Giving to the Buddhist Community at MIT
The Buddhist Community at MIT is a non-sectarian and non-denominational organization fostering the practice and study of Buddha's teachings. We greatly appreciate your generous support and donation that help us fund public lectures, meditation retreats, and related events.
To make a contribution please contact Ven. Tenzin Priyadarshi through the Office of Religious Life at MIT. Online contributions can be made through the MIT Giving Site (look for account #2737293).
With Palms Together
Past Events 2001-2005
Meditation & Discussion
Click here to order book
Shunryu Suzki's
"Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind"
Wednesdays at 7PM
Guided Meditation every other Wednesday.Venue: MIT-W11
(Open only to MIT Community Members)____________________
Teachings on
Stages of Meditation of Acarya Kamalshila
Selected Mondays at 6:30PM
(Click here to check schedule)Venue: MIT Chapel
(Open to All)____________________
March 10, 2005 at 8:00pm
Main Dining Room (W11), MIT.
Come and join us for an evening of Indian and Tibetan cuisine. Feel free to bring some dessert or drinks to share. Relax, meet some new people and just have\ a wonderful time!
Talk and Discussion by Hilda Ryumon Gutiérrez Baldoquín
Tuesday, April 5, 2005, 4:30pm - 6pm
MIT, Room 14E-304
A Talk by Bardor Tulku Rinpoche
Friday, April 22, 2005 at 7:00 - 8:30pm
Room 4-237, MIT
Listening to the Sound of Silence
A Day of Silent Meditation
Led by The Venerable Tenzin LS Priyadarshi
Saturday, January 29, 2005 10:30 am - 4:30 pm
Suggested Donation: $50 (non-MIT); Free for MIT Students
(Scholarships available for other High School and College Students)
For Registration Contact Bill Seaver (billseaver at earthlink dot net)
Parking information to follow after you register!
MIT affiliates RSVP to Ven. Tenzin Priyadarshi
What is the nature of the mind when it is not actively engaged in thinking? During this retreat we will alternately practice sitting meditation, walking meditation, and chanting as means to get a glimpse into serenity. Your lab, the object of your experimentation, and the subject of your focus is none other than your own mind - are you ready to work on it? It is a day when you can teach your mind to "hibernate" - to actualize the power of silence and the dynamism of stillness!
Chinese Brush Painting
A workshop with Ming-chien Liang
Saturday, January 29, 2005 6:00 pm- 7:30 pm
Room 4-149 at MIT (77 Massachusetts
Ave.)
Cost: $10 (MIT Students); $15 (non-MIT)
Signup by: 25-Dec-2004
Limited to 20 participants.
Single session event
Chinese ink painting is simple in form, rich in meaning and an
aesthetic experience, and at once realistic and abstract. In its
attempt to capture the essence of the subject, Chinese ink painting
explores beyond the external appearance. It aims at lifting us to
a transcending realm where the self is forgotten and worldly concerns
distilled. Thus it is imbued with tranquility and even spiritual
intensity. With the pliant brush and highly sensitive paper, this
high art form demands union of the technique to master the brushstrokes
derived from calligraphy, the artistic sensitivity and imagination,
and the cultivation of ethical purity, intellectual and transcendental
insight.
Contact: Tenzin LS Priyadarshi tenzin@mit.edu
Non-violence
in Education
(The Tibetan School Project)
www.tibet-school.org
Tuesday, February 1, 2005 7:00 pm
in Room 2-105
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139
Soenam Jamyangling is Chairman and Founder of the Tibetan School
Project and the Swedish Tibetan Society for School & Culture.
Hear his dynamic approach to building schools on the roof of the
world.
The Tibetan School Project is a nonprofit venture of Tibetan exiles
and Westerners
to build 108 schools inside Tibet.
