UNCA to Host Talk on Developing Compassion by Tibetan Buddhist Lama

Lama Rinchen Phuntsok

UNC Asheville will host a talk on "Developing Compassion: A Tibetan Buddhist Perspective" by Lama Rinchen Phuntsok at 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 28, in the Chestnut Ridge Room of UNCA’s new Reuter Center. Lama Rinchen is the former director and resident Lama of the Padmasambhava Buddhist Center in New York. He now lectures widely on Buddhist topics throughout the United States and Europe. The talk is free and open to the public.

At the age of six, Lama Rinchen began receiving instruction in the traditions of Tibetan Buddhism at the Tsasum Chokhorling Monastery. After leaving Tibet in 1958, he studied at several monastic schools and the Sanskrit University in Varanasi, India, where he completed advanced studies in Sutrayana Buddhist philosophy, scripture and the major sciences of the Tibetan curriculum.

To complete his training in Vajrayana Nyingma School studies, Lama Rinchen served as private secretary to the late His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche, supreme Head of the Nyingma order of Tibetan Buddhism for over fifteen years. During that time he received all the important empowerments, transmissions, essential instructions, oral teaching of Nyingma Kama and the Profound Rediscovered Teachings of Terma of the great Lotus Born Teacher, Guru Padmasambhava, the founder of Vajravana Buddhism.

Lama Rinchen’s talk is sponsored by UNCA’s Religious Studies Religious Studies Program and the N.C. Center for Creative Retirement.

For more information, call UNCA’s Religious Studies Program at 828/251-6272.

Media Contacts:

• Dr. Brian Butler, UNCA Religious Studies Program Director, 828/251-6272
• Jill Yarnall, UNCA Public Information Assistant Director, 828/251-6526