Meditation Practices at Jamchen
Saturday Sadhana Practice
Some of the sadhana practices on Saturday require a formal initiation or empowerment. These sadhana's might include Green Tara, Vajrapani, Medicine Buddha, Uncommon White Tara and Chenrezig practice.
An initiation is a formal ceremony performed by a qualified Tibetan Buddhist teacher (Lama or Rinpoche). It usually involves a commitment to maintain the connection with that deity, for example by chanting daily the mantra belonging to the meditational deity or doing a regular sadhana practice. This type of initiation usually occurs after one has formally taken buddhist "refuge". Taking refuge in the Buddha's teachings and path involves certain commitments which are explained by the teacher at the time of the ceremony (see the "taking refuge" webpage page).
His Eminence Zimwock Rinpoche conduct initiations into several sadhana practices on a regular basis at various centres around Australia and New Zealand.
More complex sadhana practices (e.g. Vajrayogini and Hevajra) might require a major initiation which could be more elaborate, and might even take place over several days. These usually will require a more significant commitment from participants, for example to perform a sadhana on a daily basis. On some occasions retreat commitments also form part of the more advanced major initiations.
In some circumstances people might have received an initiation into the sadhana practices from a different Tibetan tradition (i.e. not Sakya). In this case the person would need to discuss this with their teacher to see if this would qualify them to do the specific Sakya sadhana's.
On some occasions people might be able to sit in on a sadhana practice (but without reading the sadhana). this might be for example in order for that person to create a connection with a specific deity, and then be able to recite the mantra as part of their personal meditation practise (but again this would need to be discussed their teacher).