Sutra in Response to a Query Over What Happens After Death
| Date | January 8-10, 2010 |
|---|---|
| Time | 9:00 AM - 6:30 PM |
| Location | Namgyal Monastery, Ithaca, NY |
| Instructors | Geshe Damdul Namgyal |
| Cost | $140, see details below |
| Registration | Pre-registration required, see details below |
| Prerequisites | None. This intensive is suitable for both beginning and advanced students. |
For this weekend intensive, Geshe Damdul Namgyal will share the commentary and clarification he has made of a sutra text that raises questions important to all people: The sutra (spoken by the Buddha) in response to a query over what happens after death. The narrative of the sutra involves the consternation and sorrow following the sudden death of a successful person. Watching all the mourning, King Shuddodhana is filled with questions, impatient to find answers to them. The king poses those questions to the Buddha who responds to each and every query, and at the end illustrates the whole concept through a set of eight everyday life examples. The weekend will center on a text which has practical applications to daily life and practice.
Geshe Damdul Namgyal, born in 1959, in Ngari, western Tibet, was barely three months old when his parents had to flee Tibet into exile in India to escape the ruthless occupation and oppression by the Chinese. Beginning basic modern education in a Tibetan Refugee School in West Bengal, and finishing Higher Secondary from Central School for Tibetans, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, Geshe Damdul joined the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics, a monastic school personally founded by the present His Holiness Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, for the first nine years of his Buddhist studies, covering Buddhist Logic and Psychology, Buddhist Epistemology and Prajnaparamita. During Dialectics School, he also continued his modern education from Panjab University, Chandigarh, earning both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English Literature. Later, Geshe Damdul moved to Drepung Loseling Monastery in south India and pursued further studies in Buddhism, which included the Middle-way Philosophy, Buddhist Ethics and Buddhist Metaphysics, thus covering the entire Buddhist sciences, and earned his Geshe Lharampa degree in 1992. Thereafter, Geshe Damdul represented Drepung Loseling Monastery on two year-long world tours for Planetary Healing and World Peace, visiting North, South and Central Americas in the main. While serving as a resident spiritual director of a local Buddhist centre in Knoxville, Tennessee, he studied psychology and philosophy at the University of Tennessee. Back in India he served as Principal of Drepung Loseling School for five years, overseeing the education of young monks. For the last six years Geshe Damdul has been a Lecturer in the Department of Indian Buddhism, Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, Sarnath. Since June, 2007, he has traveled as a part of the entourage of His Holiness the Dalai Lama as Religious Translator. Up to now, he has attended four Mind & Life Conferences, held in India and the USA, the latest ones in Rochester and Ann Arbor, April, 2008, and one Mind and Life Summer Institute at Garrison Institute, NY, in June 2008.
Location
Aurora Street House, Namgyal Monastery, Ithaca, NY (address and directions.)
Cost
The cost for the weekend intensive is $140, and includes a simple breakfast on Saturday and Sunday, and a catered vegetarian dinner on Saturday.
Senior Discount
15 percent
Registration
To register, please contact Namgyal with your full name, address, telephone number, and email (optional).
Payment
Please make your personal check, money order, or bank cashier's check payable to “Namgyal Monastery” and send to our mailing address.
For payment by credit card, please register first and then process your payment through the “Donate to Namgyal Ithaca” link on our Supporting Namgyal page. In the Comments field of the Payment Form, enter the name of the event for which you are paying.
Schedule of Activities
Friday 1/08
7:00 - 8:30 PM: Introductory talk
(Free and open to the public - Donations are welcomed)
Saturday 1/09
8:30 - 9:00 AM: Simple breakfast
9:00 - 10:15 AM: Session one
10:15 - 10:30 AM: Tea break
10:30 AM - Noon: Session two
Noon - 2:00 PM: Lunch break
2:00 - 3:15 PM: Session three
3:15 - 3:30 PM: Tea break
3:30 - 5:00 PM: Session four
5:15 - 6:30 PM: Catered vegetarian dinner
Sunday 1/10
8:30 - 9:00 AM: Simple breakfast
9:00 - 10:15 AM: Session one
10:15 - 10:30 AM: Tea break
10:30 AM - Noon: Session two