Recordings and Past Events

Please join us on Saturday, April 19, 2025 from 10am to 12pm MT USA for the OQ Live Conversation: “Diligence: The Joyful Endeavor of the Buddhist Path” with Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel and Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche. 

During this live event with Rinpoche, Elizabeth will engage her root teacher in a conversation about diligence and its relationship to joy. Rinpoche will discuss his new book on this topic, which was published in November 2024 with Shambhala Publications.

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Recordings are available for event registrants in English and Portuguese simulcast translation. The free access code has been sent via email to everyone who registered for the live event. Please check your email.

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Lojong is the Tibetan word for mind training. It is a tried and true process of bringing clarity to the way we understand and experience the interdependence between our mind and its world. As clarity increases through Lojong, our capacity to create harmony in our relationships grows, and our spiritual life helps us gracefully navigate the uncertainty of life.

For this program, Dungse Jampal Namgyel and Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel, will join forces to share their enthusiasm for the Lojong teachings, which will include teachings, guided meditations and lively conversation. This program will be held at Phuntsok Choling in Ward, CO, and online. 

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Recordings are available for event registrants in English and Portuguese simulcast translation. The free access code has been sent via email to everyone who registered for the live event. Please check your email.

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We are very happy to announce that on August 31, 2024, from 7pm to 9pm (Brazil time) Lama Elizabeth will offer online teachings on "The Liberating Practice of Looking and Not Finding". The event will have simultaneous translation into Portuguese, and everyone is very welcome to participate in this event. This event has the collaboration between MWI, MSB Brasil, Paz & Mente Brasil, O Lugar and is supported by Lúcida Letras.

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Recordings are available for event registrants in English and Portuguese simulcast translation. The free access code has been sent via email to everyone who registered for the live event. Please check your email.

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During this weekend Elizabeth will guide us through the annual MSB 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.

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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 for the Dilgo Khyentse Fellowship/Shechen 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."

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Recordings are available for event registrants in English and Portuguese simulcast translation. The free access code has been sent via email to everyone who registered for the live event. Please check your email.

Open Question LIVE Conversation, "Faith: Seeking Refuge" Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel and Traleg Khandro.

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.

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Recordings are available for event registrants in English and Portuguese simulcast translation. The free access code has been sent to you via email.

During this intimate and precious time with Rinpoche, Elizabeth engaged her root teacher in a conversation about Bodhicitta and how we can cultivate healthy interdependence with our world. In particular, she asked Rinpoche to talk about ‘lhenchak,’ or karmic debt, which refers to the often unexplainable, sticky relationships in which we find ourselves caught.

Recordings are available for event registrants in English and Portuguese simulcast translation. The free access code has been sent to you via email.

“The Two Truths”  is one of the most essential topics of the Middle Way tradition. Jakob Leschly returns as Elizabeth’s guest on OQ LIVE to help illuminate this subject with his characteristic lightness and humor.

Com tradução simultânea para o português, feita pela querida professora Denise Kato.

Lama Elizabeth nos conduzirá por uma exploração sobre a natureza do vazio por meio de ensinamentos, contemplações e diálogos calorosos.z

Por favor, junte-se a nós! Toda a renda desse evento será 100% destinada a Lama Elizabeth e seus projetos.

This event is hosted from Brazil with Portuguese as the primary language.    Elizabeth’s teaching will be available to listen to in English.

Lama Elizabeth will engage us in an exploration of the nature of emptiness through teaching, contemplation and lively dialogue.

Recordings
Recordings are available for event registrants in English and Portuguese simulcast translation. The free access code has been sent to you via email. Andy Karr is our next guest.  Andy has a special gift for diving into challenging topics and making them clear, without watering down their meaning.  We are looking forward to talking with him about the meaning of views, his upcoming book, and the historical evolution of the Middle Way Path.

With unflinching candor, deep appreciation, and the passion of bodhicitta, Kongtrul Rinpoche, Dungse Jampal Norbu, and Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel each present different aspects of the three-yana path during this nine day program. Learn more >>

If someone were to ask you, “What did the Buddha teach?” it would be accurate to say, “The Middle Way.” But what is that, exactly? We may assume “Middle Way” refers to moderation or maintaining a neutral position on an issue. But there is nothing neutral about the practice of the Middle Way. It is a way of being that is awake, responsive, and discerning.

