Friday 25th November 2011, at 7-30pm at the Friends Meeting House, 12 Jesus Lane, Cambridge.
Professor Richard Gombrich
In what sense did the Buddha preach the Middle Way?
Richard Gombrich is the founder and President of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, www.ocbs.org , and Chairman of the UK Association for Buddhist Studies. Before his retirement in 2004, he held the Boden Chair of Sanskrit at Oxford University and a Professorial Fellowship at Balliol College for 28 years. He continues to lecture and teach at universities round the world. His interests include Pali, early Buddhism, and the anthropology of Buddhism, especially in South Asia, and he is the author of 200 publications including How Buddhism Began: the conditioned genesis of the early teachings, and What the Buddha Thought (OCBS Monograph).
Friday 9th March 2012, at 7-30pm at the Friends Meeting House, 12 Jesus Lane, Cambridge.
Rev. Leoma Hague
The End of Suffering - A Soto Zen Perspective
The talk will use one of the basic teachings of Buddhism to explore the fundamental role played by zazen, or meditation, in Soto Zen practice.
Rev. Leoma Hague is a senior monk and priest of the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives. She is a member of the monastic community at Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey in Northumberland. The abbey was founded in 1972 by Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett, who trained at Sojiji, one of the two head temples of Soto Zen in Japan. For the past 30 years, the abbot of Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey has been Rev. Master Daishin Morgan, a Dharma heir of Rev. Master Jiyu. Rev. Leoma was ordained as a monk by Rev. Master Daishin in 1998 and received Dharma transmission from him in 2006. Since then she has been teaching and has led retreats at Throssel, in the Netherlands and in East Anglia.