What a wonderful collection of humans visited Kamalashila on our recent Open Day! Ostensibly drawn by curiosity and an interest in spirituality, these new visitors arrived with beautiful insights of their own. 

“These are different communities, but they are connected… It’s connecting communities… like this place…” ~ Denise

“My painting is of fire: from the darkness of the fuel below, comes the light…” ~ Roxana 

“There are lots of different people on my mani stone, represented by the dots… angry people, kind people, all sorts of people. The red between them is the joy and love that connects them all. And the white at the centre, that all the people are connected to, whether we see it or not, is the light, is spirituality.” ~ Kimberley 

The invitation to take a tour of the gompa and the property, as well as to explore meditation, were well taken up, and visitors enjoyed cake, chai and chats, as well as a delicious Tibetan lunch cooked by Karma la.

Both children and adults enjoyed the peaceful creativity of painting their own Mani Stones and shared with each other tales of life and their wishes for the world, captured in their artwork.

Thank you to all our raffle prize sponsors including Narooma Pharmacy and sangha members. Congratulations to winners of the raffle, especially young Oliver!

​And thank you to all who attended, visitors and volunteers alike, for the beautiful atmosphere of gentle harmony that was created today at Kamalashila Tibetan Buddhist Centre.

​Khenpo la’s 12th Group Pilgrimage to India and Nepal commenced on 27 December. Pilgrims were met at the airport in Gaya, India by Khenpo la and taken to the guesthouse in Bodhgaya where we stayed for one week. We enjoyed a delicious dinner and after dinner circumambulated the precious stupa. We feel so fortunate to be in this blessed place, where Lord Buddha lived and was enlightened, and to have Khenpo la as our guide for these three weeks of pilgrimage.

On New Year’s Day, Khenpo la and pilgrims undertook this rare opportunity to offer to the Buddha, on behalf of all sangha, new robe cloth and many other offerings such as flowers, fruit and rice in the Mahabodhi Temple. May these precious blessings extend to us all, for the New Year and always. Wishing everyone a happy and prosperous New Year and may your dharma activities increase and may all your wishes be realised for the benefit of all sentient beings. Khenpo la has been leading group meditation practice daily under the Bodhi tree, just beside where Lord Buddha attained Enlightenment. 

​Khenpo la led pilgrims to Vultures Peak, the holy site where Buddha taught The Heart Sutra to many followers gathered in the surrounding valley. The group recited The Heart Sutra and Buddha Shakyamuni Mantras and made khata, light and incense offerings. Pilgrims then gathered in one of Buddha’s closest disciples Shariputra’s meditation cave to make offerings and meditate. This was very special as many in the group had recently been studying The Heart Sutra. 

Nalanda University was the next stop, the site of where the great masters studied, taught and lived, such as Masters Nagarjuna, Shantideva, Asanga, Virupa to name but a few of such extraordinary beings. This was so special, again as we all owe so much gratitude to the great masters, we have all benefited from their great knowledge and compassion from their teachings. We could really feel their presence there.

Just outside Bodhgaya is a very significant holy site, the Mahakala cave. Khenpo la arranged for pilgrims to visit the cave. Here it is believed that Lord Buddha Shakyamuni stayed on His travels in the area along with other realised masters. Everyone made offerings and Khenpo la conducted a short Mahakala practice in the cave. It was extremely special, to know Buddha Himself and many other past and current masters have visited this holy place. Travel was by tuk-tuk to the cave through scenic countryside. 

The pilgrims spent three days in Saranath, Varanasi. Here Lord Buddha turned the wheel of Dharma for the first time teaching the Four Noble Truths to disciples at Deer Park, Saranath. We also visited the site close by the stupa where Lord Buddha met up with the first five disciples. Khenpo la led us in meditation and circumambulating and offerings each day, as well as visiting other holy sites and temples and the local archaeological museum. We all felt so fortunate to have this opportunity to be in these such holy places.

In Varanasi Khenpo took pilgrims on a boat cruise on the amazing River Ganges, holy mainly to Hindu faith and mentioned in some Buddhist texts. The pilgrims then travelled to Kushinagar, the holy site where Lord Buddha became unwell and passed into Mahaparinirvana and was then cremated. We were so fortunate to visit all three sites and pay homage to Lord Buddha. Khenpo la gave concise teachings at each site, asking pilgrims to reflect on Lord Buddha’s incredible teaching for us all, on the impermanent nature of compounded phenomena. Even Buddha, with this human form, could not live forever. On the way to the holy sites we met an elephant, a very auspicious sign. Khenpo la said, the elephant with the owner holding a hooked staff, was the living example of Mindfulness and Vigilance.

In the holy site of Shravasti Lord Buddha spent around 40 years at the later part of His life, setting up monastic orders and conducting 24 Rain Retreats. He also performed many miracles. Khenpo la led us in meditation and making offerings at these sites. The main temple site is where Buddha and many Arhats and realised beings lived, practised and discussed the dharma. One could really feel the Buddha’s and all their presence.

In Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha, Khenpo la guided pilgrims around the Holy site and were able to see the exact place of Buddha’s birth. Khenpo la led prayers and meditation. Many times, it is hard to believe the great fortunate circumstances to touch the earth that Buddha walked on. It was a very auspicious time as the visit to Lumbini coincided with the anniversary of Sakya Pandita. Pilgrims stayed at His Eminence Chogye Trichen Rinpoche’s monastery guesthouse. Khenpo la and pilgrims were invited to attend special practice and prayers in the Gompa with the ordained sangha to commemorate the anniversary of Sakya Pandita’s passing to Mahaparinirvana. It was a very beautiful evening, which included tea offering to all gathered. On behalf of Drogmi Buddhist Institute members and friends, 1000 light offerings were made. We thanked the Ani Las for sharing this very special occasion with us. 

Khenpo la led the final leg of the pilgrimage in Nepal, providing numerous opportunities to pay homage and make offerings. On the first day in Kathmandu, pilgrims visited the most holy site Swayambhu Stupa, the oldest and most complete stupa in the world, and performed Kora, meditation and made offerings. Pilgrims then walked to the nearby Vajrayogini temple, a site frequented by many great Vajrayogini practitioners past and present, and where Khenpo la said many have gained the Vajrayogini state. We made offerings and were so fortunate to have the opportunity to meditate there.

Khenpo la led pilgrims on a visit to the International Buddhist Academy (IBA) in Boudhanath. The academy had been developed by Khenpo la’s late Guru, the great Khenpo Appey Rinpoche. Pilgrims paid respects at Rinpoche’s memorial stupa and were given a very moving tour of the academy, learning about Khenpo Appey Rinpoche’s extraordinary vision and Dharma activities. We then visited the very holy stupa at Boudha close by and made circumambulations of the stupa.

​The following day pilgrims visited Parphing just outside Kathmandu, to make offerings at the site of Tara in the Rock, Guru Rinpoche cave and the very old Vajrayogini temple. At each site the group spent plenty of time in meditation and receiving teachings from Khenpo la. We were so fortunate. On the way back to town we stopped at the ancient part of Kathmandu, Patan, and made a wonderful visit to the Golden Temple, which has so many incredibly ‘alive’ shrines and statues of many deities.

Next stop was the incredible Mahabouddha Temple, dating back to 1585 and built in the image of the Stupa at Bodh Gaya.

Our final day Khenpo la had organised, with Dr Tony Richardson and Emily as main sponsors along with contributions from others, to offer cloth to the Swayambhu Stupa. This is a very rare opportunity, the dome of the stupa is repainted with lime water, that the group members helped to prepare, and cloth was replaced, along with the prayer flags. An amazing day to complete the pilgrimage. Thank you Tony and Emily, and everyone who sponsored, and Khenpo la and Tsering and Nyima for organising to make it happen.

On the final evening of the pilgrimage, Khenpo la arranged for the group to have a celebratory dinner at a restaurant with a view of Swayambhunath Stupa. Pilgrims shared their reflections about their pilgrimage experience. Everyone found this very inspiring. We all enjoyed dressing up for the occasion in traditional Tibetan and Indian dress. Everyone thanked Khenpo la from the bottom of our hearts for leading us these 3 weeks in the footsteps of Lord Buddha. How can we repay your kindness.

Venerable Tsultim generously led a calm-abiding and healing retreat for twenty students at the Kamalashila centre from 27 December through to New Year’s Day, as a beautiful end to 2024 and start for 2025. He was supported by Jack who led teachings on the Four Immeasurables. 

With a number of the people visiting the centre for the first time it was wonderful how quickly the sense of community built and grew over the course of the retreat. Feedback from attendees was very positive. The first two full days focused on the classic text, Advice to Rahula, with the second two days examining the Nine Stages of Meditation, and regular meditations on the body, breath and blue flower along with walking meditations to the saddle to take in the view of Mount Gulaga. 

On New Year’s Eve we enjoyed some lovely singing by Annamaria at dinner before the retreatants asked if they could return to the Gompa to recite Vajrasattva – a first for our end of year retreats! We were kindly supported by Vanessa and Pam with delicious meals lovingly prepared by Karma, Tony, and Andrew. 

We look forward to the new students returning to our centre to continue with us on their Dharma journey under the guidance of our precious teacher Khenpo la. 
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Wishing you all a very Happy New Year and may your practice be strong and joyful. 

“I found the Healing and Clear Mind Retreat very helpful for reinvigorating my practice. I have been seeking some strategies to deal with my restless mind, which often gets agitated by various worldly uncertainties. This restlessness becomes a hindrance to developing a still and concentrated mind. By implementing some of the learnings from retreat and bringing shamatha (calm-abiding) into my daily meditation practice, I notice that I am able to recognise some of the mind’s patterns in my daily activities more easily, and even sometimes notice during meditation when it is about to run off into getting distracted by its usual patterns. Of course, my practice is still a work in progress and some days my mind is all over the place. But the retreat has (via Shamatha) given me a solid foothold, through which I am experiencing more pleasure and tranquillity than before through practices like breath counting and using a fixed object to rest the mind upon. I also found the teachers warm-hearted, patient and knowledgeable. I was grateful for the opportunity to sit the retreat and look forward to attending more in future. Thank you for welcoming me to the Drogmi Buddhist Institute.” ~ Damien

“I went in with an open mind having little experience of Buddhist practice and doctrine. I was very pleased with Venerable Tsultim leading the meditations, in conjunction with Jack’s input. I had been a lapsed meditator for many years, so it was a beautiful reintroduction, via the Shamatha approach, to my own stillness and presence, and I was particularly deeply affected by the use of the blue flower as an image to focus on. The talk given over the course of the retreat focussing on the graphic handout, explaining the monkey mind, elephant and meditator on the path to enlightenment, was a beautiful illustration of the process we all as practitioners have embarked on.

