The First Teaching of Buddha

The First Turning of the Wheel of Dharma, Chokhor Duchen, is an important holiday in which Buddhist honor the day that the Buddha Shakyamuni first taught the Four Noble Truths ( See list below.) in Sarnath, India, and first turned the Wheel of the Dharma after attaining enlightenment.

Magical Display of the Arts ~ Dharma Wheel and Deer

This year, 2023, we at Vajrayana Foundation will celebrate streaming live from Pema Osel Ling on Friday, July 21st 8am Pacific with Buddha Puja and Tsog. Please join us using this link.  If you would like to make offerings for our teachers, for Tsok, Butter Lamps, general support, or Special Projects, please use this link.

From a temple in Vietnam, Relief of Buddha Giving First Teaching.

The Four Noble Truths are the foundational tenets of Buddhism, which spark awareness of suffering as the nature of existence, its cause, and how to live without it. The truths are understood as the realization which led to the enlightenment of Buddha and were the basis of his teachings.

The Four Noble Truths are:

  • The Truth of Suffering
  • The Truth of the Cause of Suffering
  • The Truth of Freedom from Suffering
  • The Truth of the Way to Eliminate Suffering

The path alluded to in the fourth truth is The Eightfold Path which serves as both a guide on the road to non-attachment and the road itself. The precepts both inform a traveler on how to proceed and provide the way through spiritual discipline. The eight precepts are:

  • Right View
  • Right Intention
  • Right Speech
  • Right Action
  • Right Livelihood
  • Right Effort
  • Right Mindfulness
  • Right Concentration

By recognizing the Four Noble Truths and following the Eightfold Path, a person could find release from craving and attachment to the things of the world and liberate oneself from the endless cycle of suffering experienced through rebirth and death. The Truths and the Path are given varying levels of significance by different Buddhist schools in the present day but remain foundational aspects of the faith in all of them.


 

Mandala for the Support of Accomplishment


To make the mandala offering, you will need two mandalas. The first, called the “mandala for the support of accomplishment,” is placed on the shrine and visualized as a refuge tree. This support is made by filling three rings placed on a mandala pan with piles of offerings, totalling thirty-seven. If you do not have these rings, then put a mandala pan piled with rice on the shrine. The second is the offering mandala which is held in your lap. In addition, you will need rice, seeds, grain or precious
stones, Precious stones are the best. If you use rice or grain, color it with saffron. Visualize each single grain of rice as one three-thousandfold world system, as was described before. Sit with a cloth draped across your lap to hold the pile of rice. Hold a bit of the rice and the pan in your left hand. Your right hand, formed into the mudra of the vajra fist, holds a small amount of rice between the thumb and middle finger. Recite the hundred syllable mantra while rubbing the underside of your right wrist on the mandala pan in a clockwise circle until you complete one recitation. Then drop the rice from between the fingers of your right hand back into the pile on your lap. With the same hand, pick up a handful of rice and make seven piles on the surface of the pan. The first one, in the center of the pan, represents Mount Meru. Then make a pile above the center one, another to the right, one below, and one to the left of the first pile. These four represent the four continents. Make the sixth pile in the same place as the second pile and the seventh pile in the same place as the fourth. These last two represent the sun and moon. After you finish making the piles, wipe the pan clean with the underside of your right wrist in a clockwise rotation. (The offering will fall into the cloth.) Think of the mandala plate as symbolizing the purity of your mind. As you rub your wrist on the pan, the action of rubbing the bodhicitta nerve, which passes through your wrist, purifies your mind’s obscurations.

Source: Dudjom Tersar Ngondro Commentary by Lama Tharchin Rinpoche.

Digi Dudjom Tersar Ngondro Commentary

Lama Tharchin Rinpoche Chants Dudjom Tersar Ngondro


This weekend, streaming online, on 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟏𝟓𝐭𝐡, 𝐒𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐲, 𝐚𝐭 𝟗:𝟑𝟎𝐚𝐦 𝐏𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜, 𝐃𝐮𝐝𝐣𝐨𝐦 𝐓𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐫 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐍𝐠𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐫𝐨 𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐮𝐦𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 for the Vajrayana Foundation Ngondro Participants. Watch your email for logon information.

Not a participant in our Ngondro Program? Check out our website at DudjomTersarngondro.com to find out how we can help support your practice.


 

How to Meditate with Confidence Teaching Series Continues

“Whether we are doing Ngondro Practice or whether we are doing some other Main Practice, all the practices we do, have to encompass the view or to be sealed with the view. First, we establish our understanding of the view through study and reflection and study that meaning. From this, I will begin the teaching on the stages of meditating on the view.”
~ Tulku Thadral Rinpoche,
Pema Osel Ling,
How to Meditate with Confidence
Jan 2023

If you have missed any of, or want to review any of, Tulku Thadral Rinpoche’s Monthly Ngondro Teaching Series on How to Meditate with Confidence, here are the You Tube Links listed below. The upcoming teaching, Part 5, will be live streamed on July 19th @ 5pm Pacific and here is that link:  https://youtube.com/live/LqBFXU4Hefk?feature=share

Part 1–Jan. 25, 2023
Part 2–Feb 8, 2023
Part 3– Mar 8, 2023
Part 4. May 10, 2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ustMh_DR31U


To join the Vajrayana Foundation Dudjom Tersar Ngondro Program
or the Dudjom Lingpa Troma Ngondro Program
click here.


To learn more about the Vajrayana Foundation Retreat Offerings,
Daily Puja and Hay Days Puja and Tsok Schedule
ongoing Projects and to make
Offerings click here.