Lama Jampa began a teaching tour of the West Coast of the US over the Easter weekend at the beautiful Ewam Choden Buddhist Centre, overlooking San Francisco Bay. Ewam Choden was the first Sakya centre to be founded in the USA. It was established by the eminent Ngorpa master Lama Kunga Thartse Shabdrung Rinpoche. This was Lama Jampa's third teaching in Ewam Choden.
Lama Jampa taught the ‘lojong’ system of meditation practice to a group of local students and a number of people visiting from the UK.
Using Thogme Zangpo’s commentary on Geshe Chekawa’s ‘Seven Points of Mind Training’, Lama Jampa explained how the ‘sending and taking’ at the heart of this practice is designed to help us develop compassion and wisdom. If we practice this effectively, we can bring it into our everyday lives – reversing our usual habits of blaming others when things go wrong and transforming negativity into a more wholesome state of mind.
Lama Jampa explained how training our minds in this way can help us let go of our selfishness and live more virtuously. The practice supports key elements of the Buddhist way of life, such as humility, discipline, and working to address our weaknesses.