Gaden Choling Mahayana Buddhist Meditation Centre

There will be a special fundraising event at Gaden Choling on Thursday May 6th, at 7pm, to support victims of the recent Yushu earthquake. Matt King, who was actually in the vicinity during the earthquake and is just back in town, will talk about his visit to various significant sites in Lama Tsongkhapa's and Zasep Rinpoche's early life. Please read Matt's announcement below.

We are happy to announce that our teacher Zasep Rinpoche Bagsh-aa will be coming to Toronto this June. You'll find below a schedule of teachings and a message from Ann Gelsheimer. We'll have more details about the teachings as the date approaches.

We are very sad to announce that His Eminence Lati Rinpoche passed away on Monday April 11 at 5:45am. H.E Lati Rinpoche, a former abbot of Ganden Shartse Monastery, was a holder of the complete Ganden Lineage, a master of Sutra and Tanta and the teacher and tutor of many Lamas in the Gelug Tradition including our very own Precious Teacher, Zasep Jamseng Rinpoche. H.E Lati Rinpoche visited Gaden Choling over the years to bestow initiations and give commentaries and teachings. As a thank-you for the kindness of H.E. Lati Rinpoche and in order to request his swift return for the sake of all beings, Zasep Rinpoche has requested all of his centres to gather to do Guru Puja in honour of H.E Lati Rinpoche. All are welcome, please join us if you can. (altar set-up is at 7:00pm).

The Gaden Choling puja schedule for the next few weeks has been updated here. It includes a Praises and Offerings to the 21 Taras Puja, on Wednesday, April 28, at 7:30pm, which does not require any previous initiations to attend and all are invited.

Are you too caught up in the rush of daily life? Why not make some time for focused Shamatha practice together with your dharma brothers and sisters? You are invited to join us at Gaden Choling for a One-Day Shamatha Retreat this Friday, April 2^nd (Good Friday holiday), from 10am to 5pm.

Every Tuesday evening at 7pm, starting March 30, 2010, we will be offering the opportunity for both beginning and experienced meditators to practise mindfulness/shamatha and analytical/insight meditation in a group setting. Instruction is available for anyone wishing to learn the basics of these meditation modes. For the analytical/insight part, a guided Lam Rim meditations will be read aloud from The New Meditation Handbook by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. An outline of our guided Lam Rim meditations can be found on the Tuesday evening meditation page.

Gaden Choling occasionally hosts a Movie Night event, at which one or two inspirational, informative, or otherwise totally cool and worthwhile movies are shown at the centre. They're often documentaries about Buddhist dharma, people, or history as you might expect. However, we might mix things up now and again with something that we feel supports people's understanding of the dharma or that aids our Buddhist practice. Movie nights are not announced on the website, so your only way to find out about these secret and special gatherings is to ask to be added to our email list.

Now that Chuck's "Buddhist Path of Ethics, Concentration and Wisdom" class and Matt's "Stages of the Path" class have wrapped up, we'll be taking a (hopefully short) break. When a new study series is scheduled we'll post the info on this website, as well as announce it through our email list. If you want to be added to the email list, please let us know using our Contact Form.

This is just a reminder that we will be celebrating the arrival of the Iron Tiger Male year with a special Losar (New Year) celebration on Sunday, February 14th. We will continue our usual Sunday morning mindfulness group, break for lunch, and then from 2-4pm do a group Lama Chopa ('Offering to the Spiritual Guide', 'Guru Tsog') with lots of offerings. Please arrive by 1:45 pm with your food and other offerings and with your bell and vajra, etc. if you normally use those.

Gaden Choling Mahayana Buddhist Meditation Centre is pleased to present "Waking, Dreaming and Dying: A Tibetan Buddhist View," a weekend of study and meditation on the views, insights & practices of living and dying according to Tibetan Buddhism, with Chuck Damov.