ENTERING THE INCONCEIVABLE
A 12-month epic study of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra
Meets the First Tuesday of the month

Nov 5, 2024 -  Oct 7, 2025
9:00am – 11:00am (Pacific) via Zoom

 

Tuition: Sliding scale ($800 to $600)

Includes:
- Twelve 2-hour class sessions (live on-line, and available as recording afterwards)
- Over 80 hours of downloadable audio files of the sutra recitation, separated into chapters.
- Access to text versions of the sutra
- Extensive bibliographic notes, papers, and articles   

 

DESCRIPTION

The Avataṃsaka Sūtra, also known as the ‘Flower Adornment’ Sutra, is a very large sutra known of since the first centuries of the Common Era, considered by many to be the pinnacle of all Buddhist literature. It is hard to summarize its contents and, if you are not familiar with Mahāyāna Buddhist texts, the presentation can be utterly baffling. Given the size (about 2000 pages in English), complexity, and utterly bizarre nature of this sutra, it requires a great deal of time, dedication, and focus to enter the inconceivable realms it describes.  

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This course is based on a recitation of the sutra recorded by M.C. Owens. The sutra is divided into 39 chapters, many of which are famous sutras unto themselves, and the chapters are then further grouped into nine ‘assemblies’. Assemblies range from 9 to 27 hours long, and the entire recitation of the sutra is over 80 hours.        

 

Study sessions will be held on-line via Zoom the first Tuesday of the month starting at 9:00AM (Pacific). The majority of each session will be a discussion of the ideas and themes in the chapters from that month’s assembly, and will end with a preparatory overview of the next assembly. The ninth and final assembly, the famous Gaṇḍavyūha Sutra, will be covered in two sessions.

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Register here

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