Avatamsaka
Sutra Summer Program
Speaker Profiles
The instructors include monastic and lay
faculty from the Dharma Realm Buddhist University.
Coming from a variety of cultural backgrounds,
they offer a blend of Western and Eastern
views and teaching philosophies.
Week One
Chin He Shr (pinyin: Qin
He Shi) is a Sramanera (novice monk). Born
in Spain, after receiving a Ph.D. in Chemistry,
he came to the United States in 1997 to pursue
postdoctoral studies at Lawrence Berkeley
National Lab. One year later he came upon
Buddhism and discovered that it offered a
very profound view of life, and a methodology
to live it meaningfully. After working in
Japan for three years and traveling extensively
in Asia, in 2004 he decided to adventure into
the Buddhist monastic life at CTTB. He still
considers himself a researcher, only that
now he has gone deeper and broadened his field
of interest.
Douglas Powers holds an
M.A. in theology and philosophy from the Graduate
Theological Union, and a B.A. and M.A. from
the University of Redlands. He teaches part-time
at the Graduate Theological Union and serves
as regular facilitator at roundtable discussions
with young adults in Berkeley Buddhist Monastery.
As a practicing Buddhist and high school teacher
for over thirty years, he has the ability
to explain the Dharma in a way that connects
with modern young adults.
Week Two
Rev. Heng Sure was ordained
as a Buddhist monk in 1976. For the sake of
world peace, he undertook an over six hundred
mile pilgrimage from South Pasadena to Ukiah,
repeatedly taking three steps and one bow
to cover the entire journey. In the entire
two years taken to make the pilgrimage, he
observed a practice of total silence. Rev.
Heng Sure has an M.A. in Oriental Languages
from UC Berkeley, and is currently a Ph.D.
candidate at the Graduate Theological Union
in Berkeley. He serves as the Managing Director
of the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery and teaches
on the staff at the Institute for World Religions.
He is actively involved in interfaith dialogue
and in the ongoing conversation between spirituality
and technology.
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