Buddha’s Enlightenment Day Celebration: Nyungne Purification Retreat
Saturday April 13, 2024 6:30am – 2:15pm
You must attend the 6:30am Precepts in order to participate in any part of this retreat.
No registration – just walk-in at 6:15am.
There is no cost for this retreat. Everyone is welcome, Buddhist, and non-Buddhist alike.
Every year, we celebrate Buddha’s Enlightenment Day with a traditional fasting purification practice known as Nyungne. During this practice, we emphasize compassion, the very heart of enlightenment, by engaging in prostrations to 1,000-armed Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of Compassion. This practice is done annually at Kadampa Buddhist centers throughout the world.
The retreat begins at 6:30 am sharp when we take the Mahayana Precepts. During these precepts, we make a promise not to engage in negative actions of body, speech, and mind for the whole day. To purify negative actions committed out of attachment, we limit our worldly pleasures by eating only one simple meal at lunch. A vegetarian lunch will be provided at the Center.
Using the prayer booklet or sadhana, Drop of Essential Nectar, we engage in three sessions of prayers, prostrations, and mantra recitations. The purification is most powerful if we participate in all three sessions. You are welcome to join in for just part of the retreat; however, to participate in any of the retreat sessions you must take the precepts at 6:30 am. You can only attend any of the 3 sessions if you have taken the precepts that morning.
About the Precepts:
The practice of taking and keeping the eight Mahayana precepts is a special practice of moral discipline that is performed with bodhichitta intention, the compassionate wish to realize our spiritual potential for the benefit of all beings. The essence of this practice is taking eight precepts and keeping them purely for twenty-four hours. When we take precepts, we explicitly promise to abstain for twenty-four hours from eight actions which include: (1) killing; (2) stealing; (3) sexual activity; (4) lying; (5) taking intoxicants; (6) eating after lunch (meaning we only eat lunch); (7) sitting on high or luxurious thrones or seats; (8) wearing ornaments, perfume, singing & dancing.
Because this practice is motivated by bodhichitta it is especially powerful for purifying negativities, accumulating merit—a positive strength of mind—and creating the cause for us to attain the unsurpassed happiness of enlightenment.
RETREAT SCHEDULE
**Note: Attending the 6:30am Precepts is required to participate in any part of this retreat.**
Precepts 6:30 – 7 :15 am
Retreat 1 7:30 – 8:45am
Retreat 2 9:45 – 11:00 am
Lunch 11:30am – 12:300pm (vegetarian lunch provided)
Retreat 3 1:00 – 2:15pm
The Resident Teacher
Gen Kelsang Namdrol is a modern Buddhist nun and the
Resident Teacher of Samudrabadra Kadampa Buddhist Center.
She has been studying, practicing, and teaching Kadampa Buddhism for many years
under Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, the founder of the New Kadampa Tradition. Gen Namdrol’s heartfelt and practical teachings are presented with warmth, clarity, and humor making them accessible to everyone.
