Venerable Tenzin Chogkyi, Sharon Salzberg, Wendy Block, Cayce Howe, Jack Kornfield, Trudy Goodman, Maureen Shannon-Chapple, Elizabeth Rice and Diana Gould.
From InsightLA in Santa Monica, California, comes the news that five of the meditation center’s teachers recently became authorized to teach in the Theravada lineage. Buddhist teachers Trudy Goodman, Sharon Salzberg, and Jack Kornfield gathered to formally pass on the Theravada Buddhist lineage to Maureen Shannon Chapple, Wendy Block, Elizabeth Rice, Diana Gould, and Cayce Howe on Saturday, July 29.
About the event, InsightLA writes:
Sharon shared some thoughts on what it’s like to “formally” become a teacher and Trudy spoke to the community about each teacher’s training, path and contribution to both InsightLA and to social justice in the community at large.
Each teacher lit their small candle from the big candle on the altar and held it while they shared their teaching aspirations.
Venerable Tenzin Chogkyi, Director of the Vajrapani Institute and one of Cayce’s heart teachers, closed the “beautiful, love-filled ceremony” with Shantideva’s Bodhisattva Prayer, beloved by the teacher who ordained Tenzin Chogkyi, His Holiness the Dalai Lama:
With the wish to free all beings
I shall always go for refuge
To Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha,
Until I reach full enlightenment.
Inspired by wisdom and compassion,
Today, in the Buddha’s presence,
I generate the mind of full awakening
For the benefit of all sentient beings.
As long as space remains
As long as sentient beings remain
Until then may I too remain
To dispel the miseries of the world.
