with Ven. Robina Courtin

Saturday, August 12, 2023

10:30am – 11:30am: Open House
in-person, in the OCBC Gompa
Meet the Community. Food will be provided.

11:30am – 1:30pm: Dharma Talk on Courageous Compassion
in-person and online

The development of compassion and bodhichitta is the point of the path to enlightenment, the end result: the removal of all separateness from others and the spontaneous capacity to benefit all sentient beings perfectly.

Why “courageous”? Because genuine compassion encompasses all living beings, including the harmers, the negative ones, not just the innocent victims.

But as His Holiness the Dalai Lama says, “Compassion is not enough: we need wisdom.” Without the development of renunciation of suffering and its causes (which comes from understanding of the law of karma and the workings of one’s own mind) and of the wisdom that sees reality as it is (which comes from understanding dependent arising and emptiness) one cannot fully develop such radical compassion.

The great bodhisattvas are fierce in their determination to never give up on sentient beings: they “think in terms of eons,” as His Holiness says.

Since ordaining as a nun in 1978 Ven. Robina has worked full time for Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and their Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition.

Over the years she has served as editorial director of Wisdom Publications, editor of Mandala Magazine, executive director of Liberation Prison Project, and as an internationally touring teacher of Buddhism.

Her life and work with prisoners have been featured in the documentary films Chasing Buddha and Key to Freedom.