“I was fortunate to stay on and meet Scott, Robert and others in a Karma Yoga program, which ran immediately after the Healing and Clear Mind Retreat. I felt it deepened my experiences of stillness, and the clarity achieved throughout the five-day retreat.

“Back into ‘normal’ life I have been inspired to continue sitting several times throughout the day, as I am very much aware when I lose my presence to thinking. Coming back to the breath, slowing down and simply sitting with what is, has been a lasting effect of the retreat for myself, and one I look forward to when the demands of the world have been met. I also have a better grasp of what Venerable referred to as causes and conditions and can now see when I get triggered or reactive as something I am responsible for, not the event, person or anything outside myself. Although this has always been my practice, the retreat has illuminated this truth as more obvious. Thank you for the gift of Kamalashila.” ~ Steven 

Some additional comments from students

The overarching theme for me throughout the Autumn Buddhist Philosophy Course has been that of a gradual shift from intellectual understanding to experiential understanding. From conceptualisation to embodiment. A move from head to heart. It has allowed me to put my chronic introspection and overthinking to good use, to switch it from negative to positive. So much of the course seems to have been encouraging us to flip the two sides of the same coin – The Two Truths. 

Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Such profound wisdom leads to compassion. Firstly, self-compassion, then maybe these negative stories about myself I play on repeat in my mind have no substance. What I thought of as reality is just a dream. When there are infinite possibilities – the mind as clear and spacious as the sky. How wondrous and liberating! I now have this methodology that enables me to sit back and observe where these stories, these clouds, are coming from and their impermanence. A lightness of just being has germinated, a shift in how I move through the world. With this shift, I have found loving-kindness and compassion can come more easily. The course has sparked understanding on a heart level and how to respond at this heart level, rather than just on an intellectual level. It has inspired me to be more comfortable in expressing love to others, in whatever myriad forms love takes. 

The Four Common Foundations have been so grounding. This core wisdom has recently helped me guide a friend through a difficult loss and helped me deal with my own losses. A softening effect, switching up longing and clinging to transform into gratitude and contentment. I continue to plant the seeds of peace with each footstep I take wandering the earth.

I am so deeply grateful to Khenpo la for his extraordinary generosity, profound wisdom, his humility and good humour – in guiding me onto the path of the Dharma. May I be even a fraction of the benefit he has been to so many beings. I am also so grateful to our special little sangha that has blossomed under Khenpo la’s guidance for helping to cultivate joy, diligence and understanding. 
~Matthew D.

We were asked to present our greatest learning from the Autumn Buddhist Philosophy 3-year Course to our large group. We were also asked to consider the impact the course has had on those around us. Using the knowledge and skills I had learnt in the Course, I needed to address the anxiety that arises around presenting for me, my greatest learnings! Applying the steps and practices around transforming the mind from the uncomfortable to the comfortable, has definitely had the biggest impact on those around me, I feel. This has helped me significantly in lessening my anxiety.

Firstly, I had to totally accept that everything comes from my own mind. That within the teachings of The Six Paramitas, I discovered that when my intention is coming from a place of pure awareness, there is no room for grasping, therefore no room for suffering, just pure compassion and wisdom. However, I must admit that even with a growing awareness within my daily life and with continual practices of self-compassion, my understanding of emptiness at this time, the Four Kayas, Conventional and Absolute Truth, I find myself in my habitual pattern of uncomfortableness. Yet I must remind myself continually, this will be a lifetime practice, there are no instant results.

Anxiety for myself lurks there revealing itself as the biggest roadblock to practising pure and/or perfect loving-kindness and compassion. Through meditation, I am discovering that deep down, I am still not investigating the mind with total honesty, blaming conditions outside of myself. With the help of a Dharma brother, I began to specifically investigate my self-cherishing when the anxiety arises. I began to recognise that behind or in front of any uncomfortableness there was still the attachment to ‘I’, hiding in plain sight. Even when I was 95% sure my motivation or intention was coming from compassion, again I witnessed just how tricky the mind can be. By truly identifying the grasping of self, the frequency and severity of my anxiety has lessened, which then allows the opportunity to set intention with pure compassion within any moment of the mind. If I keep practising to replace the ‘I’ with pure bodhicitta intention, eventually compassion may be the first thing to automatically arise, from a state of pure awareness, in order to benefit all sentient beings. 
~ Leanne