Nurturing Compassion

His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, heads the 900-year-old Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. He guides millions of Buddhists around the world. At the age of 14, he made a dramatic escape from Tibet to India to be near His Holiness the Dalai Lama and his own lineage teachers. Currently 29 years old, the Karmapa created an eco-monastic movement with over 55 monasteries across the Himalayan region becoming centres of green activism. He recently announced plans to establish full ordination for women, a step that will change the future of Tibetan Buddhism.

GROUND-BREAKING TRIP, GROUND-BREAKING TEACHINGS

"Actually, you are the Buddha. Not such an effective buddha, perhaps, but... a buddha, a small Buddha... We need to nurture our inner Buddha, our child Buddha."


- The 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje





In this series of teachings given during his first-ever visit to Europe, His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, provided a stunning demonstration of what it means to live and teach with an open heart. The Karmapa shared his own life experiences and the feelings they awakened in him, reflecting on his own process of finding meaning in life. Even though he was addressing massive audiences in convention centres, the youthful Buddhist leader spoke as if conversing with close friends. The result is heart-based and comes direct with the freshness of experience.


The teachings contained in this book issue a clarion call, urging us each to find the meaning of our own life as we take up the responsibility for the world we all live in. To do so, the Karmapa assures us, we need only nurture the seeds of compassion that we all have within us.