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Tara altar prepared by Maria Berger for the New Year’s Eve practice at Tara Mandala Center, Bavaria, Germany, December 2020. Photo by Maria Kruming.
Tara Mandala Center, the FPMT center in Landau an der Isar, Bavaria, Germany, has continued to engage in Dharma practice during the past year. Katrin Veicht, a board member for the center, shares the story about their eight million Tara mantra goal and other activities:
Since the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic everything that had felt normal became difficult. Meeting in our gompa was no longer possible and lots of teaching and courses had to be canceled. Before, we had not been particularly well equipped or technically experienced, but the COVID crisis taught us to move to online programs and establish Zoom meetings for the weekly lamrim courses with our resident teacher, Dieter Kratzer. Now we are very grateful to use these online resources. It has helped a lot to keep us connected.
In January 2021 we started to recite the Green Tara mantra upon the recommendation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to stop the pandemic, with the goal to recite eight million mantras by the end of 2021. Once a week, we meet online and recite “Praises to the Twenty-One Taras” and the mantra together. Two Sunday mornings a month, we do the Chittamani Tara Puja, led from Ven. Thubten Drolma. By mid of June 2021, we recited had 4,784,854 Tara mantras, accomplished by about twenty-five members reciting the mantra on a daily basis.
Weekly lamrim class taught by Dieter Kratzer, Tara Mandala Center, Bavaria, Germany, December 2020. Photo by Maria Kruming.
In February, at Losar, we started to do the recommended practice to protect from the Coronavirus by Lama Zopa Rinpoche on a daily basis. Every morning from Monday to Friday we come together via Zoom and do the daily morning practice by Rinpoche “The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness” and recite the Vajra Armor mantra and the Black Manjushri mantra. At the end we recite and contemplate on the wonderful prayer of Khadro Namsel Dorje Rinpoche. We dedicate all the merits accumulated by these prayers and recitations to all who are affected by the virus.
Another wonderful highlight for Tara Mandala Center was the twenty-four hour recitation of the Sanghata Sutra on Saka Dawa Duchen in May 2021.This was inspired by prayer marathons at other centers in the FPMT. Sixteen participants recited the Sutra six times completely. Please rejoice with us!
We are still very motivated and keen to continue with all these wonderful and helpful practice and prayers.
To learn more about Tara Mandala Center, visit their website:
https://www.tara-mandala.de/
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