Celebration of Chotrul Düchen
All Rigpa sangha members are invited to join us for an evening of practice.
Thursday March 8, 7pm.
Chotrul Düchen is one of the four major Buddhist holidays. It occurs on the full moon (the fifteenth day) of the first Tibetan month, which is called Bumgyur Dawa. The first fifteen days of the year celebrate the fifteen days on which, in order to increase the merit and the devotion of future disciples, Buddha displayed a different miracle.
As Jikmé Lingpa said:
Through the magical power of your miracles in Shravasti,
You rendered speechless the tirthika teachers who,
With all their analysis and research, drunk on the wine of indulgence, had become oppressive in the extreme.
In the final contest they were humbled, their prestige all drained away,
As you triumphed through ‘the four bases of miraculous powers’.
On these days, the Rigpa sangha gathers to perform the practice of tsok, specifically the Tendrel Nyesel tsok practice, a terma revelation of Tertön Sogyal, a teacher to the 13th Dalai Lama.
All practices on the path to buddhahood are methods for gathering the accumulations of merit and wisdom and for purifying our obscurations. These two processes of accumulation and purification go hand in hand; as we accumulate more merit and wisdom, our obscurations automatically diminish. One such method of accumulation and purification is the practice of tsok, which is primarily a practice of offering.
All sangha members are invited to attend, and to practice at their own level, whether it is meditation or ngöndro. There are several sections within the tsok that are open to all to participate, and the tsok practice is also supported by each person’s meditation and ngöndro practice.
As tsok offering includes an offering of food, please feel free to bring food for an offering, which will be included in a potluck dinner afterwards.
If you would like to help set up the shrine room and prepare offerings, please come at 6pm.
