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The Dalai Lama To Offer Discourses in New York

The Dalai Lama -- who turned 64 on Tuesday, July 6 -- will offer meditation lessons and discourses between August 12 and 14 and will give a free public talk at the Central Park in New York on August 15.

Training the Mind/Opening the Heart is scheduled at Beacon Theatre in New York.

The Middle Length Stages of Meditation by Kamalashila will be explored during the teachings.

Kamalashila's Middle Length Stages of Meditation lays out the beginning and more advanced methods for engaging in Buddhist practices leading to ultimate enlightenment, the omniscient state of a Buddha.

Kamalashila was invited to Tibet from India by King Trisong Detsen in the mid-eighth century to defend the analytical approach to the practice of Buddhism in a historic debate against a view discouraging mental activity in meditation. To honor Kamalashila's victory the king requested that he compose this as well as a longer and shorter text on the stages of meditation.

Copies of the Kamalashila's Middle Length Stages of Meditation will be available at the Beacon Theatre.

Ticket Information: Ticket Master: 212.307.7171 Beacon Theatre Box Office: 212.496.7070, General Admission $100/$75 (per day).

At the Central Park, the public talk is scheduled for 11 am but seating begins at 9 am; the talk will be given at East Meadow, at 98th Street & 5th Avenue.

About the Tibet Center in New York City: Founded in 1975 by the Reverend Khyongla Rato Rinpoche, a scholar and lama of the Gelugpa order of Tibetan Buddhism, the Tibet Center provides a place where members and the general public can explore teachings and practices from Buddhism as well other faiths.

In this quarter century the Tibet Center has hosted important Tibetan masters, including Venerable Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, the Senior Tutor of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Venerable Tsenshab Serkong Rinpoche, who served as the official debating partner of the Dalai Lama, Sakya Trizin Rinpoche the hereditary head of the Sakya order of Tibetan Buddhism, Venerable Trulshik Rinpoche of the Nyingma tradition and Venerable Tenga Rinpoche of the Kargyu tradition.

Teachers at the Tibet Center have not been limited to masters from the Himalayas. Other Buddhist teachers have come from the Chan, Theravadan, and Zen traditions and non-Buddhist teachers have included Jain, Hindu, and Christian practitioners as well as scientists and philosophers.

The Tibet Center has also had the honor of hosting the Dalai Lama on two occasions. In 1979, when His Holiness first visited the United States, the center sponsored a public address at the Cathedral Church of St John the Divine. In 1991 in partnership with the Gere Foundation the Tibet Center hosted His Holiness's Kalachakra teachings in New York City over two weeks during which he gave introductory teachings on Buddhism, presided over the creation of a colored sand mandala of Kalachakra and bestowed the actual rite of initiation into this most profound Buddhist practice.

The Reverend Khyongla Rato Rinpoche has begun to implement plans for the establishment of The Buddhist Temple of New York. This initiative, commemorating the Dalai Lama's Kalachakra teaching in 1991, is a multi-year project including a capital campaign to build a temple dedicated to world peace and understanding among peoples: fundamental qualities of Buddhism.

The temple is to lend an international focus to the growing interest in the study and practice of Buddhism and other religions. To launch the project a fund-raising dinner was held at the National Arts Club in late1997 and a life-size statue of the Kalachakra deity was commissioned by the Tibet Center from the master sculptor of the Dalai Lama in India.

Currently at the Tibet Center the Reverend Khyongla Rato Rinpoche offers classes in Buddhist practice and theory on a weekly schedule. Ancient Indian and Tibetan texts are taught together with methods of integrating them into daily meditation and practice. The Venerable Nicholas Vreeland leads Buddhist meditation. Visiting masters and scholars give Buddhist teachings, provide lectures on different aspects of Tibetan culture as well as weekend seminars and retreats. Meditations on Kalachakra, Medicine Buddha, White and Green Tara, the Guru Puja, and other practices are held on the appropriate days of each month.

The Tibet Center, 107 East 31st Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10016; www.thetibetcenter.org; (212) 780-1999.

If you would like to post any information about forthcoming events or community happenings, please email the details to bettypais@aol.com

Information and photographs can also be mailed to Betty Pais at 87-52 108th Street, 2nd Floor, Richmond Hill, NY 11418-2229, USA.

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