and students from the Introduction to Buddhism course that ended the previous day), had a miraculous morning, spent in His Holiness’ company, when He gave His annual teaching on “The Jataka Tales” at the Main Temple downtown.
To celebrate the Chotrol Duchen, after His Holiness’ teaching we had a special program at Tushita:
As part of the “15 Days of Miracles” following Losar, we had a group recitation of The Golden Light Sutra (in English) at 1pm every day between March 2 – 16. This year, the Sutra of Golden Light was recited at various places around the world, making Tushita part of a worldwide community celebration!
Our final “Golden Light Sutra” recitation concluded with a group reading was held on Chotrul Duchen and after this Geshe Tsering Choepel gave a public teaching entitled “What the Buddha taught”. Geshe-la is a teacher at Namgyal Monastery, His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s monastery in McLeod Ganj. This teaching was in Tibetan, with translation into English by the leader of the current P.O.C. (Pre-Ordination Course), Venerable Namdak.
That evening the P.O.C. held a Medicine Buddha Puja, followed by a Light Offering at Lama Yeshe’s Stupa.
Merit Multiplied – EMAHO!
