Nalandabodhi

Samding Dorje Phagmo Nalandabodhi is an international Buddhist organization founded in the United States by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche in 1997 and is named after the historic Nalanda university of India.

Their international headquarters is Nalanda West in Seattle, with centers and study groups in the United States, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and throughout Europe and Asia.

This group is responsible for safeguarding the financial and legal health of Nalandabodhi, as well as establishing policies and procedures that support the implementation of Ponlop Rinpoche’s vision.

In addition, these senior Buddhist teachers guide the organization in accord with the principles of dharma, teach programs, conduct personal practice interviews with students, answer study questions, give refuge vows, bodhisattva vows, and reading transmissions (such as for the Vajrayana preliminary practices ("ngöndro")).

Nalanda West, located in Seattle, Washington and inaugurated in 2005, is the primary seat for Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche and Nalandabodhi.

Nalanda West operates as an event and contemplative resource center, hosting programs related to the traditional Five Fields of Knowledge: creativity and the arts, health and well-being, communication, knowing and reasoning, and the inner science of the mind.

Internationally, there are Nalandabodhi centers in Hong Kong, Taipei, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, Austria, Poland, and The Netherlands.

Finally, having gained some familiarity with relaxing self-fixation and clinging, students engage in relative bodhicitta meditations to further develop their compassion, kindness, and ability to benefit others.

Nalandabodhi's Path of Study is a progressive set of four courses (Introduction to Buddhism, Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana) each covering a variety of topics such as The Four Noble Truths, Interdependent Origination, Selflessness, Emptiness, Buddha Nature, and bodhicitta.

[8] The topics covered in these courses are taught in further detail at Nītārtha Institute, a school of advanced Buddhist philosophical studies also headed by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche.

Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche uses his specially altered edition of the text, The Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness, to suggest what's meant by, for example, emptiness of self.
Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche uses his specially altered edition of the text, The Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness , to suggest what's meant by, for example, emptiness of self .