Friday Night Lectures
Class details
📆 When: One Friday each month, 7:30pm - 9pm
📍 Where: Jangchub Ling Centre
👨🏫 Teacher: Gen Kelsang Khechog
🎟️ £0. This class is included in your membership - just turn up.
Exploring Buddhist Thought Together
Our Friday Night Lectures offer a unique opportunity to enjoy a lively evening of debate and discussion around Buddhist subjects.
In these lectures we explore and question various Buddhist topics with our Resident Teacher Gen Kelsang Khechog, who will be reading from Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso's books. We explore if, and why, these concepts are relevant for our busy modern lives.
Questions?
Upcoming class topics
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Buddhists believe that the Buddha’s teachings, known as Dharma, describe the true, or ultimate, nature of reality. To suit the differing dispositions and capacities of living beings, the Buddha presented this truth in many ways. At their heart, these teachings point to a singular insight: the world we experience is created by mind. From a Buddhist perspective, everything begins and ends with the mind: all experiences and phenomena arise from mind, including the appearance of the entire universe, and nothing exists independently of it. This radical and distinctive view has benefited Buddhist practitioners for thousands of years.
Among philosophical traditions, Buddha’s ultimate worldview is unique, offering clarity, purpose, and meaning in everyday life. Kadampa Buddhism presents these teachings in a particularly practical and accessible way, as they accord with ordinary experience and cannot be separated from daily life. However, Buddha’s ultimate worldview is subtle and challenging, requiring considerable good fortune and wisdom to understand correctly.
In this Friday Night Lecture, Gen Kelsang Khechog will introduce this profound subject, offering guidance on how we can begin to understand it. We will also explore together how to aply this understanding to personal difficulties and to the broader problems facing the modern world.
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Buddhism teaches that our experiences are not random, but arise from causes we ourselves create. This principle, known as karma, explains how our intentions, actions, and habitual ways of thinking shape both our present circumstances and our future experiences. Rather than a system of fate or reward and punishment, karma describes a natural law of cause and effect operating in dependence upon the mind.
Understanding karma is empowering because it shows that genuine change is possible. By recognising how everyday thoughts and actions create future experiences, we gain practical methods for transforming daily problems into opportunities for growth. Difficult situations are no longer seen as fixed or meaningless, but as conditions we can work with intelligently, using them to cultivate patience, compassion, and wisdom.
At the same time, the Buddhist explanation of karma opens a direct path to spiritual development and to securing the happiness of future lives. The very process of transforming ordinary daily activities becomes the spiritual path itself, gradually shaping a future characterised by ever greater freedom. In this talk, we will explore together how understanding karma allows our everyday life to become both meaningful in the present moment and the path to lasting future happiness.
Questions?
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- These classes are included in membership
- Block booking discounts available
- Refreshments included
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Our classes have three parts:
Guided meditation
Every class (except for ‘Friday Night Lectures’) includes a chance to practise meditation. No prior experience is necessary and all the meditations are guided.
Teaching
From Buddha’s teachings, these practical talks help us to solve our daily problems and find peace, happiness and, if we wish, a deeper purpose in our busy lives.
Discussion
A chance to discuss the topic of the talk and meditation with others during the break over refreshments. No one is ever ‘put on the spot’ and asked to talk in a class. The teacher will normally make time for questions, and will be happy to clarify any points during the class too.
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Yes. Courses cover a wide variety of topics from simple stress reduction to profound wisdom teachings, but are always taught in an accessible way such that everyone leaves with some practical insight they can use in daily life.
One exception to this is our monthly ‘Tantra’ class. Please see the Tantra class page for details.
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No. People from all backgrounds attend JLC to find peace according to their own individual needs and wishes. Everybody is welcome.
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No special clothing is needed. Our courses do not include any physical exercise and most people choose to sit on chairs, though cushions are also set out for those who prefer to sit on the floor.
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Other than removing shoes before going in to the meditation room (they can be worn as normal elsewhere) and turning phones off during session, there are no special rules to follow. People are always very pleasantly surprised with just how informal, welcoming and down to earth Jangchub Ling is; you’ll feel right at home in no time.
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Walk-ins are very welcome. You can pay on arrival (cash/card) or book online in advance. Block booking discounts are available.
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Centre members can access several of our classes online and we hope to offer online courses in the future too. Please see our ‘membership’ page for a list of online classes.