Vajrasattva Retreat 2005:

On 5 January 2005, a three-month Vajrasattva Retreat was held at Sravasti Abbey. During the retreat, each morning the participants took turns leading their fellow retreatants in cultivating a good motivation for their meditation that day. You may want to read one of these motivations each morning to inspire your practice

Motivations by Kathleen - Feb 27, 2005

For 35 Buddha's…I plan to talk about how karma expands and how the positive karma of us doing this practice can expand beyond any of our imaginations. For example, Venerable tells the story of meeting Lamas Yeshe and Zopa due to a flyer she saw when she was young. Just think: who tacked up that flyer? Did they have any idea what that one positive act would lead to? It's the same thing with us doing prostrations; we have no idea where these positive acts will lead; but we can trust that good karma expands.

Motivation: THE POWER OF HELL AND THE POWER OF BLISS

How many of us come from Catholic families?

In 1954, I was 7 years old and lived in a small town in Montana and attended a small Catholic parish/school, St Jude's. In second grade, in religion class, our teacher, a nun, Sister Gertrude told us all, " In 100 years everyone in this classroom will be dead-and some of you will be in Hell". Hell is eternal…no one can get you out-not even your parents". Needless to say, at age 7, this was terrifying information. At school, I also learned that we were born with "Original Sin" on our souls and only God, Jesus or the priests could save us. Until I was 15, I believed this mis-information about myself, my family and the world. It had a very damaging effect on my self image and led me to many dangerous and self-destructive actions like an alcohol addiction from age 15 to 28.

My whole family was terribly affected and I believe this added to my mom's emotional/ mental illness and my father's addictions. Also, I now wonder, what if I had died with that belief so strongly in my mindstream?

I ran into these thoughts when working with the Ten Destructive Actions: Wrong Views. I am now working on purifying the karma I must have had to come into such fundamentally wrong views from birth. This practice of purifying through Bliss is strong enough to contradict these really evil ideas. Bliss overcomes Hell. Now, I know I, my whole family and all of you are fundamentally the Buddha; that we can reclaim our true nature; wisdom and eternal bliss, not eternal sin and damnation. Through this beautiful joy, I can purify these ideas from my own and someday from all others' minds; and we will be free.