WHO WE ARE
We are an informal group of laypeople interested in Buddha´s teachings, based in Los Masos, a commune in the French Pyrenees, west of Perpignan, north of Barcelona. It is under the Canigou Mountain, sacred to the local Catalans. Nearest Monastery: Nalanda, near Toulouse. We study the Dharma (Buddha’s teachings) ourselves and offer it to anyone interested.
The group first formed in 2001 when Buddhists migrated from London to join old Dharma friends from India. Other members, Dharma friends accumulated over many years, are spread all over the world, e.g. USA, India, Australia, Antigua, Mongolia, Spain and the UK.
Members regularly travel and gather in small groups in different countries to attend the teachings of our Patron, His Holiness The Dalai Lama.
In 2007 Lama Zopa Rinpoche from the Everest region of Nepal – Spiritual Director of the FPMT – gave us the name “Jamyang”.
WHO, OR WHAT, IS “JAMYANG”?
‘Jamyang’ is the Tibetan for the Sanskrit name 'Manjushri', literally ‘Gentle Voice’. Traditionally this name belongs to the personification of Transcendental Wisdom manifested by Buddha Shakyamuni.
Our Patron explained in Nantes (France) in August 2008 that wisdom is the key to our escape from Samsara, which consists of a never-ending cycle of birth and death broken down into 12 links. The weakest of these 12 links is ignorance, he said, which is countered and eventually eliminated by gaining wisdom into ultimate reality through study, learning and meditation.
Thus, essentially, Jamyang represents the wisdom which is the key to enlightenment and the most crucial element which we need to acquire and develop to make progress on the path .
More about Jamyang, Manjushri or Manjusri can be found at Wikipedia and at Wisdom.
Homage Prayer to Manjushri,
The Buddha of Transcendental Wisdom
Obeisance to my Guru and Protector, Manjushri,
Who holds to his heart a scriptural text symbolic of his seeing all things as they are,
Whose intelligence shines forth like the sun, unclouded by delusions or traces of ignorance,
Who teaches in sixty ways, with the loving compassion of a father for his only child, all creatures caught in the prison of samsara, confused in the darkness of their ignorance, overwhelmed by their suffering.
You, whose dragon-thunder-like proclamation of Dharma arouses us from the stupor of our delusions and frees us from the iron chains of our karma;
Who wields the sword of wisdom hewing down suffering wherever its sprout appear, clearing away the darkness of ignorance;
You, whose princely body is adorned with the one hundred and twelve marks of a Buddha,
Who has completed the stages achieving the highest perfection of a Boddhisattva,
Who has been pure from the beginning,
I bow down to you, O Manjushri;
With the brilliance of your wisdom, O compassionate one,
Illuminate the darkness enclosing my mind,
Enlighten my intelligence and wisdom,
So that I may gain insight into the Buddha's words and the texts that explain them.
Updated 15-sep-08