Stories of Kindness: Jataka Tales and Q&A with Venerable Losang Gendun

Tuesdays & Thursdays, Sep 8, 15, 17, 22, 24, 29 & Oct 1, 3-5pm EDT

IN-PERSON & ONLINE

shantidevanyc.org/gendun-jatakas-sep26/

Join us for an informal and engaging session with Venerable Gendun as he shares some favorite jataka tales and offers an extended Q&A session for students. On the night of his awakening, the Buddha went through a series of transformational stages, one of which was the spontaneous recollection of past lives. While for him this was a mark of accomplishment, a siddhi, later these stories of past lives were used by the Buddha and others as instructional fables for those on the path. Their engaging quality spawned a whole genre of South Asian literature, the beloved jataka tales. Jatakas were important to early Buddhists and a separate class of oral reciters (jataka-bhanaka) preserved their transmission. For us, they provide an engaging and intuitive way to grasp important points of Buddhist ethics, outlook, and practice.