Mahayana 305: Discovering Our Buddha Heart (online)

Discovering Our Buddha Heart (Mahayana 305)

Hosted by Nalandabodhi Vancouver

This ZOOM course on Buddha Nature begins Saturday January 7, 2023, and continues every second Saturday: January 21, February 4, February 18 and March 4, 9:00AM – 10:30AM Pacific Time. The course will continue in the Spring term, March- June, with dates to be determined.

About this course:

With its core Study Curriculum, Nalandabodhi has translated and adapted traditional Tibetan Buddhist studies for Western students. Students progress sequentially through Buddhist philosophical schools, from foundational Hinayana precepts to Mahayana concepts of bodhicitta and buddha nature.  Each course builds on the previous, allowing students to master the basic teachings of ground, path and fruition for each yana, resulting in an increasingly complex and subtle view of the Buddhadharma.

This fifth course in the Mahayana series, “Discovering our Buddha Heart” introduces the idea of Buddha Nature — the understanding that we all possess the fundamental nature of a Buddha and so have the potential to awaken to this reality.

To help us understand Buddha Nature, the text takes us through the “7 Vajra Points” as described in the Uttaratantrashastra by Maitreya in the Tibetan tradition.  These points examine buddha nature from multiple perspectives: from the perspective of potential, where it is obscured to us by our afflictions, from the point of view of a Bodhisattva, where Buddha Nature is partially obscured, and finally full Awakening, where the element is uncovered and we can see the appearance of the qualities of enlightenment, and the activities of a Buddha.

Courses are taught in a participatory manner, with both facilitators and students presenting précis of each week’s reading with questions and discussion encouraged.

The curriculum materials for Nalandabodhi study classes are drawn primarily from the teachings of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, as compiled and edited by Mitra Karl Brunnholzl.

In Canada, please contact Doug Ellis at study@nalandabodhi.ca to purchase texts.

In the U.S. the curriculum can be purchased from the Nalanda Store.

Facilitators: Susan Stewart and Nina Miller

Susan Stewart became a student of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche in 1999, and has facilitated and taught Nalandabodhi study curriculum in Vancouver for many years. In 2019, she joined the faculty of Nitartha Institute for Higher Buddhist Studies, where she teaches at the summer institute as well as online.

 Nina Miller has been a student of Buddhism since 1986 but has more recently been studying through the Nalandabodhi study curriculum and the Nitartha Institute for Higher Buddhist Studies since 2011. Nina became a student of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche in 2018 and is so appreciative of the opportunity to study and practice with such a supportive and learned Teacher and Sangha.