This year’s retreat, under the guidance and supervision of His
Holiness the Gyalwang Karmapa, began on November 23rd at Tergar
Monastery, Bodhgaya. The retreat is part of the preparations for
the Akshobhya Fire Ritual, and the Fire Ritual occurs on the
penultimate evening of the annual Karma Kagyu Monlam Chenmo. The
ritual takes place in the shrine room opposite His Holiness’ living
quarters, on the roof of the temple at Tergar.
The retreat lasts for two weeks. This year there are sixteen
retreatants, drawn from Kagyu communities worldwide and comprising
three laypeople, five nuns and eight monks. On the first day the
Gyalwang Karmapa conferred the Akshobhya empowerment (Tibetan:
wang) on those taking part and gave the transmission (Tibetan:
lüng). During the retreat he will give a daily teaching to the
participants on the ritual’s significance.
The Akshobhya ritual is a very powerful purification practice
done for the benefit of all sentient beings. It can liberate not
only the practitioners themselves from the fear of an unfortunate
rebirth, but other beings as well. The Buddha Akshobhya promised
that the merit generated by reciting one-hundred-thousand of his
long dhayani mantra and making an image of him could be dedicated
to other people, both living and dead, and this would assure their
release from lower states of existence and rebirth in spiritually
fortunate circumstances.
http://www.kagyuoffice.org/#AkshobhyaRetreat