Sun 14 & Mon 15 April | Nyungnay Fasting Purification Retreat | From 6.30am | Morden

What is Nyungnay?

Nyungnay is one of our most precious Kadampa Dharma jewels and as a centre practice it comes around just once a year – on Buddha’s Enlightenment Day.

We can spend two days with thousand-armed (eleven-faced) Avalokiteshvara – ‘Mahakaruna’ – the nature of our Guru’s great compassion, making exquisite offerings, praises and prostrations and thereby accumulate huge merit, purify vast negativity for ourself and others and receive the most powerful blessing to propel ourself swiftly along our path to enlightenment.

Wrapped within the practice of Mahayana Precepts, it involves fasting and making three sessions of prostrations, with the sadhana ‘Drop of Essential Nectar‘, over two days. Usually the second day is accompanied by a full fast, although strongly recommend, this is not compulsory. Everyone is welcome to join us for this special retreat.

Each morning Gen Zoma will grant the Mahayana Precepts, then we’ll engage in three unguided sessions.
To engage in this retreat you must take the Mahayana Precepts in the morning session and attend every session of that day.

What are the Eight Mahayana Precepts?

It is a necessary requirement to take the Eight Mahayana Precepts to engage in this retreat.

The essence of the practice is to take eight precepts and to keep them purely for a period of twenty-four hours.

By doing this practice again and again, we acquaint ourself with the practice of moral discipline and thereby make our human life meaningful.

We receive many great benefits from practicing moral discipline in this way. It helps us to solve the problems of this life by avoiding the causes of suffering; and it creates the cause for us to take fortunate rebirths in future lives and thereby protects us from the sufferings of lower rebirth.

In particular, because it is performed with bodhichitta motivation, this practice is very powerful for purifying negative karma. It accumulates a vast collection of merit and creates the cause for us to attain the unsurpassed happiness of enlightenment.

We first need to receive these precepts from a qualified Preceptor, and then we can take them on our own as often as we wish. Instructions on both these methods are included in this sadhana.

If we wish to take the essence of this precious human life we should strive to engage in this practice as often as we can.

An explanation of the practice

When we take the eight Mahayana precepts, we explicitly promise to abstain for twenty-four hours from eight actions:

Killing

Stealing

Sexual activity

Lying

Taking intoxicants

Eating after lunch (we only eat one simple meal at lunch)

Sitting on high or luxurious thrones or seats

Wearing ornaments, perfume, etc, and singing and dancing, etc.

These eight, however, are merely symbolic, for in reality we promise to abstain from all non-virtuous actions for twenty-four hours.

Taking and keeping these precepts is a special purification practice. Buddha realized that all living beings’ suffering comes from their previous negative karma, and so he taught special practices to purify it.

If it will be your first time taking part in this retreat please contact epc@meditation.london if you have any questions.

Please bring your own yoga matt for the prostrations.

If you’d like to stay the night on Saturday, Sunday or Monday we can offer basic accommodation for £15 per night, please email admin@meditation.london to reserve a space.

Schedule

Sunday

Session 1, 6.30am-8.15am

Happiness Hour, 11am-12pm

Session 2, 3-4.15pm

Session 3, 5-6.30pm

Monday

Session 1, 6.30am-8.15am

Session 2, 10am-11.15am

Session 3, 3pm – 4.30pm

Offering to the Spiritual Guide Prayers, 5-6.30pm