Easter Retreat: Refuge Ngöndro

The Easter retreat this year is dedicated to the Refuge Ngöndro. Each morning will include short, pithy meditations on causes of refuge, deepening our motivation for refuge, and the blissful, purifying meditations. There will be plenty of time to accumulate Refuge recitations, as well as to familiarise our mind with the profound meaning of the practice.

As this is an online retreat, you can spend each morning over Easter making your life highly meaningful, in the comfort of your own home (end even the comfort of your pyjamas!).

The First Ngondro: Refuge
A key component of Ngöndro is the practice of taking refuge. While we often seek temporary refuges in life, the ultimate refuge is buddhahood itself. By sincerely taking refuge in the Three Jewels, we open ourselves to the blessings and transformative power of the Buddha’s teachings.

Extracted from Geshe-la’s own teachings, over the coming several retreat days we will incorporate meditations on:
(1) Four Common Ngondros: perfect human rebirth, karma, death and impermanence, limitations of samsara
(2) Causes of Refuge: worldly, lower scope, hearers and solitary realisers, bodhisattvas, and the tantric perspective
(3) Purifying Meditations on Guru, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, including Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya.

In the Refuge Ngöndro, we think of our guru as a buddha and feel that all the buddhas are present with him in front of us. When you feel that buddhas are really present and are confident in their power to free you and all other beings from suffering, this is the real, actual taking refuge.