Kagyu Monlam

Kagyu Monlam: Great accumulation of wishes for the happiness of all beings

The Kagyu Monlam is one of the most important events for Buddhist practitioners of the Karma Kagyu School. For a whole week, they recite wishing prayers together, for everyone’s happiness.

This 22nd edition of the Kagyu Monlam will be held at Bodhgaya in India, the place where Shakyamuni Buddha achieved enlightenment. Thaye Dorje His Holiness the XVII th Gyalwa Karmapa will lead the aspiration prayers under the bodhi tree, accompanied by the main lamas of the lineage.

Kagyu Monlam offer the possibility to people from all over the world to gather to recite prayers coming from the deep wisdom of buddhas and bodhisattvas. The strength of these aspirations is multiplied by the gathering of thousands of practitioners who unite their wishes together, for the well-being and spiritual development of all.

We aspire to peace and prosperity for all sentient beings. Above all, we aspire to Enlightenment for all sentient beings. From a Buddhist perspective, this is the ultimate aim in life. It is a state of cessation of suffering or confusion, and this is what we aspire to.

Thaye Dorje, His Holiness the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa

In 2021, Karmapa mentioned the importance and the benefits of connecting to the Kagyu Monlam

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Kagyu Monlam have taken place twenty one times since 1996. At that time, Kunzig Shamar Rinpoche gathered the conditions for all the practitioners of the karma kagyu lineage to gather for the first time on the sacred site of Bodhgaya in order to recite aspiration prayers.

Prayers of Aspiration

Aspiration prayers recited during the Kagyu Monlam help dispel confusion from the ordinary mind. When we practise with such motivation, our aspirations are naturally directed towards the cessation of all that is unfavourable, and the flourishing of all that is beneficial.

“It is the best thing we can get, and perhaps, it is the only thing we should get: the clearing away of confusion”

Thaye Dorje, His Holiness the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa

Among these prayers of aspiration, there are the Five Royal Sutras including the “Aspiration Prayer of Samantabhadra”. The latter focuses on the highly altruistic wish of attaining enlightenment in order to lead all beings to this state.

About the Kagyu Monlam

Since 1996, the Kagyu Monlam has traditionally been held in Bodhgaya. In the presence of the greatest masters of our lineage such as Karmapa, Shamarpa, Jamgön Kongtrul Rinpoche, practitioners face the Mahabodhi temple which indicates the very place where the historical Buddha meditated until he actualised awakening, more than 2500 years ago.

Since 2020, Karmapa has been inviting us to join in, via retransmission, the aspiration prayers recited from Bodhgaya or from his main monastery in Rumtek, India. It allowed thousands of practitioners, in Asia and the West alike, to gather around these wishing prayers.

This year, for the fifth time running, the Dhagpo Kundreul Ling community will be taking part in the aspiration prayers broadcast from India, from 15 to 21 December 2024. The community is happy to invite you to participate in the Kagyu Monlam either on-site, in the main temple of Dhagpo Kundreul Ling, Le Bost, or online on our YouTube channel.

The merit, wisdom and benefit accumulated are immense when we gather in the sacred site where Gautama Buddha attained enlightenment, and we offer aspirations for peace and prosperity for all beings.

Thaye Dorje, His Holiness the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa

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Live video from the Kagyu Monlam 2017

Join the aspiration prayers guided by Karmapa. Thousands of students, monks, nuns and other venerables gathered in Bodhgaya, India, to take part in the recitations of wishes for the happiness of all beings.

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