By most accounts, The Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi is an innovative thinker, a philosopher educator, a philanthropist, a polymath and a monk. He is the Founding Director of The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a center dedicated to inquiry, dialogue, and education on the ethical and humane dimensions of life. As a collaborative and nonpartisan think tank, its programs emphasize responsibility and examine meaningfulness and moral purpose between individuals, organizations, and societies. The Center at MIT has 6 Nobel Peace Laureates as its founding members and its programs run in 8 countries and expanding. Venerable Tenzin’s unusual background encompasses entering a Buddhist monastery at the age of 10 years to receiving graduate education at Harvard with degrees ranging from Philosophy to Physics to International Relations.
He is also Director of the Ethics Initiative at MIT Media Lab and a Director’s Fellow there, as well as a Tribeca Disruptive Fellow.
Venerable Tenzin serves on the Board of several academic, humanitarian, and religious organizations. He is a recipient of several recognitions and awards, including a 2013 Distinguished Alumni Award from Harvard for his visionary contributions to humanity.
A Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment
(Sanskrit. Bodhipathpradipam) was composed by the renowned Indian master Atisha Dipankara Shrijnana. This text briefly explains the importance of the Buddhist path and how one can attain higher births and enlightenment through the cultivation of Bodhichitta. This set of teachings was precursor to the Lamrim (“Stages of the Path”) tradition compiled by the famed Tibetan teacher Tsong-khapa in the 14th Century.
Acharya Atisha is credited with transmitting the lineage on Mind Training (Tib. Lojong) practices which he studied in Java and Sumatra. He remains perhaps the most important connection between the Buddhist traditions that was once prevalent in the islands of Indonesia to India and Tibet. Atisha taught at the Vikramshila monastic university prior to accepting an invitation to teach in Tibet. He made major contributions to Buddhist literature and helped reform Buddhism in Tibet.
