Phowa Services:
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“We are all walking toward death, carried by the river of aging. Contemplate on impermanence!”
Dying with Confidence
Training
Manchester, VT Oct 4-8, 2012
The training program will give students the guidance and opportunity to master all the skills necessary for a practitioner to use death as an opportunity for enlightenment and to help all sentient beings.
Click here for details
May they take up the path and put it into practice!
May they attain a fearless and confident death!
May the terror of the bardos be pacified!
May all attain Buddhahood, the primordial ground of the
expanse!
Ah! Ah! Ah!
--Anyen Rinpoche
The Phowa Foundation supports the vision of Anyen Rinpoche to help sentient beings around the world who are ill, in the dying process, or those wishing to prepare for death in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.
Phowa is a traditional Tibetan Buddhist practice, performed by all lineages, that supports the dying person to release attachments, remember the spiritual teachings they have been given, and offer favorable conditions for liberation or a positive rebirth. It can benefit all beings, Buddhist or non-Buddhist, as well as animals.
Traditionally in Tibet, a lama who has known the dying person would be invited to the bedside and guide him or her through the dying process and the bardo states. For sincere practitioners in the West, we often do not have that opportunity. The Phowa Foundation works to connect our modern world of Western Buddhism with the long-held traditions of our Tibetan Buddhist lineages.
In April, our new Denver center hosted the second level of the Dying with Confidence Training that
began last September in Crestone, CO. We could all feel the support and energy of six months of
steady practice in phowa and wind energy over the weekend. Anyen Rinpoche continued his profound
teachings on phowa, impermanence, the benefits of wind energy practice, the Bardo Prayers and the
development of faith and devotion as the basis for reciting them, among other topics. We received the
transmission for the amazing collections of prayers in our Bardo Prayers booklet to be used at the time
of death. Level III will include a four-day phowa intensive in preparation for the weekend teachings on
helping others through the dying process.
The next Dying with Confidence Level I Training takes place in Vermont, October 4-8. Applications are
currently being accepted. Please see the Training page and let us know if you are interested.
Click here for 2011 Level I Training Highlights
This past year, a number of donations were made to the Phowa Foundation requesting Phowa on behalf of loved ones who had died. A generous donor asked to support a retreatant in Tibet to perform Phowa and other rituals for the dying and deceased. Rinpoche was able to choose an appropriate and well-qualified retreatant who is now available for our needs.
With the donations given for Phowa services, Anyen Rinpoche was able to offer 20,000 butterlamps in Nepal this past January on behalf of the deceased and all beings in the bardos.
And...we were also able to commission two beautiful thangkas of Buddha Amitabha and Vajrayogini for our future Dying with Confidence retreats.
Some students had not been aware that planning ahead for Phowa for themselves at the time of death was available through our website. Not only will we be ensuring that Phowa be performed at the best possible time for ourselves, we will also be able to help countless beings in the bardos now and in the future with our donations. Please see the Phowa Services page or email the Phowa Foundation at
