Teacher Training Program
Sundays 7pm – 9pm
Mondays 7pm – 9pm
On our Teacher Training Programme is studying How to Understand the Mind.
This book is a modern masterpiece written by Ven Geshe Kelsang Gyatso and gives an essential commentary offering us deep insight into our mind, and how an understanding of its nature and functions can be used practically in everyday experience to improve our lives.
Under the guidance of Kelsang Yonchen you can discover for yourself these valuable instructions which enable us to control and transform our mind into a lasting state of joy.
The teachings included within this book help us to understand, put into practice and explain Geshe Kelsang Gyatso’s other books with more clarity.
What is Teacher Training Program?
Teacher Training Programme (TTP), offers practitioners of Kadampa Buddhism the opportunity to study and gain practical experience of both Sutra and Tantra. Also, if they wish, to train to become qualified Dharma Teachers.
However, it’s not just for those who wish to teach formally, because we all teach through our example and the advice we give to friends and family. TTP gives us great confidence in our own practice and in our ability to explain Kadam Dharma to others.
The programme consists of a dynamic combination of teachings, meditations, discussion and teaching skills classes providing a multi-faceted approach to the development of authentic spiritual experience.
This programme was designed by Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche, or Geshe-la as his followers affectionately call him. It’s purpose is to provide an extensive presentation of particular subjects of Mahayana Buddhism, to study and meditate on Buddha’s teachings as presented in the books of Venerable Geshe-la.
The purpose of the study component is to enable students to gain an understanding of the deep meanings of Buddha’s teachings, learn how to apply them to modern daily life, and to train as qualified teachers.
The purpose of the meditation component is to enable the students to gain practical experience, through meditation, of the meaning of the teachings.
Qualified Teachers need both.
There is a Teaching Skills component in which students have the opportunity to give a short 20 minute teaching on a topic from the text being studied, and to receive constructive and helpful commentary on their presentation. This will take place approximately once per term.
Students on the programme are required to observe several commitments: to keep good discipline, try to attend all the teaching and discussion classes as well as sit examinations. Students are also encouraged to participate in regular meditation retreats that will be scheduled throughout the year.
It is possible to join this program in person or livestreamed online
Kelsang Yonchen is the Resident Teacher at Kadampa Meditation Centre Aberdeen. A sincere practitioner of Training the Mind, she has been teaching Kadampa Buddhism for over 10 years. Yonchen is known for her warm heart, practical wisdom, and clear, accessible teaching style that makes Buddha’s teachings easy to understand and apply in daily life.
This book offers us a deep insight into our mind, and shows how an understanding of its nature and functions can be used practically in everyday experience to improve our lives.
The first part is a practical guide to developing and maintaining a light, positive mind – showing how to recognise and abandon states of mind that harm us, and to replcae them with peaceful and beneficial ones.
The second part descries different types of mind in detail, revealing the depth and profundity of the Buddhist understanding of the mind. It concludes with a detailed explanation of meditation, showing how by controlling and transforming our mind we can attain a lasting state of joy, independent of external conditions.
