Teaching, Translating and Publishing Buddhism for the 21st Century
THE SWORD OF WISDOM or BODHISATTVA NINJA TRAINING
New 8-week course on the Suṣṭhitamati Devaputra Sūtra
Tuesday evenings, 7:00 - 8:30pm (Pacific)
May 19th - July 7th, 2026
Tuition: Sliding scale ($400 to $300)
All Classes are held live on Zoom with recordings available for participants afterwards
There are some stories that stay hidden, waiting for the right reader to find them. In the vast Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra collection there is one such forgotten treasure: a sutra that slips in and out of the shadows of history. Long ago, when it was translated into Chinese in the 3rd century CE, it was called The Illusion-Like Samādhi Sūtra. Centuries later, when it was first translated into English in 1983, it was given the provocative title, “How to Kill with the Sword of Wisdom.” But its most enduring title is Suṣṭhitamati Devaputra—the name of the bodhisattva at the heart of this adventure, a young god named 'Well-Abiding Mind.'
Suṣṭhitamati is not a warrior with armor, but a hero with questions. Drawn into a mind-bending encounter with Mañjuśrī, the bodhisattva of wisdom, the devaputra discovers that the real battlefield is perception itself. Mañjuśrī appears bearing the legendary Sword of Wisdom, and with it reveals the 'Invisibility Samādhi': a meditative superpower that does not hide the body so much as dissolve the habit of clinging to fixed appearances, fixed identities, and the relentless grip of concepts.
This course follows that arc of Suṣṭhitamati's transformation. We begin with a mysterious, easily misunderstood 'superpower,' and end by recognizing what is always already true: the freedom of mind that comes from nondual wisdom. Rather than treating the Invisibility Samādhi as mere story or myth, we will explore how it functions as emptiness in practice—an insight that stands at the heart of Vajrayāna, and finds a fierce, lived expression in Tibetan Chöd.
MĀDHYAMIKA: THE MIDDLE WAY
New 8-week course on the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā
Thursday mornings, 8:30am - 10:00pm (Pacific)
June 4th - July 30th, 2026*
Tuition: Sliding scale ($400 to $300)
All Classes are held live on Zoom with recordings available for participants afterwards
This course is an overview of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (“Root Verses on the Middle Way”), a famously difficult poem by Nāgārjuna written around the 2nd Century CE that articulates the Mādhyamika understanding of emptiness based on the Buddha’s teaching of dependent origination. At first the verses can feel like a series of locked doors, mainly because they are a rebuttal to the metaphysical assumptions of early Abhidharma schools, including the Sarvāstivādans and Sautrāntikas, and without that background Nāgārjuna’s sharp refutations seem to strike at nothing. The purpose of this course is to cut through the obscuring rhetoric and reveal the text's essential concepts with down-to-earth “real world” examples, turning locks into keys. We will read several chapters closely, comparing multiple English translations from Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese, and you will be encouraged to reimagine the verses using your own terms and examples.
*No class July 2nd
BUDDHISM IN TRANSLATION: practices for everyday life
Online Class @SFDC Sunday nights
7:00pm - 8:30pm San Francisco Dharma Collective
What is Buddhism, and why does it look so different in different places? How did the teachings of the Buddha travel across the world and evolve within various cultures? How are they evolving today, here and now? This class brings together wisdom from Buddhist texts, historical perspectives from across Buddhist traditions, and practical experiences of life to shed light on these and other relevant questions.
Every Sunday evening, we will examine key Buddhist ideas and practices and explore major Buddhist schools and their diverse expressions. Through dharma talks, open discussions and close readings, we will consider what it means to translate not only texts, but traditions, grappling with the challenge of making sense of the many different Buddhisms that exist today and what they mean in our modern lives.
This class is by donation and open to all! More information available HERE
Video recordings of past courses are now available for order
Course descriptions available here
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