Dalai Lama to give five-day teaching at Dharamsala next month

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His Holiness the Dalai Lama waving to the crowd as he leaves the stage at the conclusion of the Long Life Ceremony at the Kalachakra Ground in Bodhgaya, Bihar, India on December 31, 2018. (Photo courtesy: OHHDL/Lobsang Tsering)

(TibetanReview.net, Jan09’19) – Apart from his annual Jataka Tales teaching, the Dalai Lama is to give a five-day religious discourse during the month of Feb 2019, according to his schedule of teachings for this year listed on his official website. This is the first time he is giving a multi-day spring teaching at Dharamshala in several years.

The exiled spiritual leader of Tibet is to give a short teaching from the Jataka Tales in the morning at the Tsuglakhang on Feb 19, the festive 15th day of the Tibetan Female Earth-Pig New Year 2145.

Later over Feb 20-24 he will give teachings on Bhavaviveka’s Essence of the Middle Way (Madhyamakahrdayakarika) (uma nyingpo).

There will also be a long-life prayer offering to the Dalai Lama on Feb 27.

Local people engaged in the tourism business were recently reported to have expressed disappointment that their earnings had suffered because the Dalai Lama had been giving more of his teachings away at Bodh Gaya, Buddhism’s most sacred site, over the past several years. They wanted their political leaders to take up the matter with the Central Tibetan Administration and the Dalai Lama’s office, including with improvement of facilities to enable large-scale teachings such as the Kalachakra.

Nevertheless, the Dalai Lama’s teachings at Dharamsala take place in at least six months of each year. They attract huge numbers of national and international devotees who continue to be a major source of tourism revenue to the hill town. For example, this year he has schedules to give multi-day teachings at Dharamsala in February, June, July, September, October, and November.

On Feb 27, the state’s chief minister Jai Ram Thakur told a rally in which Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took part that it was thanks to the Dalai Lama’s presence that Dharamsala had become an internationally famed tourist destination. The occasion was the BJP’s completion of one year of governing the state after winning the 2017 state election.

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