Dalai Lama confers teaching on Chodul Monlam Chenmo
DHARAMSALA, 7 March: On the occasion of the Chodul Monlam Chenmo also known as The Great Prayer Festival, His Holiness the Dalai Lama gave a short teaching on the Jataka Tales followed by the Ceremony for Generating Bodhichitta (semkye) today at Tsug-lag-Khang, the main temple here in McLeod Ganj.
Addressing thousands of devotees who have thronged the courtyard of the main temple from across the world, the Tibetan Nobel laureate said that “several hundred years have passed since the first Monlam Chenmo(Grand Prayer Festival). While it can not be observed in Tibet, we are carrying forward the tradition here in exile.”
The Dalai Lama further remarked that “self-centredness is the cause of all the suffering and that putting others before self, the antidote to it.”
Many devotees were seen listening to the Dalai Lama’s teaching from the stairs at the entrance or from outside the temple as the entire courtyard of the temple was filled to the brim.
While the Tibetan spiritual leader conferred the teaching in Tibetan, the live webcast is available in Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Hindi, Korean, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Nepali, Ladakhi, Italian, Marathi, and Mongolian.
Monlam Chenmo was established in 1409 by Tsongkhapa, the great philosopher and founder of the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.
Tsong Khapa at that time is understood to have invited all the people of Tibet to the two-week-long festival of prayer, auspicious rituals, teachings, and celebrations, from the first new moon until the first full moon of the Lunar calendar.
The Tibetan spiritual leader will also confer the preliminary empowerment of Chakrasamvara Empowerment in the Krishnacharya Tradition on Wednesday and the actual empowerment on Thursday at the request of Gandan Tegchenling Monastery, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia as well as several Tibetan lamas.
