ISPP Continuation Module – Living Together in Harmony

Instructor(s): Andrew Olendzki, Mu Soeng

Program Description:

Most of us are familiar with the Buddha’s basic guidelines for virtuous living, that is, the five precepts. But the teachings also offer precise guidelines for skillful and healthy communication, for resolving disagreements, for giving and receiving feedback. In addition, the Suttas describe or outline what makes for happy people and point to how we ourselves can realize such happiness. In this program we will examine several such suttas and reflect on how we as human beings can use the practice and the teachings to more successfully live together in harmony. The program is an ISPP Continuation Module for alumni of the Integrated Study and Practice program, and will include meditation practice, lecture and discussion, Dhamma talks, and small group discussion.

About the Instructor(s):
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  Andrew Olendzki

  Andrew Olendzki, Ph.D., is a Buddhist scholar, teacher, and writer living in Amherst, Massachusetts. Trained at Lancaster University (UK), the University of Sri Lanka (Perediniya), and Harvard, he was the first executive director at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA, and went on to lead and teach at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies for almost twenty-five years. He has also taught at numerous New England colleges (including Amherst, Brandeis, Connecticut, Hampshire, Harvard, Lesley, Montserrat, and Smith colleges), spent two years at the Mind & Life Institute heading up their Mapping the Mind project, and has been a longtime member of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy. Andrew has contributed chapters to many books on Buddhist psychology, writes regularly for Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, and is the author of Unlimiting Mind: The radically experiential psychology of Buddhism (Wisdom, 2010) and Untangling Self: A Buddhist Investigation of Who We Really Are (Wisdom, 2016). He is currently creating and teaching a number of online programs as the senior scholar of the Integrated Dharma Institute, and is Professor and Director of Mindfulness Studies at Lesley University.

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  Mu Soeng

  Mu Soeng is Scholar Emeritus at BCBS. He trained in the (Korean) Zen tradition and was a monk for eleven years. He is the author of Thousand Peaks: Korean Zen (Tradition and Teachers); The Diamond Sutra: Transforming the Way We Perceive the World; Trust in Mind: The Rebellion of Chinese Zen; The Heart of the Universe: Exploring the Heart Sutra, and co-author of Older and Wiser: Classical Buddhist Teachings on Aging, Sickness, and Death.