The Middle Way Initiative Newsletter: April 2024
Dear Friends,
We hope you are enjoying Spring- Crestone is alternating between snow and warmth and wind!
We are excited to have three programs in the next two months! OQ Live with Traleg Khandro will be Saturday, April 20. We have another wonderful OQ Live event on May 11 with Sean Price. Elizabeth will then be teaching at Mangala Shri Bhuti (MSB) Pema Osel in Vermont live and online on May 25-26.
Our updated OQ Live Schedule for 2024:
Traleg Khandro - Saturday, April 20
Sean Price - Saturday, May 11
Anam Thubten Rinpoche - Saturday August TBA
Matthieu Ricard - Saturday, October 26
Krishna Dasn- Saturday, December 21
Thank you for your support in purchasing our limited edition “Year of the Dragon” T-shirt. We raised over $2,000, which is more than double our goal of $1,000.
We hope to make these popular shirts available at Elizabeth’s upcoming MSB programs In Vermont and at NSS.
This newsletter also features an article about our amazing MWI Brazilian team members. Meet the team below!
Blessings,
The MWI Team
Priscilla, part of our amazing Brazil volunteer team, wearing her “Year of the Dragon” t-shirt during a recent visit to San Francisco, CA.
Open Question LIVE Conversation, "Faith: Seeking Refuge"
Open Question LIVE Conversation, "Faith: Seeking Refuge" Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel and Traleg Khandro, Saturday April 20, 2024, 3-5PM USA MT.
About this Event
Join us on April 20 for the first in Elizabeth's 2024 teaching series "Faith: Beyond Belief and Doubt." Elizabeth will be joined by Traleg Khandro to discuss "Faith: Seeking Refuge."
Traleg Khandro is a deeply insightful and experienced dharma teacher and practitioner. She is the wife of the late Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche, is the Governing Director of E-Vam Institute in Australia and leads Shogam Publications.
Elizabeth and Khandro will open up the topic of faith with thoughtfulness, honesty and depth, focusing on our experience and questions such as: how do we work with uncertainty; how to identify the extremes of belief and doubt; and what does it means to take refuge in the Middle Way?
Event Pricing: $35 (USD)
This event is an important source of financial support for The Middle Way Initiative teaching programs. Your generosity is appreciated. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. MWI also makes tickets available to all monastics for free. Please send your email request to the following people: English contact: Abba: abbahatcher@gmail.com or Portuguese contact: Cerys cerys@middlewayinitiative.org.
Save the Date: May 11th. Registration opens soon!
About this Event
Join us on Saturday May 11, 2024 from 10 am - Noon USA MT for the Open Question Live Conversation "Faith: Grounded in Wisdom" with Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel and Sean Price. Sean is a respected translator and is the Director of Tibetan Publications for the Tsadra Foundation. Elizabeth and Sean will discuss the 3 Wisdoms and cultivating the qualities of faith. Sean will bring forth the richness of translation by talking about the meaning of the English word "faith" as a translation for the Tibetan word "depa."
Sean Price
Sean Price became a monk in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition in 1994 and has since studied at various monastic institutes in India and Nepal; he has resided at Shechen Monastery, Nepal, since 1999. He has translated numerous Mahamudra and Dzogchen texts and has worked at the Tsadra Foundation as Director of Tibetan Publications since 2009.
Bearing Witness: Cultivating Courage and Engagement on the Bodhisattva Path.
May 25-26th
Event hosted by Mangala Shri Bhuti
In the tradition of the Mahayana, the great bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara serves as a primary example of bearing witness. In fact, his very name means, “One who does not avert his attention from the needs of beings.”
This story evokes many questions about our own path: What do we do when the suffering of the world gets overwhelming? Does bringing inquisitiveness to our own impediments necessarily have to be excruciating? Could it be freeing instead? How does this path help us create grace in our lives?
During this weekend Elizabeth will guide us through the annual Mahayana Essentials series providing discourse, guided meditations, and lively discussion. She will use the inspiring story of Avalokiteshvara as a basis for personalizing and digging deeper into the methods, vision and liberating insight of the bodhisattva path.
Program Details
This year’s Mahayana Essentials program is an in-person and live-stream program hosted by Pema Osel. Elizabeth will give three talks which will include Q&A.
On Saturday and Sunday there will be half-hour guided meditation sessions before the morning talks. There will also be discussion groups held before the Saturday afternoon talk. All of these sessions will be hosted on Zoom and led by senior students.
For those who are unable to watch the live stream in real time, the videos will be accessible until June 26th. Or if you wish to continue your study of the teachings, an Audio-Video Study Set is available for purchase which gives you access to the video for a full year and the downloadable audio indefinitely.
Audio recordings are available as well as a separate product. The audio recordings are downloadable and yours to enjoy indefinitely.
New Podcast Episode: Faith Beyond Belief and Doubt: The “F” Word
In this episode, Elizabeth takes us on a journey through the term ‘faith.' We may assume we know what faith is, but most of us have never truly explored its nuance or spectrum of meanings. We often use the term faith to refer to: dogma, fundamentalism, doctrine, confidence, devotion, conviction, just to name a few.
