Transcending Madness:
Realms, Bardos, and the Possibility of Awakening
with Acharya Judy Lief
Friday, Jan. 31, 7:00 – 9:00 pm
Sat. & Sun., Feb. 1 & 2, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
“When we have developed the courage to look at ourselves without blinders, we can also begin to see others more clearly. We can connect with people, because we learn not to fear our mind, but to work with it through the practice of meditation. It is an approach based on nonviolence and acceptance, rather than on struggle or the overpowering of others. The acceptance of our experience with all its complexity and uncertainty provides the basis for any real change.” — Chögyam Trungpa
This workshop is a chance to examine the ways in which we become entrapped in psychological realms we create through our own preconceptions, expectations, hopes, and fears, and how we might free ourselves. We will look into our own experience as an interplay between the six realms of beings—gods, jealous gods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, and hell beings—and the bardos, or “in between states.”
The way in which we disown the power of our emotions and project that power onto the world outside, creating realms from which it is hard to escape, is a form of madness. Yet even within the most solidified and seemingly hopeless accomplishment of ego’s domain, the possibility of awakening is ever-present.
The more we familiarize ourselves and make friends with our own mind in all its varieties and extremes, the more we can learn to accommodate others and work with them without fear.
In this program, we will be working with Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s discussion of the realms and bardos, found in his book Transcending Madness.
Acharya Judy Lief has been a Buddhist teacher for over 30 years. She was a close student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, who trained and empowered her as a teacher in the Buddhist and Shambhala traditions. Judy worked with Trungpa Rinpoche as executive editor of Vajradhatu Publications and from 1980-1985 as the Dean of Naropa University, in Boulder Colorado. Currently she is the Executive Editor of Vajradhatu Publications and the Series Editor for the Dharma Oceans series, a collection of Trungpa Rinpoche’s work published by Shambhala Publications, Boston. Judy is the author of Making Friends with Death: A Buddhist Guide to Encountering Mortality (Shambhala 2001).
Suggested Donation
$150 for members; $175 for non-members
Individual talks: $35 for members; $40 for non-members
No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Information For more details please email Sasha Persits.
Date/Time
Date(s) - Fri., January 31, 2020
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Location Nalandabodhi New York
