Hookham, S.

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Shenpen Hookham

Lama Shenpen Hookham is the founding Lama of the Awakened Heart Sangha and principle teacher of the Living the Awakened Heart training.

Lama Shenpen has trained for over 50 years in the Mahamudra & Dzogchen traditions of Tibetan Buddhism.

She has spent over 12 years in retreat and has been a student of Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, one of the foremost living masters of the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, since the late 70s.

Lama Shenpen is fluent in Tibetan and has translated a number of Tibetan texts into English for her students. On Khenpo Rinpoche’s instructions she produced a seminal study of the profound Buddha Nature doctrines of Mahayana Buddhism, published as The Buddha Within, and gained a doctorate in this from Oxford University. She is also the author of There’s More to Dying than Death, Keeping the Dalai Lama Waiting and Other Stories, and The Guru Principle.(Source Accessed July 21, 2020)

Library Items

Buddha Nature Across Asia
The tathāgatagarbha or buddha nature doctrine is centered on sentient beings’ potential for buddhahood—sometimes understood in the sense that all beings already contain a “buddha within.” This notion is found through various strands of early Mahāyāna sources that, notwithstanding their complex and interwoven development, came to share enough common features to summarize them under the doxographical category of Tathāgatagarbha. The chapters contained in this volume represent the latest research into buddha nature theory that covers a range of topics across major Buddhist traditions. These contributions were originally presented as papers during the symposium “Tathāgatagarbha across Asia: The Reception of an Influential Mahāyāna Doctrine in Central and East Asia,” held at the University of Vienna in 2019. This symposium brought together academic scholars focusing on religio-historical developments of buddha nature theory as well as traditional teachers and monastics who offered emic perspectives on the relevance of the concept within the context of their own tradition. The resulting volume, therefore, aims at contributing to the overall better understanding of tathāgatagarbha doxography, both historically and in living Buddhist communities. (Source: WSTB)
Mathes, Klaus-Dieter, and Casey Kemp, eds. Buddha Nature Across Asia. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde 103. Vienna: Arbeitkreis für tibetische und buddhistische Studien, University of Vienna, 2022.
Video
Celebrating Buddha-Nature
On September 19, 2020, the Tsadra Foundation celebrated Buddha-Nature teachings and officially launched an online educational resource. Karma Phuntsho hosted the event as the new Writer-In-Digital-Residence, and we learned more about Buddha-Nature teachings from His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, Alak Zenkar Rinpoche, Geshe Thupten Jinpa, Lama Shenpen Hookham, Dr. Karl Brunnhölzl, and Alex Gardner.
Tsadra Foundation. "Buddha-Nature Event: 19 September 2020." Buddha-Nature: A Tsadra Foundation Initiative. Recorded September 19, 2020. Video, 2:33:07. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7AS1Iltnto.
Video
Lama Shenpen Hookham: On Buddha-Nature and the Divine
Hookham, Shenpen. "On Buddha-Nature and the Divine." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 7:11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP_GgoGx93c.
Hookham, Shenpen. "On Buddha-Nature and the Divine." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 7:11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP_GgoGx93c.
Video
Lama Shenpen Hookham: On Explaining the Shentong View to Beginners
Hookham, Shenpen. "On Explaining the Shentong View to Beginners." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 4:44. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljsT8T_moMs.
Hookham, Shenpen. "On Explaining the Shentong View to Beginners." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 4:44. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljsT8T_moMs.
Video
Lama Shenpen Hookham: On Her Approach to Teaching about the Process of Death and Dying
Hookham, Shenpen. "On Her Approach to Teaching about the Process of Death and Dying." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 7:35. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnrBeUZcj_Y.
Hookham, Shenpen. "On Her Approach to Teaching about the Process of Death and Dying." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 7:35. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnrBeUZcj_Y.
Video
Lama Shenpen Hookham: On Her Approach to the Guru Principle
Hookham, Shenpen. "On Her Approach to the Guru Principle." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 4:21. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh5h7wBlupg.
Hookham, Shenpen. "On Her Approach to the Guru Principle." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 4:21. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh5h7wBlupg.
Video
Lama Shenpen Hookham: On Her Approach to the Maṇḍala Principle and Its Relationship to Buddha-Nature
Hookham, Shenpen. "On Her Approach to the Maṇḍala Principle and Its Relationship to Buddha-Nature." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 5:30. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zagovCGDdOI.
Hookham, Shenpen. "On Her Approach to the Maṇḍala Principle and Its Relationship to Buddha-Nature." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 5:30. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zagovCGDdOI.
Video
Lama Shenpen Hookham: On Her Approach to the Rangtong and Shentong Debate over the Nature of Reality
Hookham, Shenpen. "On Her Approach to the Rangtong and Shentong Debate over the Nature of Reality." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 20:36. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzkQPncAK4k.
Hookham, Shenpen. "On Her Approach to the Rangtong and Shentong Debate over the Nature of Reality." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 20:36. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzkQPncAK4k.
