Treasure Valley Dharma Friends is pleased to welcome back to Boise Lama
Jhampa Shaneman Aug. 20 to 24.
The teaching topic: Shantideva's "Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life"
He will also give the empowerment of Green Tara. These are precious teachings
and can help Buddhists on all levels of the path deepen their practice.
More details about the schedule will be posted in the coming weeks.
About Lama Jhampa -
One of the first western Buddhist monks in the Tibetan tradition of Mahayana
Buddhism, Jhampa met Ven. Lama Yeshe and became one of his first male
sangha members in 1971. From that time Jhampa studied mainly in Dharmsala,
India, learning the Tibetan language. He studied under His Holiness the
Dalai Lama, Kyabje Ling Rinpoche (His Holiness's senior tutor) and the Ven.
Geshe Rabten and Geshe Dhargaye.
Over the next 10 years in India he was introduced to many tenets of
Buddhism, interspersing this with periods of meditational retreat. He had
the opportunity to study and work as a translator for masters of all 4 sects
of Tibetan Buddhism. By 1980 he had completed 6 years of study of the sutras
and tantras and approximately 4 years of short retreats such as the four
preliminaries and several deities.
In the fall of 1980 Jhampa entered the traditional Great Retreat and spent
the next three and a half years on the mountain above Dharmsala, India. This
was under the spiritual guidance of Ven. Ling Rinpoche. Upon completing that
retreat he returned to Canada. Jhampa is no longer an ordained monk. He
established three Dharma centers on Vancouver Island and lived there for 18
years. He adopted and help raise two children. Jhampa taught weekly there
and translated on a weekly basis in Victoria for the Sakya Geshe Tashi
Namgyal. He taught in the Community Education programs in three campuses of
Malaspina College for 9 years. Jhampa currently lives and teaches 6 months a
year in Torreon, Mexico. He offers annual summer retreats in Canada on a
variety of deity practices.
He is one of the first western practitioners to be given permission by His
Holiness the Dalai Lama to teach all levels of Mahayana and Vajrayana
Buddhism. His talks are spiced with humorous and fascinating anecdotes of
his experiences of transforming a Western mind to grip the Buddhist
perspective. Being born and raised in the West gives Jhampa's way of sharing
the insights of the East a uniquely relevant twist.
