The Founder
Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche, affectionately known as ‘Venerable Geshe-la’, a world-renowned meditation master and Teacher, he is a truly international Teacher who presents Buddha’s teachings in ways that anyone, regardless of nationality, culture or age can easily understand and apply to their modern daily lives. Through helping people to integrate the pure and life-transforming teachings of Buddha in their daily experience, Venerable Geshe-la has enabled them to solve their personal problems and to discover a deep and lasting inner peace and happiness.
Inspired by his extraordinary vision, a global infrastructure of Temples, centres, books, teachings, meditation and teacher training programmes, for this and future generations, has arisen, creating a truly international Buddhist tradition that benefits all living beings equally and without discrimination.
Venerable Geshe-la is the Spiritual Guide of many thousands of people, whose hearts have been touched by his extraordinary wisdom and pure example. The legacy of his life’s work enriches and will continue to enrich the lives of people of all nationalities and cultures throughout the world.
The Teacher
Gen-la Kelsang Khyenrab is a retired General Spiritual Director of the NKT-IKBU, he has trained closely with Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche for more than forty years. His humility and pure example reflect his many years of reliance on his Spiritual Guide. He is greatly admired as a sincere practitioner and a powerful Teacher. He is also well-known for his wisdom and deep understanding of Buddha's teachings, and for his pure example of compassion and loving-kindness.
Upcoming Lectures
Is Buddhism True?
Can Suffering Really be Stopped Forever?
Friday 13th September 7:30-9:00pm
It is said that the teachings of Buddha are scientific methods for improving our human nature and qualities through developing the capacity of our mind. But how can we be sure that Buddhism is true or not? Are we to simply accept these statements at face value? What evidence can we examine to check the truthfulness of Buddha's teachings?
Nirvana and full enlightenment are said to be states permanently beyond suffering and that each and every living being can attain these. But what actually happens to us when permanent liberation from suffering is attained? Do we disappear into empty space? What happens to our friends and relatives - do they continue to experience the cycle of impure life - samsara while we are completely free from problems? Is that really possible?
By understanding Buddha's unique analysis of our condition presented in the Sutra of the Four Noble Truths we can begin to recognise the validity of his teachings and see that there are no contradictions between any of his teachings; eventually we will understand Buddha's ultimate intention and from this will arise unmistaken clarity giving us a profound confidence in the truth of Buddhism.
Wisdom vs Intelligence
Are they the same or different?
Friday 4th October 7:30-9:00pm
Wisdom is said to be a type of mind that brings us happiness. It tells us the difference between what we should do and what we should not do and acts as our inner Spiritual Guide. Intelligence, on the other hand, could be described as that which gives us certain abilities through logic and reasoning in order to understand things and how they function so that we can discriminate between success and failure in life. However, worldly intelligence alone without wisdom can lead us to create many harmful technologies and dangers for our human life.
By correctly learning the similarities and differences between these two aspects of mental functioning we can improve our judgement of how to live our life to its fullest potential, reduce errors and problems and experience a deep inner peace arising from this knowledge.
Time, Space, Persons and Mind
What is our place in the universe?
Friday 15th November 7:30-9:00pm
We are persons, or people, who possess minds but how do we connect to or relate to time and space? Where do we fit in within the vast expanse of the universe? To understand this, we must first know a little about Buddhist cosmology. This system of viewing the universe in Buddhism is quite different from current scientific theory and contains ideas that would be difficult to accept if interpreted too literally or concretely. However, if we bear in mind the purpose of this cosmology, namely that it allows us to see the entire universe as a pure land the initial strangeness of this system will soon disappear.
Buddha taught that there are countless world systems in the universe; some are like our own while others are vastly different. Our own world system is composed of four 'continents’ arranged in the cardinal directions, and we live in the southern continent. At the centre of this world system stands a vast, four-sided mountain. This is Mount Meru.
We need an open mind and not reject this view of the universe with a large mountain and four continents simply because it does not appear that way to us. The way the world appears depends upon the mind that is viewing it, and Buddha described the world in many different ways depending upon the karma of the people he was addressing.
Overnighter @ Tara!
Why not enjoy an overnight stay with us? Relax into the beautiful environment as well as enjoy the World Peace Cafe and Tharpa Book store and gift shop. Breakfast is also available!