Video
Lama Shenpen Hookham: On Her Name "Shenpen" and Her First Impressions of the Buddha-Nature Teachings
Hookham, Shenpen. "On Her Name 'Shenpen' and Her First Impressions of the Buddha-Nature Teachings." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 4:44. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaJ2LkoVxYI.
Hookham, Shenpen. "On Her Name 'Shenpen' and Her First Impressions of the Buddha-Nature Teachings." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 4:44. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaJ2LkoVxYI.
Video
Lama Shenpen Hookham: On How the Prajñāpāramitā Tradition Promotes a Shentong View
Hookham, Shenpen. "On How the Prajñāpāramitā Tradition Promotes a Shentong View." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 7:34. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_PmssfhzsM.
Hookham, Shenpen. "On How the Prajñāpāramitā Tradition Promotes a Shentong View." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 7:34. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_PmssfhzsM.
Video
Lama Shenpen Hookham: On Putting Buddha-Nature into Practice at the Awakened Heart Sangha
Hookham, Shenpen. "On Putting Buddha-Nature into Practice at the Awakened Heart Sangha." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 2:03. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDwOrxmB_t0.
Hookham, Shenpen. "On Putting Buddha-Nature into Practice at the Awakened Heart Sangha." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 2:03. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDwOrxmB_t0.
Video
Lama Shenpen Hookham: On Totality and the Analytical Approach
Hookham, Shenpen. "On Totality and the Analytical Approach." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 9:11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYrjfgxHd8E.
Hookham, Shenpen. "On Totality and the Analytical Approach." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 9:11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYrjfgxHd8E.
Video
Lama Shenpen Hookham: On Working with Resistance in Practice
Hookham, Shenpen. "On Working with Resistance in Practice." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 2:13. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOarwmp4l38.
Hookham, Shenpen. "On Working with Resistance in Practice." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 2:13. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOarwmp4l38.
Video
Lama Shenpen Hookham: On the Expectations of Western Students
Hookham, Shenpen. "On the Expectations of Western Students." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 4:16. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox7TYy4ozt4.
Hookham, Shenpen. "On the Expectations of Western Students." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, July 30, 2022. Video, 4:16. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox7TYy4ozt4.
Video
Lama Shenpen Speaks on Buddha Nature
Fresh from her return from the University of Vienna Symposium, Tathāgatagarbha Across Asia (July 16–19, 2019), Lama Shenpen Hookham speaks to the Awakened Heart Sangha about the topic of buddha-nature.
Hookham, Shenpen. "Lama Shenpen Speaks on Buddha Nature." Produced by Awakened Heart Sangha. Filmed at The Hermitage of The Awakened Heart, Gwynedd, North Wales, July 27, 2019. Video, 1:22:21. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To4-nLGvSCU.
Book
Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness (2016)
The text presents a series of meditation practices on a particular aspect of the Buddha's teachings. They begin with one's rather coarse understanding and progresses through increasingly subtle stages until one arrives at complete and perfect understanding. (Source: back cover)
Gyamtso, Khenpo Tsultrim. Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness. Translated by Shenpen Hookham. San Bernardino, CA: Shrimala Trust, 2016.
Video
Shenpen Hookham at the 2019 Tathāgatagarbha Symposium
Lama Shenpen Hookham discusses the Rangtong (rang stong) and Shentong (gzhan stong) interpretations of Buddhism and how the seeds of the controversy around Tathāgatagarbha and the Shentong interpretation of Buddhism was present even at the time of the Buddha.
Hookham, Shenpen. "The Impact of a Shentong Interpretation of Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine from the Point of View of a Western Buddhist Practitioner." Paper presented at the University of Vienna Symposium, Tathāgatagarbha Across Asia, Vienna, Austria, July 2019. Video, 41:03. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM93AeQIR4I.
Video
Shenpen Hookham: Trungpa Rinpoche's Teaching on Maṇḍala Principle in "Orderly Chaos" and the Innumerable, Inseparable Qualities in the RGV
Hookham, Shenpen. "Trungpa Rinpoche's Teaching on Maṇḍala Principle in Orderly Chaos and the Innumerable, Inseparable Qualities in the RGV." Old Topic, New Insights: Buddha-Nature at the Crossroads between Doctrine and Practice. The 16th IATS Conference, Prague, July 3–9, 2022. Video, 11:37. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=98nk8oY3kic.
Hookham, Shenpen. "Trungpa Rinpoche's Teaching on Maṇḍala Principle in Orderly Chaos and the Innumerable, Inseparable Qualities in the RGV." Old Topic, New Insights: Buddha-Nature at the Crossroads between Doctrine and Practice. The 16th IATS Conference, Prague, July 3–9, 2022. Video, 11:37. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=98nk8oY3kic.
Book
The Buddha Within: Tathagatagarbha Doctrine according to the Shentong Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhaga
Tathagatagarbha—Buddha Nature—is a central concept of Mahayana Buddhism crucial to all the living practice traditions of Tibetan and Zen Buddhism. Its relationship to the concept of emptiness has been a subject of controversy for seven hundred years. Dr. Hookham's work investigates the divergent interpretations of these concepts and the way the TIbetan tradition is resolving them.

