Saka Dawa is one of the most important festival days of the Tibetan Buddhist calendar – celebrating Shakyamuni Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and parinirvana!
This year Saka Dawa fell on Friday June 13th. To begin the day, we held a butterlamp light offering puja in with our resident “Old Lama Gyupa”, Ven Thubten Dorjee, to make prayers and dedications for our centre, sponsors and all sentient beings.
Later, many people joined us for a special program of open Drop-In Sessions, like this:
- 10:00 – 11:30am Guided Meditation & “What the Buddha Taught” – A Teaching by Glen Svensson. About 100 people joined this session with Glen, pictured above centre.
- 1-2pm Reading of Golden Light Sutra. The large group that gathered on the lawn by Lama Yeshe’s Stupa to recite this Sutra together are pictured above left.
- 2-3pm Movie screening of “The Life of Buddha” – Excellent BBC documentary
While this movie was showing, Tushita staff, volunteers and monastics used the auspicious day to refresh the statue boxes on Lama Yeshe’s Stupa. The statues were offered new clothes, and we were able to finally install the Ratnasambhava statue that we had made in Nepal, to replace one that was stolen from the Stupa a year or so ago. Ven Thubten Dorjee is pictured above right, assisting and guiding this project.
The program of Saka Dawa events continued with:
- 4:00 – 5:30pm Medicine Buddha Puja
- 7:30pm Guided Meditation & Light Offering at Lama Yeshe’s Stupa
While 15 hardcore Buddhist Practitioners joined our final (of 8) Nyung Nay fasting retreat, which ended on the morning of the 14th of June.
And remember! On Saka Dawa karmic results are multiplied by one hundred million times, so there was a a significant deposit in our merit account !!
It was also our beloved dog Nying-je’s 9th birthday!! Before being renamed Nying-je Chenmo (Great Compassion) by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, she was previously called Saka Dawa, after the auspicious day she turned up at Tushita on in 2005.
Then, she was a malnourished stray spitfire puppy, now she’s now a well-fed, leisurely older woman, but still a very endearing character, much loved by all.
Here is one of our favourite photos of her, stealing the spotlight during a Introduction course photoshoot. Happy Birthday Nying-je!
You can see more photos from our Saka Dawa events on our facebook account here. Many thanks to everyone who joined us on this very special day.