Welcome to the program for TKSL - February to June, 2025
Rather than being written in stone, please think of this as being written on the soft sand of a beach with an incoming tide, it may very well be swept away in time.
Please keep an eye out for the weekly emails with will have the specific information for each week, such as class and facilitator changes as well as final details of pujas etc.
Calendar:
1st to 2nd February: Introduction to Mindfulness: Coming Face-to-Face with Reality with Ben
Mindfulness seems everywhere at the moment, but what’s the point? Is it just being present? Is that it? This 2-day course will run from 9:00 am – 4:30 pm each day and provide practical experiences in developing your own practice.
For more information, click HERE
Term 1: Monday 3rd February to Saturday 15th March - 6 weeks
Pujas: 5th Feb Tara Puja, 22nd Feb Guru Puja, 7th March Tara Puja
2 week break
Term 2: Monday 31st March to Saturday 10th May - 6 weeks
Pujas: 5th April Tara Puja, 23rd April Guru Puja, 5th May Tara Puja
1 week break
Term 3: Monday 19th May to Saturday 28th June - 6 weeks
Pujas: 22nd May Guru Puja, 3rd June Tara Puja, 20th June Guru Puja
July - Longer Break
Content:
Term 1:
Saturday, 8th Feb: Teaching from Khensur Rinpoche Geshe Tashi Tsering 11:00 am TBC
Mondays 6 pm: Buddhist Mind Science with Linda
Suitable for beginners and those wanting to refresh their understanding. These sessions are very good preparation for the 12 week course, The Tea, Not the Cup, Tasting the Essence of Buddhist Practice, being offered in terms 2 and 3. This is an excellent entry point for those who are completely new to Buddhism.
An introduction to Buddhist Mind Science that discusses some of the foundational ideas about the mind such as, Mind vs mental factors, Sense vs mental consciousness, Conceptual vs non-conceptual consciousness, Valid vs Non-valid awareness and Types of Awareness
Wednesdays 6 pm: Altruism: the root of happiness with Tsewang
Continuing on from 2024, exploring how altruism can bring about a happier life
Thursdays 10:30 am: Buddhist Science Study Group facilitated by Huong
Suitable for beginners and those with scientific leanings interested in coming along to share and exchange experiences focusing on the mind, mental factors and reasoning from a scientific perspective.
Fridays 6 pm: Entering the Middle Way with Tsewang
Continuing on from 2024, exploring Chandrakirti’s Entering the Middle Way by going deep into discussion on applying the 7 Fold Cause and Effect Instruction
Saturdays 11 am: Morning Meditation with Tsewang: Calmness, clarity and wisdom: medicinal meditations for the modern mind
These weekly meditations are suitable for beginners to advanced practitioners and will cover various topics in Term 1. Keep an eye on the weekly emails for that week's topic. Term 2 will focus on deepening the experience of mindfulness being explored in the Monday night class, The Tea, Not the Cup with Ben .
Saturdays 1 pm: How to think with logical reasoning facilitated by Pat
In the great Tibetan monasteries, monks gather every day in the debate courtyard. It's a place where they express themselves using logical statements and reasoning about what they have learned in classes. We gather on Saturday afternoons to express doubts and, together as a group, we work through these doubts using logic to deepen understanding. The facilitator will guide the discussions to maintain the logical flow and, if anyone doesn't understand the actual logical structure itself, they will give instruction. However the conclusions drawn about the actual subjects discussed are up to the participants to arrive at for themselves.
The idea is that people familiarise themselves with this way of thinking, then apply it in their own studies to arrive at their own insights about what they are studying.
Terms 2 and 3 (12 weeks) will follow the same schedule for Wednesday to Saturday.
Mondays 6pm: The Tea, Not the Cup with Ben
Suitable for beginners as well as intermediate students who want to gain an experience of the Buddhist path.
The aim of this course is to lead us toward a direct experience—a taste—of what mind training in the Buddhist tradition is all about, of why we would bother to do it at all, and what the goal of that training is. Buddhism can seem very overwhelming and incomprehensible. Where should we start? In essence, it is simply about our experience.
Imagine drinking a cup of tea. What do you experience in drinking a cup of tea? Perhaps the flavour, the warmth, the sweetness of the tea itself. If instead you focus only on the type of cup that holds the tea, endlessly examining all the details and designs of the cup, you will miss the tea altogether. Similarly, in this course about Buddhism, we are interested in the tea, not the cup—the experience not the words, rituals, and customs.
We do of course need a cup to hold our tea. Without a cup we cannot drink. But when making a cup of tea, the tea is the most important thing. If the tea is no good, then it doesn’t matter how beautiful the cup is. Likewise, we do need some language, culture, and symbolism to carry the message of Buddhism, but we must make sure we don’t mistake the container for the contents.
