“Many people believe that if you sit and meditate a lot, you don’t have to read or study anything at all. That approach is one-sided and leaves no room for sharpening the intellect or disciplining the mind. Study and scholastic learning play an extremely important part for us.” — Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
Study and practice, he taught, are like two wings of a bird: we need both to fly and to support others. Since emotions, including devotion, can be fickle, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche also emphasized the necessity of studying in order to establish the view of Buddhadharma.
The great 19th century scholar and meditation master, Jamgon Kongtrol Lodro Thaye, said the one who meditates without the view is like a blind man wandering the plains; one with the view who doesn’t meditate is like a stingy and miserly rich man who can’t help himself or others. “When one practices meditation with the view,” he wrote, “it is like a garuḍa fathoming space. There is no fear and no doubt. Joining the view and meditation is the holy tradition.”
With this in mind, we are delighted to offer a seven-month program on “Buddhism: View and Path.” Originally created for our emerging Indian meditation instructors and datun participants — those who have completed or intend to complete the four-week shamatha–vipasyana retreat designed by Trungpa Rinpoche and strongly supported by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche — the course is now open to any committed and genuinely interested student.
There is no cost to participate. To register, please click here.
Program Overview (January-July 2026)
- Śrāvakayāna view (6 weeks). Find the draft syllabus here.
- The Sādhana of Mahāmudrā (6 weeks)
- Śrāvakayāna path (4 weeks)
- Abhidharma, taught by Khenpo Sonam Phuntsok (April–May)
- Bodhisattvayāna view and path (May–July)
Attendance and Commitments
Because the curriculum is sequential, with each reading and session building on the previous ones, this is not a drop-in class, but requires full participation and an ongoing commitment to studying the Buddhist view and path. Please consider this before signing up. If you need to miss a session, please complete the assigned reading and listen to the class recording before the following week. This ensures that discussions will remain informed and meaningful. We also ask that you maintain a daily practice, however brief. Thank you for understanding – and for the commitment that makes such collective study possible.
Teachers
The course will be taught by senior instructors and students of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, along with several excellent guest teachers.
Andy Karr
Śrāvakayāna View
The first three classes will be led by Andy Karr who has practiced and studied the dharma for over fifty years under Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, and other great masters. He is the author of
Into the Mirror: A Buddhist Journey through Mind, Matter, and the Nature of Reality and of Contemplating Reality, advisor to Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche’s Milinda program, and a key architect of the annual Three Yanas study-practice intensive.
Barry Boyce
The Sādhana of Mahāmudrā
Barry Boyce has been practicing and studying the dharma since 1972 and teaching it since 1980. He is a close student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and co-founder of Mindful, a print and digital magazine focusing on the application of mindfulness to everyday life. Barry wrote the introductions to Trungpa Rinpoche’s books: The Sādhana of Mahamudra and Devotion and Crazy Wisdom, and has taught on the Sādhana of Mahamudra for nearly fifty years.
There will be 6 online classes on the Sadhana of Mahamudra led by Barry Boyce starting Saturday, February 14 and continuing each Saturday through March 21, 7:00 pm IST [8:30 am EST].
Each Saturday will show the videos of CTR’s talks on the Sadhana (just the talk not the Q and A) followed by Barry’s teaching and then question and answer session. March 7 will be a group practice session after the video.
The first class is this very Saturday (14th Feb) at 7pm IST (India time), and then each Saturday till March 21. The link to join is:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88630561198?pwd=YdF6oLNs7L3LqFbC3XGkxaO8lk38xW.1
