Wisdom teachings of Sakya Pandita and blessings of Namgyalma

On Saturday 26 March, Dechen London Sakya Buddhist Centre were delighted to host a full day of teachings by Lama Jampa Thaye. The location was the peaceful hall at the Hellenic Centre in Marylebone. Buddhists gathered from across the UK and Europe to receive these precious teachings.

In the morning Lama Jampa taught the second part of Sakya Pandita’s short work ‘Letter to the Noble Minded’, a text closely related to his more far more extensive work ‘Elucidating the Thought of the Sage’. In both works Sakya Pandita emphasises the importance of re-aligning the Buddhist practices which were evolving in Tibet at that time, with the authentic teachings of the Buddha as transmitted in India.  Lama Jampa pointed out that both the major text and this briefer Letter to the Noble Minded are valuable resources for contemporary practitioners as we try to assimilate the dharma in the West. They give us a means to check that our practice and understanding is similarly aligned with what the Buddha taught and not corrupted by alternative, non -Buddhist ideas.

This second part of the text focussed on some common misunderstandings of the dharma that were popular in Tibet at that time, from incorrect ideas about mediation, to those concerning the Buddhist view of reality itself. 

In the afternoon Lama Jampa bestowed the Initiation of Namgyalma. Revering and meditating on Namgyalma grant both mundane and transcendental siddhis. The most important of her mundane accomplishments is preserving and strengthening life energy, the granting of long life. Her profound siddhi is the swift accomplishment of transcendental wisdom.

Lama Jampa’s next public teaching event in London will be in the autumn of 2022.