with Ven. Sangye Khadro

Mondays, 6:00pm – 7:30pm PDT (Pacific Daylight Time)
May 3 – June 7, 2021
no class on May 31
(5 classes)

online

Buddhist Meditation 101 is an introductory course to Buddhist meditation. It is suitable for people encountering both meditation and Buddhism for the first time, as well as for people who have done some meditation in other traditions but would like to know more about how meditation is practiced in the Tibetan Buddhism. It provides an overview of meditation in general and specific meditation techniques including breathing, mindfulness, visualization, and analytical meditations. It explains what kinds of skills are developed in meditation and how to apply them in daily life.

The following topics will be covered during this course:

• What is meditation?
• Meditation posture and arranging the body
• Purposes and benefits of meditation
• Different skills that are used in meditation and useful in daily life
• The difference between meditation and simple relaxation
• Two main types of meditation — analytical and stabilizing
• Obstacles to meditation and their antidotes
• Setting up a meditation session
• Advice for establishing a long-term meditation practice
• Using the benefits of meditation in everyday living
• Meditation practice

Sangye Khadro (Kathleen McDonald) was born in California, and began studying Buddhism in Dharamsala, India in 1973. The following year she was ordained as a Buddhist nun in Kopan Monastery, Nepal. She has studied with various teachers such as Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Lama Thubten Yeshe, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey and Geshe Jampa Tegchog.

At the request of her teachers Ven Sangye Khadro began teaching in 1979. She has taught in various countries around the world, including being a resident teacher at Amitabha Buddhist Centre, in Singapore, for 11 years. In 1988 Sangye Khadro took the full ordination (bhikshuni) vows. She is the author of two books published by Wisdom Publications, "How to Meditate" and "Awakening the Kind Heart".

She graduated from the 6-year Masters Program in Istituto Lama Tsong Khapa, Italy, in 2013, and has completed two one-year personal retreats. She is currently a faculty member of the Human Spirit Psychoanalytic-Buddhist Training Program in Israel, and was the resident teacher at the Center for Wisdom and Compassion in Copenhagen, Denmark from 2016–2018.