Shakyamuni Afternoon Puja for Buddha’s Birthday (SAKA DAWA)
Sunday 4 June @ 2:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Join us on Saka Dawa in a joyful ceremony celebrating Lord Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and parinirvana. This offering puja is a beautiful practice, sung in English, with praises to the Buddha, copious offerings, and delicious chai tea. View the giant applique thangka of the Buddha, offer a khata and make aspirational prayers for your own Dharma journey, and strew flowers to the ten directions!
This is the holiest day on the Buddhist calendar, and a deeply moving and uplifting event. The power of everything we do on this day is greatly magnified, so it is a great day for spiritual activity, making offerings, and re-setting the direction of your life.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche emphasises how the Shakyamuni Puja is so important, as a practice that purifies the obstacles and accumulates the necessary conditions – the merits – that are done in order to receive blessings, and for the mind to enter into the graduated path. The major steps on path to enlightenment are included in this ceremony, as it is based around the 7-limb practice.
You will also have the opportunity to make special prayers for sick family members, for the success of projects and endeavours, the removal of obstacles, and the flourishing of Dharma and the resources for a meaningful life.
If you bring offerings to the puja, please make sure they are commercially wrapped, as most of the offering we distribute the to the needy at a later date.
This ceremony will be led by:
Download the texts:
Calling the Guru From Afar
Shakyamuni Buddha Puja
yes – you can just come on the day, but your RSVP helps us plan – thank you!
Donate to the offerings:
Give the gift of generosity and make mountains of merit! If you can’t make it to the puja, you can still be involved by donating to the offerings and chai by sponsoring the ceremony. Email us a dedication to be read out during the event, or send an eCard or tribute.
Donate to a Puja
Can’t make it to puja but still want to be involved? You can make your donation here and we will purchase offerings on your behalf.
If you wish, email in a dedication to be read at puja, or come along via zoom and dedicate on the night.
Donations can also be made via bank transfer: Langri Tangpa Centre Inc, ANZ Bank, BSB 014-508, Account 498788594, REF puja.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave us specific advice when we first moved to Camp Hill, that in order for the centre to survive and to flourish we needed great stores of merit. One of the practices he recommended was for us to do Tara Puja and Medicine Buddha Puja together as a group. So even if you cannot be there physically, you can still be very much involved. In this way, we can all contribute to the continuation of our wonderful LTC.
Many of us in the modern world are time-poor, but this need not be an obstacle to participating in the spiritual heart of Langri Tangpa Centre – the pujas and practices. Reading dedications from our people that couldn’t make it on the night helps to develop a sense of community, and brings a face to the dedication “for all sentient beings”.