The Three Principle Stages of the Buddhist Path: Lam Rim | with Annie Bien, Dominique Townsend, H.E. Gegye Rinpoche

Thursday, November 19 | Tuesday, November 24 | Thursdays, December 3 & 10 6:30-8:30 PM In-Person & Online General Admission: $25 | Benefactor Admission: $40 Full Course: $65 We gratefully acknowledge you for selecting a Benefactor Admission. Your generosity makes financial assistance possible for others and supports Tibet House US presenters and programs. The Three Principle Stages of the Buddhist Path: Lam Rim This course introduces Lam Rim, the Tibetan Buddhist “stages of the path,” as popularly taught by Je Tsongkhapa through a systematic examination of the 'Three Principles of the Path": renunciation, compassion, and wisdom. Through readings, discussion, and contemplative exercises, participants explore how these interconnected principles can inform everyday life. Topics include the preciousness of human life, impermanence, karma, the nature of suffering, and bodhicitta—the aspiration to awaken for the benefit of all beings. The course also introduces emptiness and dependent origination, examining how wisdom and compassion support one another. Bringing traditional teachings into conversation with lived experience, it offers a foundation for further study, meditation, and compassionate engagement with the world. This course is offered alongside other programs honoring Professor Robert Thurman's legacy and his work to make Tibetan Buddhist teachings accessible to Western audiences, in particular through his seminal publication and translations of Je Tsongkhapa’s Legs shes snying po, "The Essence of True Eloquence". PROGRAM SCHEDULE Thursday, November 19 | Session I: H.E. Gegye Yongyal Tulku Rinpoche & Annie Bien Tuesday, November 24 | Session II: Annie Bien & Dominique Townsend Thursday, December 3 | Session III: Dominique Townsend Thursday, December 10 | Session IV: Annie Bien, Dominique Townsend & H.E. Gegye Yongyal Tulku Rinpoche These four sessions serve as a basis for an expanded course of 12 weeks to be offered in September, 2027. PRESENTERS BIOS ANNIE BIEN is a poet, translator, and writer whose work bridges literature and spirituality. She has translated Tibetan Buddhist texts, published poetry collections, and won flash fiction awards. She is co-author, with Robert A.F. Thurman, of The Magical Adventures of the Sixth Dalai Lama: His Life and Loves. She teaches meditation and Qigong classes at Tibet House US and is a certified Qigong instructor with Shifu Yan Lei. DOMINIQUE TOWNSEND is a scholar of Tibetan Buddhism whose research combines historical and literary methods. Her interests include Tibetan Buddhist cultural production, poetry, aesthetics, dreams, gender, and translation. Her research is rooted primarily in Classical Tibetan texts, with an emphasis on the seventeenth-twentieth centuries. She teaches courses on Tibetan Buddhism and history, Asian humanities, poetics, new media, dreaming, and Buddhist approaches to death and dying. Before joining the faculty at Columbia in July 2024, she was Associate Professor of Religion at Bard College, and prior to that she served as Head of Interpretation at the Rubin Museum of Art. Currently Townsend's research is focused on a book about dreams and dreaming in Tibetan Buddhism, All this is Dreamlike, forthcoming from Columbia University Press. Her previous books include A Buddhist Sensibility (Columbia University Press, 2021), and the co-edited, Longing to Awaken, (University of Virginia Press, 2024). She has also published a book of poems and a children's book. HIS EMINENCE GEGYE YONGYAL TULKU RINPOCHE is an ordained Buddhist teacher and a prominent leader in the Kagyu Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. He holds a master’s degree in Buddhist philosophy and has completed extensive meditation training. He is the third reincarnate Tulku of Gegye Tashi Choling Monastery in Nyari (Mt. Kailash), and His Holiness the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa conducted his hair-cutting and name-giving ceremony in India. Rinpoche serves as president of the Amala Center Nepal and the Himalayan Buddhist Center Australia, and has been actively teaching Buddhist dharma since 2020.