Venerable Robina Courtin teaches at Kadampa Center
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KADAMPA CENTER WELCOMES VENERABLE ROBINA COURTIN BACK TO RALEIGH!
Venerable Robina Courtin returns to Kadampa Center for almost a week of teachings, including evenings from 7-9pm, a weekend workshop, and our Sunday Morning Dharma Connections.Don't miss this dynamic teacher who combines a precise knowledge of Dharma with a challenging and compassionate teaching style. Join us! See below for ways to support the teachings, the teaching schedule and topics, as well as the links to access the teachings online. Teachings will be offered both in person at Kadampa Center and via Zoom and YouTube live stream. |
OPPORTUNITIES TO SUPPORT THE TEACHINGS |
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Supporting the teachings is an incredibly powerful and important act -- giving the means to enlightenment is a practice of the highest form of generosity. There are countless ways, and levels, in which to give, enabling everyone this precious opportunity to support the teachings by whatever means best suits their ability. Kadampa Center has for many years operated within the ideal of offering teachings without charging a fee, so that money is never an obstacle for anyone to hear the precious teachings and participate in the practices. We rely on the generous hearts of those who are moved to financially support our spiritual offerings and keep them open to everyone regardless of ability to pay. Did you know that Kadampa Center is run almost entirely by volunteers? Our Center simply can not exist without the amazing generosity of its volunteers who offer their time, talent, and passion to be of benefit to others. Supporting the teachings is incredibly beneficial to you, to the Center, to its students, to the greater community, and to all living beings! |
TEACHING SCHEDULE and MATERIALS
Wednesday May 17 |
7-9 pm | |
Friday May 19 |
7-9 pm |
weekend workshop begins: HOW TO FACE DEATH WITHOUT FEAR |
Saturday May 20 | 10am-4pm |
weekend workshop continues: HOW TO FACE DEATH WITHOUT FEAR Please bring a bag lunch and stay to discuss the morning's teachings with others over our meal. |
Sunday May 21 | 10:30am-12pm |
SUNDAY MORNING DHARMA CONNECTIONS with Venerable Robina Please bring a bag lunch and stay to discuss the morning's teachings with others over our meal. |
Sunday May 21 | 1:30-4pm |
weekend workshop concludes: HOW TO FACE DEATH WITHOUT FEAR |
COURSE NOTES - provided by Venerable Robina to supplement the teachings
MAHAMUDRA: HOW TO DISCOVER OUR TRUE NATUREAccording to Buddha’s amazing view about the human mind, we all have the potential to achieve buddhahood: the eradication of all delusions and the development to perfection of all goodness. In his beautiful book, Mahamudra: How to Discover Our True Nature, Lama Yeshe explains so clearly, so simply, how to get in touch with this natural potential through meditation on the mind itself, the unique characteristic of mahamudra meditation, and finally by realizing the emptiness of the mind: our buddha nature. As always, Lama Yeshe's words are direct, funny, and incredibly encouraging -- he makes enlightenment seem possible. He gets us to go beyond ego's addiction to a limited sense of self and to taste the lightness and expansiveness of our true nature. |
HOW TO FACE DEATH WITHOUT FEARDeath is a natural event, but because we have so much attachment to this life, this body, this self, we cannot stand the thought of death. As Lama Zopa Rinpoche says in his new book, How to Face Death Without Fear, "Death itself is not what causes fear. It is simply the consciousness leaving the body; one labels death on that event. There is no terrifying death from its own side; the terrifying death is made up by our own mind." Because of this fear, we simply don’t believe we will die. Or if we do think about death it’s always someone else who dies. But it’s not enough to be sad, to have compassion. Knowing that we’re in charge, not a creator or anyone else, and understanding well the workings of the natural law of karma — that every thought and action leaves a seed in our mind that will just naturally ripen as our future experiences — we will lead a meaningful life and thus be prepared for death and our next rebirth. And then we can help others. As Rinpoche says, “Helping our loved ones at the time of death is the best service we can offer them, our greatest gift, Why? Because death is the most important time of life: it’s at death that the next rebirth is determined.” |