Who is Shenpen Hookham?

Lama Shenpen Hookham, the Principal Teacher of Discovering the Heart of Buddhism, is a Buddhist teacher who has trained for over 40 years in the Mahamudra & Dzogchen traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. Lama Shenpen has spent over 12 years in retreat and for the past 30 years has been a student of Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, one of the foremost living masters of the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.

Lama Shenpen is fluent in Tibetan and has translated a number of Tibetan texts into English for her students. On Khenpo Rinpoches instructions she produced a seminal study of the profound Buddha Nature doctrines of Mahayana Buddhism, published as The Buddha Within, and gained a doctorate in this from Oxford University. She is also the author of Theres More to Dying than Death.

Since then, Khenpo Rinpoche and Lama Rigdzin Shikpo have encouraged Shenpen to develop her teaching activity further. Thus she created Discovering the Heart of Buddhism over a period of more than seven years. Students inspired by her teaching formed the Awakened Heart Sangha, a spiritual community under her direction.

Lama Shenpen now spends most of her time in semi-retreat at the Hermitage of the Awakened Heart, in Wales, UK. From there she comes out regularly to teach, as well as giving interviews and advice to students in person and over the phone, by letter and by email.

Tell me more about Lama Shenpen and her teachers

Lama Shenpen Hookham is the Principal Teacher of Discovering the Heart of Buddhism.

In the 1970s, on the advice of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, she went to India where she lived among the Tibetans as a nun for six years. There she studied and meditated in retreat under the guidance of Tibetan teachers such as Karma Thinley Rinpoche, Bokar Rinpoche and Kalu Rinpoche. In 1978 His Holiness, the 16th Karmapa, head of the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, instructed her to return to the West to teach Mahamudra.

There she met Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche ,currently in retreat, is one of the foremost living teachers of the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, a great scholar and master of meditation who traveled the world teaching in Buddhism centres everywhere. In his late teens and early twenties he trained as a yogin in Tibet with a local yogin known as Zopa Tharchin, who was later killed by the Chinese. He spent his early youth in retreat in the mountains until his teacher told him to study for the benefit of others. A renowned scholar, he excels in philosophical debate and always aims to turn the minds of his opponents and students towards their own inner experience rather than getting lost in intellectual fabrications. After the Chinese invasion of Tibet Khenpo Rinpoche fled to India in 1960. He spent many years in Bhutan as a wandering yogin, meditating in caves and hermitages. In 1975 he was asked by the head of the Kagyu tradition to come and be Abbot of the main Kagyu centre in the West, in France. However he asked instead to be allowed to travel and help people everywhere.

More:
Buddhism Connect | Discovering the Heart of Buddhism