This event is Co-Sponsored by:
MIT-Prajnopaya, The Buddhist Community at Massachusetts Institute
of Technology
US Tibet Society for School & Culture
(Re)generating
the Altruistic Mind
(A
Retreat Based on the Avalokitseshvara/ Cenrezig Sadhana)
Led by The Venerable(s) Tenzin LS Priyadarshi and Lama Sonam
Saturday, December 11, 2004 10:00
am - 4:30 pm
Suggested Donation: $80
(Scholarships available for High School and College Students)
MIT affiliates RSVP to Ven. Tenzin Priyadarshi
(Proceeds to benefit the activities of The Prajnopaya Foundation)
This holiday season give yourself the wonderful gift of Bodhicitta (Enlightened Altruistic Mind) and deepen your understanding of the gift you already have, a precious human life. Words cannot adequately describe the wonderful qualities of these two - we invite you to come get a taste of them. This one day retreat will give you the opportunity to reflect on the year that just passed, and to contemplate on the time that is coming - how to make the best use of this time, this body, and this life. The great teacher Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche once exclaimed, "I ask myself why we do not practice, just for those few moments of time in which death has lent us our body."
This retreat will focus on the practice associated
with the Bodhisattva of Compassion, Avalokiteshvara, and will
shed light on how to develop
the qualities that this figure evinces. His Holiness the Dalai
Lama has often said that there are no absolutes in Buddhism -
but if
there were one, it would be "compassion." During this
retreat we will open our hearts and deepen our minds to the profundity
of this refined sense of Compassion, as it is understood in the
Buddhist tradition.
The participants of this retreat will receive an oral transmission
of the Six Syllable Mantra of Avalokiteshvara.
The Venerable Lama Konchok Sonam began his Buddhist training at Katsel Monastery in Tibet. He studied with HE Chuntzang Rinpoche and HE Thristsab Rinpoche and served as a disciplinarian at Jangchhub Ling, Seat of the Drikung Kagyu School in India. He is currently the resident teacher of the Drikung Kagyu Sangha in Boston. For a full bio please visit http://drikungboston.org/lamasonam.shtml
The Venerable Tenzin LS Priyadarshi began his training in
Rajgir near the ancient Nalanda Monastic University in India. He
studied under the guidance of HH the Dalai Lama who is also his
preceptor and with other eminent teachers such as HH Sakya Trizin
and HE Kushok Bakula. He is currently a Visiting scholar and Buddhist
Chaplain at MIT and teaches at the Namgyal Monastery in Ithaca,
the North American Seat of HH the Dalai Lama. For a full bio please
visit http://www.prajnopaya.org/director.htm
The Harvard-MIT Celebration of
Lhabab Duechen
Thursday, November 4 at 7 p.m.
MIT Chapel
Chanting and Worship Ceremony
Brief Dharma Talk by Lama Migmar Tseten,
Director of the Sakya Center, Cambridge, MA.
Followed by a catered Tibetan Dinner
The Buddhist Community at MIT is pleased to
host the celebration of Lhabab Duechen. There are four events in the
life of the historical Buddha Shakyamuni which occupy a significant
place in the Tibetan Buddhist Calendar:
1. The Display of Miracles
2. Enlightenment
3. Turning the Wheel of Dharma
4. Return/Descent of the Buddha from the Heavenly Realm
Lhabab Duechen celebrates the last of these
events when the Buddha Shakyamuni returned from the Realm of Thirty
Three Heavens after preaching to his mother Mayadevi. Buddha ascended
to the Heavens to teach Dharma to his mother as an act of repaying
the debts, filial piety. Legend has it that on this day Buddha came
back to the City of Kashi/ Varansasi to continue teaching Dharma to
the people of this world. A Stupa was erected in Varanasi commemorating
this event after Buddha's parinirvana.
Purification
and Rejuvenation Retreat
(A Retreat Based on the Vajrasattva Practice)
Led by The Venerable Tenzin LS Priyadarshi
Saturday, November
6, 2004 10:00 am -5 :00 pm
Sunday, November 7, 2004 11:00 am - 1:00 pm
Retreat Venue and Directions will be given to you when you RSVP.
Suggested Donation:
$120 (Scholarships are available for students!)
