Chanted Prayers & Meditation
Everyone Welcome
Prayers Offered at KMCC
Pujas (chanted prayers) are an important component of training in a spiritual life. They help us to still our mind, connect with enlightened beings, and receive blessings.
Below is a list of the pujas we practice together at the center. Please check the online calendar for any schedule changes. All pujas are free of charge. Everyone is welcome.
Offering to the Spiritual Guide
Prayers to Je Tsongkhapa
On the 10th and 25th of each month
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 you can bring a vegetarian food offering with you if you wish. (2 hours).
This special practice is done following the sadhana (prayer booklet) Offering to the Spiritual Guide, as well as the special prayers: Request to the Holy Spiritual Guide Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche from his Faithful Disciples
Heart Jewel
Prayers to Je Tsongkhapa & Dorje Shugden
Offered most days of the week
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 longer meditation on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment. After the meditation we make prayers to our Dharma Protector, Dorje Shugden. Through this we can overcome obstacles to our practice and create favorable conditions so that we can nurture and increase our pure Dharma realizations.
This practice follows the sadhana (prayer booklet) Heart Jewel.
Melodious Drum
Extensive Prayers to the Dharma Protector Dorje Shugden
On the 29th of each month
Melodious Drum puja is recommended for experienced practitioners.
This monthly practice consists principally of prayers to our Dharma Protector, Dorje Shugden. 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 Shugden 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 you can bring a vegetarian food offering with you if you wish. (3.5 hours).
During this extensive puja, we are using the sadhana (prayer booklet) Melodious Drum Victorious in all Directions.
Powa - Prayers For The Deceased
Prayers to Avalokiteshvara
Usually offered once a month
Once a month the Center engages in a lovely ritual practice in conjunction with Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of Compassion, on behalf of those who have recently died. The practice entails a transference of consciousness, whereby through chanted prayers and mantras, the participants assist in directing the consciousness of the recently deceased directly to the Pure Land. Food and flower offerings (tending toward white) are welcome. (1 hour).
If you would like to add someone who has recently passed away to our Powa prayers, please join us (usually on a Saturday once a month - please check the calendar). You can also request a particular dedication for them by completing the form on this page.
The practice of Powa - Prayers for the Deceased is made in conjunction with the sadhana (prayer booklet) Powa Ceremony.
Liberation From Sorrow
Prayers to Green Tara
On the 8th of each month
At Kadampa Centers worldwide, the eighth of the month is Tara Day. Tara is a female Buddha, whose name means “Rescuer. She is the embodiment of swift compassion. If we rely upon Tara sincerely and with strong faith, she will protect us from all obstacles and fulfill all our wishes (1 hour).
Everyone is welcome and invited to join us for our chanted Tara prayer practice, using the Liberation from Sorrow sadhana (prayer booklet).
35 Confession Buddhas
A special purification practice
Usually offered once a month
This ancestral practice is a beautiful purification ritual that helps clear away difficulties in developing faith and conviction in Dharma and in making progress on the stages of the path to enlightenment. As with all purification practices, it also prevents our future suffering by purifying the negativity that comes from our past non-virtuous actions (i.e., negative karma).
Using recorded prayers as our guide, we engage in three types of traditional practices: prostration, purification and dedication. The centerpiece of the practice entails visualizing the Thirty-five Confession Buddhas and practicing purification in their presence.
This special practice is done following the sadhana (prayer booklet): The Bodhisattva’s Confession of Moral Downfalls.
Quick Path to Great Bliss
Only open for those who have receive HYT Empowerments
Please check calendar for exact dates
Vajrayogini is a female enlightened Deity of Highest Yoga Tantra who is a manifestation of all the Buddha's wisdom. By engaging in the Tantric practice of Vajrayogini under the guidance of a qualified Spiritual Guide, sincere practitioners can completely purify their body, speech and mind and attain a state of full enlightenment – the ultimate goal of human life. The practice of Vajrayogini comes from Buddha himself and has been preserved over the centuries by an unbroken lineage of realized practitioners.
Time: 2 hours
This special practice is done following the sadhana (prayer booklet) Quick Path to Great Bliss.
Monthly Precepts
A special practice of fasting & purification
On the 15th of each month
The essence of the practice is to take eight precepts and to keep them purely for a period of twenty-four hours.
By doing this practice again and again, we acquaint ourself with the practice of moral discipline and thereby make our human life meaningful.
We receive many great benefits from practicing moral discipline in this way. It helps us to solve the problems of this life by avoiding the causes of suffering; and it creates the cause for us to take fortunate rebirths in future lives and thereby protects us from the sufferings of lower rebirth.
In particular, because it is performed with bodhichitta motivation, this practice is very powerful for purifying negative karma. It accumulates a vast collection of merit and creates the cause for us to attain the unsurpassed happiness of enlightenment.
We first need to receive these precepts from a qualified Preceptor, and then we can take them on our own as often as we wish. Instructions on both these methods are included in the sadhana (prayer booklet: A Pure Life.