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The Four Thoughts:
Turning Our Minds To The Dharma

Live Online Course

With Lama Rod Owens

September 15th, 2020 - October 11th, 2020

You're invited to join one of the Dharma community's most urgent voices right now, Lama Rod Owens, on 15th September for a transformative new course designed to deepen your path of practice by exploring The Four Thoughts.

Political unrest, climate instability, racism, patriarchy, the decline of capitalism …

With everything we’re facing today, it helps to incline our minds to the dharma, to reveal the truth that this reality is not our ultimate home.

It leads us to the point of realizing there is a more profound, more authentic experience of our true nature waiting for us, to which we can connect.

How do we connect to this truth? 

How do we deepen our practice?

Through an exploration of The Four Thoughts.

On 15th September, Lama Rod Owens leads a new live course that explores The Four Thoughts and how to build these into your life and find liberation.

With a perspective that straddles Buddhist wisdom and personal experience, Lama Rod’s teaching invites us to face up to our discomfort and discuss those subjects which we’re often too scared to address.

The Four Thoughts live course is an opportunity to step into a live teaching environment where you can learn and converse directly with one of the leaders of the next generation of Dharma teachers.

His formal Buddhist training, combined with Lama Rod’s willingness to be vulnerable, invites us into a shared experience, supporting us further in the journey of radical acceptance of ourselves and life as we experience it.

What are The Four Thoughts?

The Four Thoughts That Turn the Mind to Dharma are an important set of ancient contemplations designed to help us deepen our commitment to the path of dharma practice. 

These important Four Thoughts include contemplations on: 

  • Our Precious Human Life 
  • Death and Impermanence 
  • Karma 
  • The Defects of Samsara

These thoughts inspire us to move into a relationship with what is lasting and, ultimately, liberating. We do so together, as a community of practitioners committed to the dharma path and the liberation we all seek.

In The Four Thoughts: Turning Our Minds To The Dharma course, Lama Rod Owens takes you on a journey through one thought each week. Sit and contemplate with your experienced teacher on this subject as you explore the relationship you have with yourself and the world around you.

In this course, you will discover: 

  • How to have a deeper appreciation of your own life
  • How to more fully appreciate all other living beings who share our planet
  • How to develop an understanding and relationship with death
  • How to liberate yourself from your conditioning and become who you are
  • How karma can be more nuanced in our everyday lives
  • How to gain clarity on who you really are

Module 1 - Precious Human Rebirth

We begin with this first and fundamental contemplation and set of practices, which helps us feel less isolated and strengthens a sense of deep connectedness to others. 

In this contemplation, Lama Rod introduces you to the qualities of what makes up a precious life and a precious human rebirth. 

All humans have a good rebirth. However, to have a precious human rebirth, we must not only be born human but also have an interest in practising dharma or any other liberating spiritual teaching. In addition, this practice also helps us experience a deeper appreciation for our own precious lives, the lives of other humans as well as all other living beings, such as animals, who share our planet.

Module 2 - Death and Impermanence

Death and Impermanence are perhaps two of the hardest thoughts to contemplate. 

Bringing into the conversation and reflecting upon our own mortality urges us to understand that death is always happening, moment-to-moment. 

It is a profound and sometimes uncomfortable insight to welcome into our practice.

This thought also helps us to connect deeply and directly to the reality of Impermanence and the constant changing and shifting of our lives, something we often miss or choose to ignore. 

This contemplation is important because it ultimately helps us to develop a friendliness with the natural process of death and dying, while also supporting us in finding a natural home in the Impermanence of all things. 

Module 3 - Karma

Karma is commonly misunderstood and misused in our society. 

Simply, karma is understood to be cause and effect: we do something, and that action has a consequence. 

But how do we understand this truth as a direct experience and as a felt insight, rather than just getting caught up and remaining in that intellectual level of understanding?

As we deeply drop into and contemplate this thought, we begin to understand a more nuanced expression of karma.

It’s this new expression of karma where we begin to see that our thoughts, speech, and actions produce energy and that energy must be reconciled through ripening. 

If we have produced positive karma then the ripening of that karma will be beneficial. 

If we have produced negative karma, the ripening of that energy will not be so beneficial. 

The practices and contemplations in this module help us truly understand that everything we experience is the expression of what we have thought, said, and done.

Module 4 - The Defects of Samsara

Samsara is painful. 

Samsara is our reality lived as an expression of ignorance. 

To be in samsara means to be confronted with suffering as we struggle to understand who and what we are, beyond our projections and conditioned selves which we developed and perform. We do this often to be loved, accepted and to feel worth. 

This thought is really about all the ways samsara as a lived experience is flawed. 

It’s flawed because it’s the opposite of clarity. Dharma provides this clarity. 

To contemplate this final and profound thought means that we begin to turn away from the ignorance of samsara into the wisdom of our lives, which will lead us to liberation from samsara. 

We do this together, using our collective wisdom to be agents of liberation both for ourselves and each other. 

Register today for this exclusive opportunity to sit and learn from Lama Rod Owens

The Four Thoughts: Turning Our Minds To The Dharma is a unique opportunity to work with a Buddhist teacher whose lived experience and wisdom through teaching couldn’t be more valuable right now.

Sitting with Lama Rod will be an experience to treasure beyond the four weeks of the course. His vulnerable, open and gentle teaching will bring you to the point of calm acceptance that is sure to have a profound effect on your life.

Take advantage of the chance to interact with and ask questions to Lama Rod and secure your place for the course start on 15th September.

Live Online Course Details

4 Hours of recorded video teachings

Filmed in high definition with only you in mind, having an intimate and personal feel that will keep you engaged as your body, mind and heart tune in. Released each Tuesday during the course starting September 15th at 9am PDT, 12pm EDT, 5pm UK, 6pm EU

Guided Visualisation Practices

Lama Rod offers guided visualisations throughout the course to support you in integrating the teachings.

4 Live video sessions

Join Lama Rod live each Sunday during the course for a unique opportunity to connect and ask questions about your practice

30-day money-back guarantee

If you're unsatisfied with the course for any reason, please contact us within 30 days of purchase for a full refund.

Schedule

Dates

Course launch: 15 September
Interactive 1: 20 September
Interactive 2: 27 September
Interactive 3: 4 October
Interactive 4: 11 October

Times

9am PDT, 12pm EDT, 5pm UK, 6pm EU
9am PDT, 12pm EDT, 5pm UK, 6pm EU
9am PDT, 12pm EDT, 5pm UK, 6pm EU
9am PDT, 12pm EDT, 5pm UK, 6pm EU
9am PDT, 12pm EDT, 5pm UK, 6pm EU

About Lama Rod Owens

Lama Rod Owens is a Buddhist minister, author, activist, yoga instructor and authorized Lama, or Buddhist teacher, in the Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism and is considered one of the leaders of his generation of Buddhist teachers. He holds a Master of Divinity degree in Buddhist Studies from Harvard Divinity School and is a co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation. Owens is the co-founder of Bhumisparsha, a Buddhist tantric practice and study community. Has been published in Buddhadharma, Lion’s Roar, Tricycle and The Harvard Divinity Bulletin, and offers talks, retreats and workshops in more than seven countries.