with Tubten Pende

Sundays, 11:15am – 12:45pm

February 21, 2016
March 20
April 17
May 15
June 19
July 17
August 21
September 18
October 16
November 20
December 11

The Madhyamakavatara was composed by the 7th century Indian scholar, Chandrakirti, as a supplement and commentary to the seminal treatise, the Mulamadhyamakakarika by the 2nd century Indian scholar, Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna was predicted by the Buddha to be an authority on the Buddha’s view of ultimate reality that later generations could rely on after the Buddha’s passing. The special guru to Tsong Khapa, Manjushri, advised Tsong Khapa to rely on Chandrakirti to correctly understand Nagarjuna. Consequently, within Tsong Khapa’s tradition, the Madhyamakavatara is one of the five core curriculum texts of the Geshe Program in the great Gelug monasteries.

We have the opportunity to study the same text these Tibetan masters studied to gain the correct understanding of the liberating view of emptiness. This course will focus on the Chapter of the Perfection of Wisdom that deals directly with the subject of emptiness.

Everyone is welcome!

Tubten Pende is a practicing Buddhist since 1972 when he was introduced to Tibetan Buddhism in India. Pende was included in the first wave of the FPMT’s Western Buddhist teachers. He was the coordinator of the Geshe Studies Program at Manjushri Institute, England; spiritual program coordinator, director, and later resident teacher at Nalanda Monastery, France; and an FPMT International Office Education Services program developer of the Masters Program at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, Italy. He is interested in the effective application of Buddhist theory and practice in the daily life of ordinary people.