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In-Depth Meditation Course for Experienced Practitioners: Year 3 Term 2 (February – April 2026)
In-Depth Meditation Training
An apportunity to put the teachings into practice and deepen your meditative experience and understanding, through the guidance of experienced meditator and teacher Venerable Losang Gendun.
Course Details
🗣️ With Venerable Losang Gendun
- 📅 Saturdays 7 Feb – 18 April
- 🕕 3:30 – 6:00 PM
- 🏠 Online
About This Course – Year 3 – The Radiant Ground: Emptiness and Buddha Nature.
This year’s journey will weave together the profound view of Madhyamaka, as presented by Nāgārjuna and his successors, with the compassionate vision of Tathāgatagarbha, the Buddha-nature teachings that reveal our deepest potential for awakening. Far from abstract philosophy, these teachings offer a radical reorientation of how we perceive ourselves and the world — pointing us beyond habitual grasping to a space of clarity, openness, and profound compassion.
Having cultivated the foundational practices of shamatha and vipashyana in the first year and explored Yogācāra’s profound psychology of ignorance and awakening in the second, we now turn to the very heart of Tibetan Buddhism: the nature of emptiness and the luminous potential that resides within every living being. Guiding us in this exploration will be core texts from India and Tibet. Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā will serve as a central pillar, systematically dismantling the illusions of inherent existence. In dialogue with this, we’ll study Kamalashīla’s Stages of Meditation, a practical and accessible map for cultivating deep meditative insight grounded in the view of emptiness.
Balancing the radical freedom of Madhyamaka, we will encounter the warmth and encouragement of Maitreya’s Ratnagotravibhāga, a poetic illumination of the Buddha-nature within all beings. These teachings remind us that beyond confusion and conditioning, there is a basic goodness that has never been lost. To ground these profound insights in daily life, we will also study the beloved text of Geshe Chekawa Yeshe Dorje, The Seven Points of Mind Training. With its pithy slogans and deeply practical tone, it offers tools for transforming adversity and cultivating bodhicitta on and off the cushion.
Throughout the year, our study and practice will be enriched by meditative teachings from both the Pāli and Sanskrit sūtra traditions, inviting a direct and experiential understanding of emptiness — not as a concept, but as a liberating shift in perception. This year is an invitation to let the view of emptiness infuse your practice — not as abstract philosophy, but as living experience: clear, liberating, and rooted in compassion. Our aim is not to gather concepts, but to transform how we see and relate to the world. Through study, reflection, and meditation, we learn to meet life with less grasping, more openness — and a heart that naturally responds with wisdom and care, held by the strength of community.
The Buddha Project
This meditation course is part of The Buddha Project led by Ven. Losang Gendun, a branch of which is the Buddha Research Project, an on-going collaboration between Buddhist contemplatives and scientific researchers from the universities of Nîmes and Lausanne, and the Mind & Life organization (founded by neuroscientist Francesco Varela in collaboration with H.H. the Dalai Lama). It is aimed at investigating transformative processes in long-term meditators, regarding such topics as mental health, perception, and self-transcendence. For the initial research it has been granted a European Varela Award.
Introduction to the IDMT training
Meditation is essential for personal transformation and a crucial complement to Buddhist studies. This 4-year online course provides students with long term, in-depth support in their meditative development. This weekly course will offer:
- Authentic traditional instructions, in contemporary language, aimed at providing a comprehensive set of meditation tools for students to transform their knowledge of the Dharma into personal experience.
- Traditional and modern theories on supplementary topics such as models of healthy psychological and spiritual development, ritual, narrative, ethics, and social engagement.
- An international community of meditators, online and live.
To complement the IDMT course we will also offer:
- Meditation Retreats – week & weekend retreats on vipassana, compassion, and mahamudra, offered both at the centers and online.
- Yogi Bootcamp – an intensive, guided, 1-year meditation training with weekly personal interviews (call) for a small group of international students.
- Practice days guided by Ven. Gendun and experienced students of Ven. Gendun
- Weekly reflection sessions, led by experienced students
- Weekends with the opportunity to receive Refuge / Lay Vows, Aspiring Bodhisattva Vows and Engaging Bodhisattva Vows
For more information about the content of the course, download the course description (PDF) here. This course is a collaboration between 5 FPMT Buddhist centers: Shantideva Center New York (US), Jamyang Buddhist Centre Leeds (UK), Institut Vajrayogini in Marzens (FR), Yeshin Norbu Stockholm (SW) and Maitreya Instituut (NL) and therefore the course will be attended by an international group of Buddhist practitioners. If you’re enrolling later on in the course, it is possible to request access to recordings of previous classes. Practical details The In-Depth Meditation Training runs weekly on Saturdays and consists of about 1-hour of guided meditation and 1,5 hours of teachings. The course offers a great opportunity for Buddhist practitioners. In the first year many of the foundational topics will be introduced, however a basic understanding of Mahayana Buddhism is a prerequisite to attend. It will be given in English, with French translation, online via Zoom. The recordings will be made available after the sessions.
Practical information and how to register:
- Course dates: 7 Feb – 18 April
- Weekday: Saturdays
- Time: 15:30-18:00 European Central Timezone
- Language: English
- Location: Online (zoom link will be sent after registration)
- Donation: drop in 250 SEK, term 2500 SEK, 4 times pass 800 SEK
- Last day of registration: you can join any time
Your Teacher
Venerable Losang Gendun has dedicated nearly four decades to practicing Buddhism and has served as a Bhikshu (Buddhist monk) in the Tibetan tradition for the past 18 years. Prior to his ordination, he worked in diverse fields such as palliative care, technology, refugee organizations, and commercial management. His extensive training includes ten years of studying Buddhist philosophy and practice in monasteries across France, India, Nepal, and Myanmar. Additionally, he spent over four years in retreat, immersing himself in Tibetan sutra and tantra, as well as the Burmese Theravada Forest Tradition. For the last 15 years, Ven. Gendun has been a dedicated teacher, sharing his knowledge of Buddhist philosophy, psychology, and meditation worldwide. He serves the aspirations of H.H. the Dalai Lama and Lama Zopa Rinpoche as part of the FPMT (Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition). Ven. Gendun is also a member of Mind & Life Europe, a multidisciplinary laboratory that brings together researchers and contemplative practitioners to explore the nature of experience. Beyond his Buddhist affiliations, Ven. Gendun serves as an interreligious canon at the Peace Cathedral in Tbilisi, Georgia, and feels at home at a Mevlavi Sufi dargah in Istanbul. In 2023, he founded The Buddha Project, which engages in long-term guidance for Buddhist meditators, scientific research, art projects, and intercontemplative social engagement.
