January 10th, 2009
The Akshobhya Saddhana was recited for two afternoons on 9th and 10th January, and on the evening of the 10th His Holiness completed the Akshobhya Ritual with a fire puja. This began at 8.30pm, His Holiness with the sixteen retreatants who completed the fifteen-day Akshobhya retreat, gathered in the main assembly hall of Tergar Monastery to bless the deceased. In addition to the names proffered by individuals, the list included those killed in the Burmese typhoon, those killed in the Sichuan earthquake, those killed in the earthquake in Tibet, those killed in the recent Mumbai terrorist attacks, and those killed in the floods in Bihar. The ritual took three hours and concluded close to midnight.
At the end of the ritual Gyalwang Karmapa and the other monks, carrying a container of the names of the dead, came outside to the fire which had been burning for some time. The people who had been waiting quietly outside gathered around them. His Holiness gathered a handful of name lists from the container, paused to bless them, and then threw them into the fire until the list was finished.
