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Thousand-Arm Chenrezig (Avalokiteshvara) statue, Aryatara Institut, Munich, Germany, December 2019. Photo by Robert Schwabe.
Aryatara Institut, the FPMT center in Munich, Germany, observed the Christmas holiday season with two events—a “Chenrezig Christmas Meditation on Love and Compassion” held on December 16, 2019, and a “Christmas Retreat: Debate Between Wisdom and Ignorance” from December 26-30, 2019. Sabine Kehl, a long-term member of the center who translates for the center, shares the story.
Chenrezig Christmas Meditation on Love and Compassion
Christmas is a contemplative time of closeness and warmth, peace and tranquility. For the past few years Aryatara Institute in Munch has made it a beautiful tradition to dedicate the weekly “Monday Meditation” that falls on the last Monday before Christmas to world peace. In 2019, that “Monday Meditation” was dedicated to Buddha Chenrezig (Skt. Avalokiteshvara) who is the embodiment of the compassion of all buddhas. His practice benefits the mind, purifies negative karma, and creates the basis for the development of love and compassion. These are attitudes the world needs more than ever.
On the evening of December 16, 2019, the group of meditators, guided by spiritual program coordinator Robert Schwabe, devoted themselves to the practice of Chenrezig. They visualized the four-armed Buddha Chenrezig radiating rays of light and spreading love and compassion all around. It was a wonderful hour of meditation in which the meditators focused on the well-being of others with loving and compassionate minds.
Ven. Fedor Stracke teaching from and holding the Christmas retreat’s root text, Aryatara Institut, Munich, Germany, December 2019. Photo by Sophie Kaiser.
Christmas Retreat: Debate Between Wisdom and Ignorance
The topic of this year’s retreat over the Christmas holidays was “Debate Between Wisdom and Ignorance.” The teachings were based on the root text A Discussion Between Self-Grasping and the Wisdom Realizing Selflessness, Arising out of an Identification of the Nature of Basis, Path and Resultant Mahamudra (Tib. gzhi lam ‘dras gsum gyi phyag rgya chen po’i ngo bo ngos ‘dzin las brtsams pa’i she rab bdag ‘dzin gnyis kyi shags ‘debs) composed by Panchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen and translated from Tibetan to English by FPMT resident teacher Ven. Fedor Stracke.
From December 26-30, 2019, a group of about twenty participants intently followed Ven. Fedor’s teachings on this advanced but vital topic in Buddhism, starting each day with meditation and concluding with purifying practices.
In the 667-verse text on ignorance and wisdom, Panchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen explains the right way of meditating on the view of emptiness. He does this by going through every possible mistake one could make in the process, both in sutra and tantra. The text is written as a first-person dialogue that sometimes leads to heated debates about the existence of an independent self. Panchen Losang Chökyi Gyaltsen explains how ignorance reaches for a self that has not existed since beginningless time, how through this deluded view ignorance creates new causes for samsara every moment, and how wisdom refutes the existence of an inherent I.
Ven. Fedor inserted the only existing printed commentary, written by Yongdzin Losang Jinpa, into the translated text. He also inserted the main commentary on the first third of the text given by His Eminence Chöden Rinpoche at FPMT center Vajrapani Institute in May 2000.
Ending the year with these unique and valuable teachings was a special opportunity for all participants.
For more information about Aryatara Institut, visit their website:
https://aryatara.de/
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