Awakening The Happiness Within You with Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche - In Person and Online

Update: This event can be attended in person or on Zoom, please let [email protected] know if you wish to attend on Zoom and you will be sent the link

We often think that if we are lucky we will get to be happy, but happiness is who we are.

We can spend our entire lives searching for happiness externally, but true happiness can only be found within. If we simply remove the barriers between us and our true nature, our inner happiness comes out. When we know our minds are fundamentally comfortable, innately happy, then wherever we go, whatever we do, happiness is always with us.

In this talk, meditation master Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche will draw on excerpts from his book, Our Pristine Mind: A Practical Guide to Unconditional Happiness, to introduce us to our natural state of happiness and explain methods for expanding our experience of it and extending it to others. 

Beginners welcome—no previous experience with meditation or Buddhist practice is necessary.

Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche is a meditation master in the Nyingma lineage of the Buddhist tradition. He received his education and training for ten years starting at the age of fourteen at Larung Gar in Serta, eastern Tibet, with his teacher, the great Jigmed Phuntsok Rinpoche, who is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest Dzogchen masters of the twentieth century.

Timing
Arrival from 7.15pm, start 7.45pm. Finish 9pm. Zoom opens at 7.40pm

Suggested Donation
£10 (£7 concession). All donations are split between Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche and Shambhala London. 

We don't want cost to be a barrier so if anyone is in financial hardship, please feel warmly invited to attend and donate what you can afford.

Please register to help us with planning around number of people attending.

Any questions, please email [email protected]

Biography

Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche is a meditation master in the Nyingma lineage of the Buddhist tradition. He studied for ten years at Larung Gar in Serta, Eastern Tibet, with his teacher, Jigme Phuntsok Rinpoche, who is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest Dzogchen meditation masters of the twentieth century. A long-time resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche is the founder and spiritual director of Pristine Mind Foundation and the author of Our Pristine Mind: A Practical Guide to Unconditional Happiness. For more information, visit www.pristinemind.org.

At a young age, Rinpoche began reading Tibetan with his father and his first teaching came early on from Khenpo Depa, who taught him the Namcho Ngondro, foundational teachings for meditation and spirituality, for one month. It was during this time that Rinpoche really began to become inspired to study in depth, practice meditation, and begin the journey to enlightenment.

In 1990, Orgyen Chowang completed the studies, practice, and meditation training required for the khenpo degree, the highest degree of Buddhist study and practice. Out of a class of over one thousand, he was among the first group of only fifty-five highly accomplished students upon whom Jigmed Phuntsok Rinpoche bestowed the degree. The graduates of this and subsequent classes from Larung Gar now teach throughout the world preserving this enlightened lineage.

In 1992 Orgyen Chowang arrived in Kathmandu Nepal where he taught at Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery for three years as a resident teacher to lamas, monks, and western students. During this period of time, he had the opportunity to receive Dzogchen teachings in the Chokling Tersar tradition from Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. In 1995 he had the great fortune to meet and receive teachings from Thinley Norbu Rinpoche. He developed a very special and deep connection with Thinley Norbu Rinpoche, and during this time he received empowerments, transmissions and teachings of the Dudjom Tersar Lineage from this great master. Soon thereafter Thinley Norbu Rinpoche personally invited him to come to the United States to live and teach. In 1996 at Thinley Norbu Rinpoche’s suggestion, Lama Tharchin Rinpoche hosted Orgyen Chowang at Pema Osel Ling in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California, where he taught in the Vajrayana Foundation College of Buddhist Studies. Three years later, he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he currently resides.

Between 2004 and 2009, Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche shifted his focus to his own practice and to developing his own meditation experience. He internalized the studies that he received many years before at Larung Gar and contemplated each teaching to gain a more experiential connection with what he had learned. He began working on the practice that would become the foundation for his first book, Our Pristine Mind: A Practical Guide to Unconditional Happiness (Shambhala, 2016).

In 2011, Rinpoche founded Pristine Mind Foundation (previously known as Atiamrita), and began teaching weekly events and weekend retreats. Rinpoche teaches across a broad range of audiences to students from many backgrounds including psychology students, business professionals, long-time Dharma practitioners, and yoga practitioners.

Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche teaches from his own experience, and doesn’t rely solely on intellectual descriptions. He teaches very passionately about meditation and spirituality and makes even the most complex topics seem simple and accessible. Both new and experienced students easily understand Rinpoche’s teachings. Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche’s students treasure him for the happiness and clarity his teachings bring to every area of their lives.