Amitabha Budda statue and altar at Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, Washington State, USA. September 14, 2014. Photo by Julia Sanderson.

After a week of preparations, Buddha Amitabha Pure Land (BAPL), in Washington State, USA, hosted an Amitabha Buddha Festival for the seventh time, attended by thirty people. The festival was envisioned by Lama Zopa Rinpoche to honor the large Amitabha Buddha statue which is on the land at BAPL. Rinpoche created the text for the celebration, basing it on Lama Tsongkhapa’s text for the Monlam celebration. The text includes an extensive bath offering, prayers to the 35 Buddhas of Confession, and an extensive offering practice, similar to one done during a long life puja.

The local FPMT center, Pamtingpa, is located about an hour from Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, and students from there, as well as from friends from a nearby town, helped prepare food and set everything up for the puja.

Yangsi Rinpoche accepted an invitation to attend this festival and led a beautiful motivation before the puja began, reminding everyone how much effort Lama Zpoa Rinpoche had put into creating this festival, compiling the festival text, and the details Rinpoche put into making sure all of the offerings were of best quality and beautifully arranged—all so that students would have the opportunity to create extensive merit. Yangsi Rinpoche also emphasized that all of this merit would be dedicated for the quick return of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and for the welfare of all beings.

Ven. Thubten Wongmo with Yangsi Rinpoche, Buddha Amitabha Pure Land, September 14. Photo by Julia Sanderson.

The puja itself starts off with refuge and bodhicitta, bath offering, then the extensive prayer to the Thirty-Five Buddhas, “The Flowing Water of the Ganga, a Thorough Praise of the Thirty-Five Sugatas,” which lists the various negative karmas that each of the thirty-five buddhas purifies.

Next in the text, all of the various traditional offerings are made to Guru Amitabha: The three Dharma robes and begging bowl, the seven objects of a King’s reign, the eight auspicious signs and substances etc. For lots of the offerings Lama Zopa Rinpoche advised to have many of the same offering available. Rinpoche said to do this so that the organizers could hand them out and everyone could participate in actually physically making the offerings. Rinpoche advised to have actual representations of each of the offerings made, and personally bought many of them, including many small horses, elephants, giant umbrellas, banners, representations of kings, queens, ministers, etc. Many people attending are not necessarily Buddhist but Ven. Tenzin Tharchin, a monk who resides at Buddha Amitabha Buddha Land, noticed that, “Everyone really gets into the puja and they enjoy very much participating in making the offerings.”

Two of the last offering verses were composed by Lama Zopa Rinpoche himself: “Offering Trucks, Cars, Trains, and Other Vehicles,” and “Offering Airplanes.” Ven. Tharchin shares, “The toy car that Yangsi Rinpoche offered for the first of these made a sound of a car speeding along faster and faster and then pulling the handbrake into a screeching turn! Rinpoche kept playing the sound effects while all the other toy vehicles were being handed out to the others which caused everyone to crack up with laughter!”

Offering Trucks, Cars, Trains, and Other Vehicles
Due to the merits of having offered these vehicles
May ourselves and all transmigratory beings
Realize the basis of the two truths.
(The truth for the absolute wisdom and the truth for the all obscuring mind)
And by completing the path method possessed by wisdom and wisdom possessed by method
Cross from beyond the oceans of samsaric suffering and
May the unified holy body and mind of Buddha be achieved.

Offering Airplanes
Due to the method of having offered these airplanes
And especially by the blessings of the Virtuous Friend,
The essence of embodiment of numberless Buddhas.
May ourselves and all transmigratory beings actualize the unification
Of holy body and holy mind of no more learning
In the brief lifetime of degenerated time.

Thus, may all the wishes of the students, the benefactors, the benefactors of the Dharma centers, the sentient beings who rely on me, those whom I have promised to pray for, those whose names have been given to me, and those who merely see us, hear us, remember us, touch us, talk to us, see photos of us, and dream of us, be fulfilled in accordance with the Dharma. At the time of our death, may we see Amitabha directly, and be able to go without obstruction to the Blissful Realm.

Participants in the Amitabha Buddha Festival, September 14, 2024. Photo by Julia Sanderson.

After the puja, a lovely lunch was offered and students from Pamtingpa Center performed the Dance of the Twenty-One Qualities of Tara. “It was very beautiful and moving,” shares Ven. Tharchin. “In the backdrop behind the dancers was a large thangka of Mother Tara smiling down on everyone.” Next, a good friend of Amitabha Buddha Land and of Pamtingpa Center, Gary Davis, chanted two Native American songs with much devotion.

Gary Davis offering chants in front of the Amitabha Buddha statue. Photo by Julia Sanderson.

“One of the chants was about the Aurora Borealis which is held to be very sacred in the tradition and another about paying attention to the voice that comes from the sky,” Ven. Tharchin explained. “It was a wish of Lama Zopa Rinpoche that we represent and include the local traditions in the festival and so we were very grateful that Gary accepted our request to perform.”

Yangsi Rinpoche offering the Black Hat Dance, September 14, 2024. Photo by Julia Sanderson.

The festivities concluded with Yangsi Rinpoche performing a Black Hat Dance for all. The dance is performed as a method to eliminate and purify obstacles. He had recently been offered a full costume by one of his students when he was in France so he then had the thought to bring the costume with him to the festival and to perform the dance for all. “We asked Rinpoche where he had learned the dance,” Ven. Tharchin shared, “but Rinpoche seemed to indicate he hadn’t actually formally learned it before! You would not have known. Rinpoche performed the dance very elegantly and you could see the depth of concentration in Rinpoche’s eyes as he performed it. Everyone in attendance found it very moving and it was a perfect conclusion to a very special day for all of us.”

With grateful thanks to Ven. Tenzin Tharchin for providing details of this special event and to all who helped make the festival a success. 

The Amitabha Festival Book: Extensive Benefits from Now up to Enlightenment (Peerless Happiness), Including Liberation from Saṃsāra (Definite Happiness) is available for all to use. This text is in relation to Amitabha Buddha but it can be used as a basis for another deity by replacing the praises and prayers of Amitabha with those of the deity.

Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), is a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.