In the context of contemporary culture, there are those who suggest that we replace the world faith with spirituality, but Elizabeth requests us not to write-off faith so glibly. Faith carries with it the undeniable tension between our search for security and the limits of our ability to know. Faith keeps us connected to the heart of the human condition.
Recordings Available! Audio-Video Study Set: The Liberating Practice of Looking and Not Finding
Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel invites you to engage with her in the liberating practice of looking and not finding. Elizabeth has said, ”If one were to ask: “What did the Buddha teach?” It would be accurate to reply: “The Middle Way.” Middle Way wisdom challenges the unexamined assumptions we have about things, what the Buddha called ‘extreme views.’ She will continue on themes of Madhyamaka reasoning and analysis which are often misunderstood as ‘intellectual’ and hard to apply to our own experience. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The purpose of analysis is to free our minds from confusion – to liberate us.
Regarding the analytical method, Elizabeth has shared, “Looking and not finding challenges us to consider what it would be like to behold our world without clinging to the designations of existence or nonexistence. Existence and nonexistence are dualistic concepts impossible to reconcile. This is why looking directly into the nature of things is so powerful. Can we bear not defaulting to the habit of reification? Can we bear that life will always be free or empty of the “thingness” we assign it? That the map can never fully represent the territory? These are essential Middle Way questions.”
The Middle Way Initiative (MWI) Portuguese Translation Project
Part 2
In continuation of our October ‘23 Newsletter article on the history of Elizabeth’s relationship with the Brazilian community, we would like you to meet our team of talented and dedicated contributors to MWI Brazil.
Meet Our Team! Conheça nosso time!
Cerys Tramontini, Director and Translator/Diretora e Tradutora.
Cerys is Brazilian and resides in the Island of Florianópolis, Brazil. She is the Director of Latin American Activities for the Middle Way Initiative (MWI) and founder-director of Paz e Mente Institute (PM).She is taking PhD in Peace Studies at the University of Otago, New Zealand and taking Buddhist Shedra at the Nitartha Institute. You can reach her at: cerys@middlewayinitiative.org
Cerys é brasileira e reside na Ilha de Florianópolis, Brasil. É Diretora de todas atividades Latino-Americanas do MWI e fundadora-diretora do Instituto Paz e Mente Brasil (PM). Cursa PhD em Estudos de paz pela Universidade de Otago, Nova Zelândia e cursa Shedra Budista pelo Nitartha Institute. Você pode contatá-la em: cerys@middlewayinitiative.org.
Priscilla Almeida
Priscilla volunteers with event and social media support for both MWI and Paz e Mente Brazil. Priscilla is Brazilian, and resides in Canada.
Priscilla é voluntária e apoia o MWI e Paz & Mente nos eventos e mídias sociais. Priscilla é brasileira e reside no Canadá.
Mauricio Watanabe
Mauricio Watanabe Ribeiro is a Brazilian neuroscientist, with a postdoctoral degree from Harvard Medical School. Mauricio is a teacher at Paz e Mente Brazil. He serves as a volunteer on the live event production team.
Mauricio Watanabe Ribeiro é um neurocientista brasileiro, com pós-doutorado pela Harvard Medical School. Mauricio é professor no Paz e Mente Brasil. Ele atua como voluntário na equipe de produção de eventos ao vivo no MWI.
Valentin Conde
Valentin lives in São Paulo and is a Brazilian pedagogue who graduated from Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo -PUC. Valentin is a translator for SEE Learning program materials at Emory University (USA) and is part of both MWI and Paz e Mente translation teams.
Valentin vive em São Paulo e é pedagogo brasileiro formado pela Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo -PUC. Valentin é tradutor de materiais do programa SEE Learning na Emory University (EUA) e faz parte das equipes de tradução do MWI e do Paz e Mente.
Nadja Ferreira Pinheiro
Nadja lives in Brazil and serves as part of the translation team of MWI. Since 2020, she has provided translation for Mangala Shri Bhuti events at Center Guna Norling in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. Nadja offers monthly simultaneous translation to Portuguese to the Brazilian study group with Elizabeth. She also serves as emcee for OQ Live events.
Nadja mora na Bahia, Brasil e faz parte da equipe de tradução do MWI. Desde 2020, ela fornece tradução para os eventos Mangala Shri Bhuti no Centro Guna Norling em Salvador, Bahia, Brasil. Nadja oferece tradução simultânea mensal para o português no grupo Brasileiro de estudos online com Elizabeth. Ela também atua como mestre de cerimônias nos eventos OQ Live do MWI.
Denise Sanematsu Kato
Denise lives in São Paulo, Brazil and is a Dharma teacher, trained since 2006 in the tradition of the Zen Buddhist community of Plum Village, France. She is a translator and dharma teacher for Paz e Mente Brazil, as well as for MWI.
Denise vive em São Paulo, Brasil e é professora do Dharma na tradição da comunidade de Plum Village, França. É tradutora e professora do dharma para Paz e Mente Brasil, bem como tradutora no MWI.