Spreading the pure Kadam Dharma now makes the pure Kadam Dharma appear in our future. This is how we find each other again and again in our future lives.

The conversations we have and the bonds we create with each other here on Facebook are the threads pulling the Kadampa world together into the emerging digital society.

Our friendships matter for future of the living beings in our world. The whole world is moving increasingly into a digital society where people spend more and more of their lives inside the worlds created by technology.

Geshe-la said we need to go to where the people are. The people are moving digital, so as Kadampas we need to go there too. That’s why I think the Kadampa digital presence is so important. We need to make it feel like a Kadampa community. We are a digital community of Kadampas.

And this is why the Festivals are so important. Geshe-la has said that gathering together at the Festivals is the method for maintaining the tradition for generations to come. This is what he asked us to do – to make a commitment to attend every Festival. In this sense, I’m so grateful for COVID because it enabled the NKT to make the decision to make the Festivals available digitally from our homes. I have VERY difficult karma when it comes to being able to attend the festivals. So being able to attend them digitally was like a huge gush of fresh air to be able to attend all the Festivals as I had done for the years I was in Geneva. I was worried that they wouldn’t continue with the policy after COVID, but I think they realized there are just many people who don’t have the karma to be able to physically make it to the festivals but in their speech and minds they really wanted to be there, and it is possible to transform our personal environment of our room or home into the festival experience. So now they are letting it continue. I honestly think I would have tried to lead a mass petition making the case to continue to allow us to attend the festivals digitally!! But fortunately, that protest moment may be put off to another day!!! Haha.

Regardless, I’m really excited to have a festival dedicated to the Liberating Prayer and our International Refuge Ceremony. Just think about that – we do Liberating Prayer before every group puja, and then we do a refuge ceremony all together simultaneously. Think of the power of that. I can’t ever remember doing an international refuge ceremony of this scale. Gen Tharchin said when we do puja together, we create the karma to refind the same people doing the same practice again in the future.

Think about this, we are about to do an international refuge ceremony – the entire global Kadampa community getting together at the same time to go for refuge TOGETHER as a community. That’s AMAZING. Think about the karma that creates for us – to find each other again in the future engaging in the same practice, namely an international refuge ceremony, which will again launch the same karmic cycle forever until we and all living beings are freed from samsara!!!

And the Librerating Prayer is our primary prayer to Buddha Shakyamuni. When you think about it, we don’t pay a lot of attention to our Spiritual Guide in the aspect of Buddha Shaykamuni, we are usually focused on his Je Tsongkhapa form or his Heruka form. But here, we are paying particular tribute to the Buddha Shakyamuni part of Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka. Buddha Shakyamuni was the founder in this world, he then later appeared as Lama Tsongkhapa and our other lineage gurus, but deeper down, it is Buddha Shakyamuni.

Deeper down than Buddha Skakyamuni is Heruka, and inside Heruka is the HUM, and inside that is the Dharmakaya – our definitive Spirtual Guide. The Spiritual Guide is OUR karmic bridge between where we are now and the minds of all the Buddhas. Indeed, he is the minds of all the Buddhas appearing in forms that can be seen by living beings according to their karmic dispositions. For us, our Spiritual Guide who has emanated everything for us in the so-called ‘modern’ world is Venerable Geshe-la. He has made the Kadampa world available to us without losing a drop of it’s purity in making the cultural transition from Feudal Tibet to the modern world.

We are pure, 100% Kadampa teachings, without being mixed with ANYTHING. We are the pure deal, the undilluted form, or rather we are a distinct flavor. The Kadampa teachings include the Ganden Oral Lineage, through which we can attain enlightenment in one lifetime, even three years! That’s what we are! That is our instruction. That is our uncommon characteristic. Geshe-la has presented the Ganden Oral Lineage appears directly to millions and eventually billions in the modern world. He has made this precious gem from the heart of Je Tsonkghapa available to the people of the modern world.

And who protects our tradition? Dorje Shugden! Our Dharma Protector. How can we know without the slightest doubt that those who misunderstand Dorje Shugden are wrong? Because we know what Dorje Shugden protects us so pure. Only a completely pure being could protect a completely pure Dharma jewel.

And now that Venerable Geshe-la has passed, how does he continue to appear in this world? As the teacher of every Festival. Some people in the future may lament wishing they were able to attend teachings directly with Geshe-la, but I say we all have this opportunity every year for the Spring, Summer, and Fall international festivals. What appears to our eyes may be this Gen-la or that one, but for us we see it is Venerable Geshe-la teaching the festival through everyone and everything related to the festival (not just the teachings).

So even though those of us in the digital world are only getting the recordings 48 hours later, there is nothing preventing us from believing we are at the festival right now. It is happening right now, just appearing to us as whatever is our daily appearance. That’s our festival.

This is what I’m thinking when the festival has already started, but I’m not yet able to attend the teachings. For us in the digital world, this means our festival actually winds up being longer. We get to go until the videos are no longer available. I think this is why they make the vidoes only available for a limited period of time – to ‘force’ us to come together in time.