The Rumi Forum & Better Understanding Club Presented “Exploring Faith : Buddhism”
Kelsang Menla. A native of Suffolk, he is a resident monk at Vajrayogini Buddhist Center in Washington, DC. Trained as a teacher at Losang Dragpa Buddhist College in England, he was ordained by the head of that lineage (the Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso) at the 2001 International Summer Festival in England. Menla teaches in the General Program classes (introductory Buddhism classes) and continues his own study in the Teacher Training Program.
Kelsang Menla gave a teaching called “The Three Aspects of the Buddhist Path,” which are renunciation, bodhichitta (i.e., the aspiration to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings), and realization of emptiness (i.e., the lack of independent existence, which ontologically is the true nature of all phenomena). This ancient teaching, again, goes all the way back to Atisha, who was mentioned above.