(All proceeds to benefit the charitable activities of The Prajnopaya
Foundation
Seldom do we "plan" on committing misdeeds or non-virtuous actions (at least this is the way it appears to us when we try to reflect back on the nature of a particular non-virtuous action that arose "spontaneously" due to preceding events or circumstances). To counter such attitude of "spontaneous" non-virtuous deeds it perhaps becomes an obligation on our part as practitioners of Buddha Dharma to reside in a state of mind from which more "spontaneous" virtuous deeds arise. Such is the objective of this Spontaneous Retreat on Vajrasattva, the Clear Light manifestation of the Buddha that cuts through all negative thoughts and actions. The tradition tells us of the great Indian Acarya Dipankara Srijnana, popularly known as Atisha (author of A Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment (Bodhipathpradipam)), who engaged in a purification practice even after committing minor negative deeds (those that we tend to make disappear in the blink of an eye wishing and at times believing that it never happened only to find out in the future that our consciousness had registered it!) whether he was traveling on foot or riding on a horse back. This is to display the quality of an "attentive mind."
The practice of Vajrasattva is not a practice of confession as understood in popular contexts. Neither it is designed as "guilt trip" for individuals. It is a practice to firstly assess where one's mind stands; then to purify/ cut through the obstacles; and finally mental and spiritual rejuvenation that accompanies the results of this practice.
The participants of this retreat will receive an oral transmission of the Vajrasattva Mantra (the Hundred Syllable Mantra) and then engage in reflection/ recitation of it. This retreat will be a balance of discussion and practice.
Glimpses of Ch'an:
Listening to the Sound of Silence
Meditation and Talk by Dharma Master Hsin Tao
Founder, Museum of World Religions and Wu-sheng Monastery
Thursday, February 26, 2004 at 6:30 p.m.
The
Wong Auditorium
Tang Center, MIT
(70 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA)
Atisha's Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment
(Sanskrit. Bodhipathpradipam;
Tibetan. Jangchub lamgyi dronma)
Every Thursday, 7:00 pm-8:00
pm in the MIT Chapel
The text will be provided by the Buddhist Community.
PS: Meditation and Chanting will begin at 6:30 p.m.
for those who are interested in it.
Those who are interested in Shantideva's A Guide to Bodhisattva's Way of Life (Sanskrit.
Bodhicaryavatara) may talk
to Venerable Tenzin to set up a time.
His Holiness
The Dalai Lama of Tibet
Investigating
the Mind:
Exchanges between Buddhism and the Biobehavioral Science on How the
Mind Works
September 13-14,
2003
Kresge Auditorium, MIT
Buddhist Relics
Pray for World Peace
A rare opportunity to see and venerate the
relics of the historical Buddha Shakyamuni and other great Buddhist masters.
September 10-14, 2003
The Stratton Student Center, MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology ,
Wednesday, September 10 from
Thursday, September 11 from
Prayer for Remembrance and Peace 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Friday, September 12 from
Saturday, September 13 from
Sunday, September 14 from
All are Welcome. There is no admission fee. Donations are appreciated. Proceeds subsidize the tour and benefit the non- profit Maitreya Project. Handicap accessible.
| Event | Time | Place | |
| Vesakh: Celebration of Buddha's Birthday | May 6, 2003 | West Lounge | |
| The Movie Himalaya | Jan 9, 7 p.m. | Room 1-135 | |
| Mind Like the Sky: Introduction to Basic Meditation by Ven. Lama Migmar Tseten | Jan 16, 7 p.m. | Room 5-231 | |
| Tonglen: A Filter for Suffering by Ven. Tenzin L. Priyadarshi | Jan 21, 7 p.m. | Room 5-231 | |
| The movie The Cup | Jan 23, 7 p.m. | Room 1-135 | |
| Vegetarian Dinner | Jan 30, 6 p.m. | Religious Activities Center | |
| Meditation and study of Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life by Ven. Tenzin L. Priyadarshi | 
|
Thursdays (starting Feb 27; except 4/17, 5/18 and 5/29) | MIT Chapel |
|
A four-part series sponsored by the Harvard Hillel and the Harvard Buddhist Community focusing on Jewish and Tibetan experiences of exile from February 13 through March 6, 2003. |
Feb 13 through Mar 6 | See poster | |
