This week’s meditation session is led by Lama Aria Drolma and the theme is Empowerment. The guided meditation begins at 19:04.
The Fifth Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso (1617–1682), is often known simply as the Great Fifth because of his political prowess and religious importance. This painting depicts important events in the Fifth Dalai Lama’s life, beginning in the upper-left corner with his descent to Earth on a rainbow from Avalokiteshvara’s Potala Pure Land. The vignettes move clockwise, ending in the top-right corner with the Great Fifth’s death. The Pure Land floating above his Potala Palace perhaps represents the Dalai Lama’s ascent back to Potala Pure Land or to Tushita to meet with Maitreya, the Future Buddha, as Dalai Lamas are said to do between incarnations. To the right of the Dalai Lama is a scene of ritual empowerment-teaching.
Lama Aria Drolma is an ordained Buddhist teacher in the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, who has completed over a decade of monastic study and meditation training. She is a graduate of the traditional Tibetan Buddhist retreat program spanning three years and three months, an advanced cloistered meditation training program at Palpung Thubten Choling Monastery, New York.
Lama Aria Drolma teaches worldwide, leading retreats, workshops, and corporate meditation programs and is a popular guest speaker at universities and organizations. She emphasizes Vajrayana Buddhism and Buddhist principles, making them relevant in our everyday lives, helping us to cultivate loving kindness and compassion, and bringing about a transformation of contentment and a genuine sense of well-being.
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