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In This Issue • Weekend
Retreat in Westchester
Dear Friends, I am looking out at the Empire State Building from Chakrasambara Center's new space. It is set against the darkening dusk sky. All around the lights of tall buildings are turning on. The city sounds drift up from the street 22 stories below. The message is clear: We are in Manhattan. After two months of intensive searching, we still had not found anything suitable. Our June 10 end-of-lease deadline was looming. Then, within a few days of our sangha community completing a 24-hour, six-session Tara practice dedicated to our finding a new center, a wonderful series of coincidences and kindnesses produced this new space on 520 8th Avenue close to Penn Station. On Saturday, June 2, we moved in, and on Monday, June 4, an auspicious day on which we celebrate the Buddha's first turning of the wheel of Dharma and also Geshe Kelsang Gyatso's birthday, we consecrated the new space with an Offering to the Spiritual Guide practice with nearly 60 people in attendance. It was a wonderful and joyous occasion, the fruit of many hours, nay, years, of effort. The city swirls beneath us and all around us. This is the perfect place in which to create a Dharma center, a Bodhisattva training ground, and forge a path to enlightenment for all to walk. Dharma is for everyone, Geshe Kelsang insists. Everyone can benefit, not just Buddhists. And of course when you are sitting in the middle of Manhattan it feels like everyone is here, all living beings. So here we go! This space is only temporary. We will be moving into our new space in Chelsea in late summer. In the meantime, please use your city center. It's accessible, only a few blocks from Penn Station. And it's yours. Please enjoy it! And then send that peace and pure enjoyment out into this city and this world. This center is the tangible expression of our compassion and bodhicitta. No one owns it. No single individual profits from it. It is a manifestation of the Buddhas' compassion, as well as our own. By contributing to the center we are directly and indirectly helping all living beings. This center will be as beneficial as we make it. I think it is an extraordinary opportunity for all of us. It gives us the chance to emulate the lives of the great Bodhisattvas of the past. Due to their kindness, we still have a Dharma to practice. Now it is our opportunity to repay that kindness by giving our own and future generations the chance to practice Dharma. Now it is our time. |
A
Message From Kadam Morten
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