HSEM3249H

This course will offer students an introduction to the foundations of Buddhist philosophy, psychology, and secular ethics led by a master teacher from Drepung Monastery in India, a leading center of Tibetan Buddhist science and spiritual practice. It will provide students with an understanding of how the Buddhist way of life, understood as a synergy of philosophy, psychological science, moral reasoning, and spiritual practice can lead to a happy, successful, and meaningful life in the twenty-first century. Offered as an intensive 7-week course in January-March 2025, students will attend lectures given by Geshe Lobsang Nima and pursue discussions with him about these lectures and readings selected by him to enhance their understanding of Buddhism as a worldview and way of life. They will also be introduced to fundamental Buddhist meditation practices by Geshe Nima in conjunction with his Tibetan Buddhist brothers at Gyuto Wheel of Dharma monastery in Minneapolis.

The course will cover the basics Buddhist philosophy (resilience, dependent arising, how suffering arises and the path that leads to the elimination of suffering, interdependence, law of causality, karma and altruism). It will also introduce students to Buddhist psychology (how the mind works, how each person creates the causes and conditions that lead to their happiness or suffering), and it will end with a series of classes on compassion, tolerance and forgiveness, gratitude, discernment, non-violence, and the quest for happiness. Together with the training in meditation practice that will also be offered, the course aspires to introduce students to the Buddhist Way of Life as an alternative set of understandings, practices, and strategies applicable in everyday life for living moral and ethical lives devoted to peace, community, happiness, and well-being.

000571

Periodic Fall & Spring