with Geshe Thubten Sherab

Wednesday, November 19 – Thursday, November 20
7:00pm–9:00pm PST (Pacific Standard Time)

in person and online

Program Category: Dharma Education — Introductory

True compassion doesn’t mean carrying the weight of the world or losing ourselves in others’ pain. Often, what we call compassion is tangled up with unconscious beliefs—subtle distortions in how we view ourselves, others, and the nature of experience.

Shakyamuni Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths, beginning with the truth of suffering. In this two-evening program, Geshe Thubten Sherab will explore the four key misconceptions that cloud our understanding of suffering:

• Seeing permanence in the impermanent — believing things will last forever when they are constantly changing
• Seeing satisfaction in the unsatisfactory — expecting lasting happiness from things that cannot truly fulfill
• Seeing self in the selfless — identifying with what has no fixed, independent identity
• Seeing purity in the impure — assuming things are flawless when they are mixed with discomfort and decay

These misconceptions quietly shape how we respond to suffering—both our own and others’. By recognizing and releasing them, we open the door to a kind of compassion that is grounded, wise, and sustainable.

Each session will include guided meditations to help integrate the teachings, along with time for Q&A and personal reflection.

Geshe Sherab was born in Manang/Nepal in 1967. He attended Kopan Monastery at age nine and was ordained by Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche. After 10 years of study in Kopan, he went to Sera Je Monastery for further studies in 1987 and graduated as Geshe at the end of 1999. After that, he joined Gyume Tantric College for a year. Then he taught young monks at Kopan for a year.

In 2001, he was sent by Lama Zopa Rinpoche to New Mexico to serve and help at the International Office of FPMT and teach at Thubten Norbu Ling in Santa Fe and Ksiti Garbha Center in Taos as resident teacher. He also served as a Board member of FPMT for two years during that period. By the end of 2003 in December he returned to Nepal to do his own practices. In 2006 he was appointed as Head Master of Kopan Monastery and served for four years. He served as acting Abbot for a year in 2011 when the late Guru Khensur Rinpoche Lama Lhundup became ill. He also taught at Kopan during the meditation courses there.

He has been resident Geshe at Thubten Norbu Ling Buddhist Center in Santa Fe, NM since 2013. He spends 6 months of the year in Santa Fe and the rest of 6 months, he travels and teaches around the world, in the United States, Canada, many parts of Europe, Asia, Mexico, Guatemala and Australia.