Join in our annual purification retreat in celebration of Buddha’s Enlightenment Day. This special fasting and purification retreat is performed in conjunction with Thousand-armed Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of Compassion. It is very powerful for purifying negative karma, pacifying strong delusions, receiving blessings, and increasing our love, compassion and bodhichitta.

In this retreat we make many effective prayers for all suffering to completely cease. We emphasize outer and inner purification through fasting, prayer and prostrations. During this day of fasting, we take only one meal before mid-day and take precepts in the morning. The retreat begins at 6:30am with the practice of taking the Eight Mahayana Precepts using the prayer booklet A Pure Life. Then we engage in three sessions of chanted prayers with prostrations to the compassion Buddha, Thousand-armed Avalokiteshvara.

Precepts session is about 30 minutes, and each session is about 1 and 1/2 hours. It is necessary to attend the morning Precepts in order to participate in any session.

The day will end with beautiful teaching on “What is Enlightenment” then traditions chanted prayers called Wishfulfilling Jewel.  These are open to everyone regardless of whether you have attended the morning precepts session.

Sessions
6:30am-7:15am – Precepts
8:00am-9:30am – Session One
10:30am-12:00pm – Session Two
2:00pm-3:30pm – Session Three
4:30pm-5:45pm – Wishfulfilling Jewel