Last weekend we went on another pilgrimage to the sacred site of Llyn Y Dywarchen in Gwynedd, to mark the end of the week-long Formless Meditation retreat, held at our sacred site, The Hermitage of the Awakened Heart in Criccieth, North Wales.
As we described in a previous post about a pilgrimage to this sacred Welsh site, it is special to us for a number of reasons: we’ve made a strong connection to Guru Rinpoche to this place and brought many visiting Lamas here. It’s been visited and blessed by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche amongst many others.
We always end our retreats with a pilgrimage to a local sacred place and this time we had some new retreat attendees, so it was their very first Welsh pilgrimage to a sacred site with us, and their first visit to Llyn y Dywarchen.
We prepared a Tibetan Buddhist shrine with Guru Rinpoche at the centre and offering bowls, candles, flowers and incense, over looking the holy island and lake.
We all sat together and chanted the offering prayers and mantras, to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, the environment and all that dwell there. While we were performing the puja the sun came out momentarily, which felt very auspicious!
You can find out more about Buddhist pilgrimage ritual and practice including the fascinating ritual of smoke pujas, on our Buddhist Pilgrimage page.
