The Akshobhya Retreat  November 27^th -  December  10^th , 2009

December 13, 2009, report by Jo Gibson, photos taken by Karma Lekcho

 

Each year, before the Kagyu Monlam begins, the Gyalwang Karmapa personally supervises a two-week long Akshobhya retreat, and this year there were eighteen retreatants.  

Akshobhya is one of the five Dhyani Buddhas. In Tibetan he is known as Mitrugpa, the one who never becomes disturbed by anger or aggression.  He is regarded as especially powerful for purifying  negative karma. According to the Buddhist teachings the present age is one of degeneration when all beings in the cycle of existence  (samsara) are suffering because of negative actions and emotions. The Akshobhya  ritual is a very powerful purification practice done for the benefit of all sentient beings. It can liberate  not only the practitioners themselves  from the fear of an unfortunate rebirth, but other beings as well.  Akshobhya promised that the merit generated by reciting one-hundred-thousand of his long dhayani mantra and making an image of him could be dedicated other people, including those who have died, and they would be assured of release from lower states of existence and rebirth in spiritually fortunate circumstances.

The purpose of the retreat is to accumulate mantra and practice sessions of the Akshobhya ritual  to support the fire puja – held on the penultimate day of the Kagyu Monlam .

Originally this special retreat was restricted to gelong (fully ordained monks) who had at the  very least completed the traditional three year retreat but, this year, for the first time, six laypeople were invited to join twelve members of the sangha in the retreat.  It was His Holiness Karmapa’s wish to make the retreat more inclusive. The laypeople were chosen from staff who had a longstanding connection with the Kagyu Monlam or Tsurphu Labrang. The retreatants also included a Taiwanese lama from the Chinese Dharmagupta tradition, the Venerable Hai Tao.

The retreatants stayed at Tergar Monastery and had to uphold the eight sojong precepts during the two weeks of the retreat.   There were four sessions of the Akshobhya Ritual and mantra recitation each day, two in the morning and two  in the afternoon. In addition, the Gyalwang Karmapa gave the retreatants teachings on the significance of the  Akshobhya practice and on the text.  As one retreatant later said, ”This was the opportunity of a lifetime — to receive such precious and deep teachings from His Holiness during a retreat.”