Geshe Thupten Dorjee, a highly educated Tibetan Buddhist monk, will give a public Dharma talk at 7:00 pm, Tuesday October 10, at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Fayetteville, 901 West Cleveland Street.  Sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Buddhist Fellowship, this talk is free and open to the interested public.  The talk will include a demonstration of Tibetan polyphonic chanting as well as a teaching.

Geshe-la was born Sonam Palden in Tibet during the Chinese Communist invasion of 1959. He and his family escaped to Bhutan from occupied Tibet when he was three. Much of Geshe-la’s early life was spent in a refugee camp in Bhutan with other Tibetan exiles. Unfortunately, most members of his family died while there due to the poor living conditions and lack of medical care. After 8 years, Geshe-la and his family journeyed south and settled in Southern India. At the age of 13, Geshe-la entered Drepung Loseling Monastery in Karmataka, South India. Over the next 22 years, Geshe-la made a thorough study of the vast Buddhist scriptures. He was ordained a Buddhist monk by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 1986; and in 1994, he received the degree of Geshe Lhatampa, the highest scholastic honor available in the rigorous Tibetan educational system.

For more detailed biographies of Geshe-la and his student, Rinzin Dorjee, see http://www.nwabuddhist.info/geshe/.  For more information about the Unitarian Universalist Buddhist Fellowship, visit http://buddhist.fayettevilleunitarian.org/