Friday 10 September 2010, at 7-30pm at the Friends Meeting House, 12 Jesus Lane.
Stephen Batchelor
Confession of a Buddhist Atheist
Stephen Batchelor is a contemporary Buddhist teacher and writer, best known for his secular or agnostic approach to Buddhism. Stephen considers Buddhism to be a constantly evolving culture of awakening rather than a religious system based on immutable dogmas and beliefs. Through his writings, translations and teaching, Stephen engages in a critical exploration of Buddhism's role in the modern world, which has earned him both condemnation as a heretic and praise as a reformer.
He was ordained as a novice Buddhist monk in 1974. He left India in 1975 in order to study Buddhist philosophy and doctrine under the guidance of Ven. Geshe Rabten, and the following year he received full ordination as a Buddhist monk. In 1981 he travelled to Songgwangsa Monastery in South Korea to train in Zen Buddhism under the guidance of Ven. Kusan Sunim. He disrobed in February 1985 and married Martine Fages before returning to England and joining the Sharpham North Community in Totnes, Devon. During the fifteen years he lived at Sharpham, he became co-ordinator of the Sharpham Trust (1992) and co-founder of the Sharpham College for Buddhist Studies and Contemporary Enquiry (1996). From 1990 he has been a Guiding Teacher at Gaia House meditation centre in Devon. Stephen Batchelor
In September 2008 Stephen Batchelor spoke about The Buddha: Man or Myth and these ideas have been expanded in his new book Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist. You may be interested in looking at http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264459
On Saturday 11th Stephen will lead a one day course of meditation at the Friends Meeting House. See Saturday Retreat
Friday 8 October 2010, at 7-30pm at the Friends Meeting House, 12 Jesus Lane.
Lama Shenpen Hookham
Openness, Clarity and Sensitivity
After a gap of 20 years we are delighted to welcome Lama Shenpen back to the Cambridge Buddhist Society
Lama Shenpen Hookham is the Principal Teacher of Discovering the Heart of Buddhism. In the 1970s, on the advice of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, she went to India where she lived among the Tibetans as a nun for six years. There she studied and meditated in retreat under the guidance of Tibetan teachers such as Karma Thinley Rinpoche, Bokar Rinpoche and Kalu Rinpoche. In 1978 His Holiness, the 16th Karmapa, head of the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, instructed her to return to the West to teach Mahamudra.
There she met Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, who became her main teacher. She also met her husband, Lama Rigdzin Shikpo, whom she taught alongside for twenty years. In all she has spent nine years in retreat, and Khenpo Rinpoche has encouraged her, as lama, to teach and transmit Mahamudra, the innermost teachings of the Kagyu tradition. Lama Shenpen is fluent in Tibetan and has translated a number of Tibetan texts into English for her students. Her Oxford University doctoral thesis on the profound Buddha Nature doctrines of Mahayana Buddhism, has been published as The Buddha Within. She is also the author of There's More to Dying than Death.
Since then, Khenpo Rinpoche and Lama Rigdzin Shikpo have encouraged Shenpen to develop her teaching activities and in response to this she has developed a training called Discovering the Heart of Buddhism, and her students have formed the Awakened Heart Sangha, a spiritual community under her direction. Lama Shenpen now spends most of her time in semi-retreat at the Hermitage of the Awakened Heart, in North Wales.
See Buddhism Connect the online home of the Awakened Heart Sangha.
Monday 22 November 2010, at 7-30pm at the Friends Meeting House, 12 Jesus Lane.
(Please note that this talk is on a Monday)Lama Gelongma Zangmo, Director of Kagyu Samye Dzong London (a branch of Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery).
Lama Gelongma Zangmo first became a practising Buddhist when she arrived at Kagyu Samye Ling in 1977 and took refuge with his Holiness the 16th Karmapa. Having received teachings from many highly respected lamas who visited Kagyu Samye Ling, she was inspired to enter the four year closed retreat in 1984, during which time she became ordained as a Buddhist nun.
When the next long retreat started in 1989 Lama Zangmo wished to further her retreat experience and she was asked to help and advise the new retreatants. Having completed that retreat in 1993, Lama Zangmo then entered a third long retreat and became the resident retreat teacher to the other women retreatants. That retreat ended in 1997, bringing the total number of years Lama Zangmo spent in retreat to eleven and a half.
Choje Akong Tulku Rinpoche and Lama Yeshe Losal then asked Lama Zangmo to put her experience to good use by helping to run the Kagyu Samye Dzong Centre in London, which was officially opened in 1998.
In 1998 Lama Zangmo was one of a group of nuns who accompanied Lama Yeshe Losal to India, where she became fully ordained as a Gelongma (Bhikkuni) at a historic ceremony in Bodhgaya.