Live Session Dates and Times:

Saturdays from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm EST

2024: Sept 14 / Oct 12 / Nov 16

2025: Jan 11 / Feb 8 / Mar 8

About the Course

During this in-depth course on Mahayana teachings, Khenpo Gawang will guide participants through teachings on the profound path of the bodhisattva from the famous Tibetan text, Entering the Path of the Bodhisattva by Shantideva.

This course is an excellent follow up to “Exploring the Hinayana” with Khenpo Gawang that was offered in 2023, but you do not need to have taken this course to participate! It is strongly recommended for new students but will be offered in enough depth to be interesting and useful to those who have studied Buddhist teachings for many years.

Topics

View, Meditation and Action

Ground, Path and Result

Bodhichitta and the 10 Bhumis

Emptiness 

The Six Paramitas

Buddha Nature

Relative and Ultimate Truth

The Trikaya (or “Three Bodies of the Buddha”)

The Bodhisattva Path

In addition to teachings during the live sessions, the course will include optional contemplations, readings, and exercises to help deepen and strengthen these core understandings of Mahayana Buddhism.

And now as long as space endures,

As long as there are beings to be found,

May I continue likewise to remain

To drive away the sorrows of the world.

The pains and sorrows of all wandering beings—

May they ripen wholly on myself.

And may the virtuous company of Bodhisattvas

Always bring about the happiness of beings.

― Shantideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva

About Khenpo Gawang

Khenpo Gawang has lived in the West since 2003 and he speaks and teaches in English. Because his root teacher, His Holiness Penor Rinpoche, saw that his karmic path was the West, Khenpo Gawang has made great efforts to learn English, the methods for how he can best teach Western students, and to translate texts and liturgies into English. He has a kind heart, quick mind, and dry sense of humor that comes through in his teachings.

Khenpo Gawang Rinpoche is the founder and spiritual director of Pema Karpo Meditation Center in Memphis, Tennessee, where he has lived since 2007. In 2006, he received his Khenpo degree, the Buddhist equivalent of a PhD, from the Ngagyur Nyingma Institute (Buddhist College) of Namdroling Monastery in South India. His journey started when in 2003 he was sent by his root teacher, HH Penor Rinpoche, to assist Shambhala Global and to begin teaching in the West.

Rinpoche is the author of Your Mind Is Your Teacher (Shambhala Publications). He co-translated with Gerry Wiener, The Excellent Path to Enlightenment by Longchenpa, and The Gate of Entry Into the Limitless Activities of the Supreme Noble Ones: A Short Commentary on the King of Aspiration Prayers for the Excellent Conduct of the Noble Ones by Lochen Dharmashri. Khenpo and Gerry have translated a trilogy of works related to the profound text by Shantideva on becoming a bodhisattva: Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra: Entering the Way of the Bodhisattvas – Duhuang Edition by Shantideva (a 1000 year old text), The Ketaka Jewel by Mipham Rinpoche (a commentary on the Wisdom Chapter), and Entering the Way of the Bodhisattvas: An Annotated Commentary by Khenpo Shenga (soon to be published). These books are available on Amazon.

Before returning to Namdroling Monastery in 2018, as vice-president of the Buddhist college, and continuing after his return to Memphis, Khenpo Gawang Rinpoche lives in semi-retreat. He practices meditation in the mornings and spends his afternoons and evenings in study, contemplation and translation of Tibetan Buddhist texts. Since early 2020, Rinpoche has been teaching regularly online, something he enjoys greatly since he can simultaneously be in retreat and teach anywhere in the world.