Registration Open for The Middle Way – Opening the World of Creative Possibilities. Online June 10-11, 2023.

Khyentse Vision Project is delighted to present a special upcoming event to celebrate the Birth of the Buddha on 26 May: APPROACHING THE VIEW – a Conversation between Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel & Jakob Leschly.

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Did you miss registering for the live event? You can purchase access to the recording.

Recordings are posted to The Middle Initiative website at:
https://www.middlewayinitiative.org/recording-confronted-by-wisdom

The relationship we have with our self is arguably the most intimate relationship in our life, and one most of us grapple with. In the Buddha’s Middle Way tradition, the practice of looking and not finding the self is one of the most liberating and surprising aspects of the path. Curiously, the clarity that emerges from searching for a self guides our understanding of “what it truly means to be our self!”

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Did you miss registering for the live event? You can purchase access to the recording.

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Watch the recording of an Open Question Conversation “Haunted Ground? Sacred World?” with Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel and Anam Thubten Rinpoche. This event is a 2 hour Zoom that includes audience discussion and Q&A. The program is in English with Portuguese simulcast translation.

When people talk about the world as sacred, it often sounds like they are living in a deep state of denial. War, destruction, and natural disaster seem integral to human experience. Even when we sit in meditation, we sometimes feel pummeled by our own thoughts and emotions. What is sacred about that? And yet, we have the capacity to experience the world with tremendous depth, compassion, and courage.

Sacred world, in the context of buddhadharma, comes from broadening our capacity to go beyond our dualistic tendencies – the tendencies to brace against suffering and try to manufacture happiness. The teachings on sacred world begin with the Buddha’s most foundational teachings and run through every aspect of Buddhist wisdom.

Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel invites you to the next Open Question Conversation with artist and practitioner Cynthia Moku.

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This event is the fourth of The Middle Way Initiative's 2022 live series, "Open Question Conversations: Sacred World- Through the Eyes of Prajnaparamita." Each event is a 2 hour Zoom event with audience discussion plus Q&A. The program is in English with Portuguese simulcast translation.

This online retreat is hosted by the Wilderness Dharma Movement. It will be led by Anam Thubten and Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel, who will be teaching a Chöd practice based on their translation of the text “The Roar of the Dakini’s Laughter” by Jigme Lingpa. They will offer the lung (transmission) of the practice during the retreat.

Requirements

To join the retreat, participants must have completed at least one third of a Vajrayana ngondro. You will be asked to give details of your ngondro practice upon registration.

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Recordings of the August 13, 2022 conversation with Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel and Judith Simmer Brown. In English with Portuguese translation.

We continued our query into the topic of Prajnaparmita with scholar, practitioner and author, Judith Simmer-Brown. Judith introduced us to the phrase, “The Space in Between,” which is how her teacher, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, described the Feminine Principle in Buddhism.

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Recordings for Open Question Conversations: Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel and Greg Seton. Due to technical issues, the Zoom recordings from the June 18 event are not available. Instead, the session "Unlocking the Meaning of Words” is being offered from the Heart Sutra Retreat (Dec 2021). Free access for those who registered for the event (free code provided in your registration information). For assistance contact Tina: coordinator@middlewayinitiative.org.

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/openquestion2

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We often think of the bodhisattva path as a path of increasing compassion and tenderness. This is true. However, it is also a path of cultivating courage, learning how to set healthy boundaries, and developing a fierce determination to serve others that transcends the story of “I am good.” The bodhisattva path trains us to step up with unshakeable confidence and make ourselves big enough for our world.

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Join us online for this unique opportunity to hear Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel teach on what it means to enter a lineage. Lineage is an important part of human existence and culture. In the context of Buddhism, lineage keeps us within the boundary of our intention to connect with our innate wisdom.

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Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel and Dr Ben Isbel will discuss dementia and end of life care for Buddhists based upon Elizabeth’s experience of caring for her mother, a long-term Buddhist practitioner who currently has dementia.

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The Middle Way Initiative is offering recordings in English and Portuguese for the first of the 2022 teaching series, "Sacred World: Through the Eyes of Prajnaparamita." On April 23, Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel and Jakob Leschly (Siddhartha Intent Australia) engaged in a 2 hour conversation entitled "Confidence in the Grace of Openness." RECORDING PRICE: $25 (USD)

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