In particular she does this with reference to the only surviving Indian commentary on the Tathagatagarbha doctrine, the Ratnagotravibhaga. This text addresses itself directly to the issue of how to relate the doctrine of emptiness (the illusory nature of the world) to that of the truly existing, changeless Absolute (the Buddha Nature).

This is the first work by a Western writer to present an analysis of the Shentong tradition based on previously untranslated sources. The Shentong view rests on meditative experience that is inaccessible to the conceptualizing mind. It is deeply rooted in the sutra tradition of Indian Buddhism and is central to an understanding of the Mahamudra and Dzogchen traditions and Tantric practice among the Kagyupas and Nyingmapas.

(Source: SUNY Press)
Hookham, S. K. The Buddha Within: Tathagatagarbha Doctrine according to the Shentong Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhaga. SUNY Series in Buddhist Studies. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.
Video
The Heart Sutra and the Shentong View
Lama Shenpen Hookham concludes her discussion on Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness with a discussion on the Heart Sūtra and how it relates to the Shentong view.
Hookham, Shenpen. "The Heart Sutra and the Shentong View." Produced by Awakened Heart Sangha, May 14, 2018. Video, 1:27:28. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jloVnOwn3NM.
Article
The Practical Implications of the Doctrine of Buddha-nature
Contrary to certain currents of widespread opinion both among Eastern and Western scholars, there are two fundamentally different views of the nature of man, the mind and the spiritual path within the Buddhist tradition, each of which has equal claim to orthodoxy.
     In this paper, which is exploratory in nature, I shall briefly outline these two views and then ask the question of what the psychological or social effects of holding one or other of these views might be. The views I have in mind are expressed in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition as the view of self-emptiness and the view of other-emptiness (rangstong and gzhan-stong). (Hookham, "The Practical Implications of the Doctrine of Buddha-nature," 149)
Hookham, S. K. "The Practical Implications of the Doctrine of Buddha-nature." In The Buddhist Forum. Vol 2, Seminar Papers 1988–1990, edited by Tadeusz Skorupski, 149–61. Tring, UK: Institute of Buddhist Studies, 2012. First published 1992 by the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London). Article PDF from the author here.
Audio
The Shentong Interpretation of Tathagatagarbha Doctrine
“The Shentong interpretation of Tathagatagarbha doctrine does not imply there is no need for the path. However, according to Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, it does try to counter an ambitious, goal orientated approach to it. If Buddha were something newly produced by following the path, it would be a conditioned phenomena, the product of self-effort; it would not arise simply through complete relaxation of conceptual contrivance.” (From: The Buddha Within) (Source Accessed August 13, 2020)

Lama Shenpen Hookham speaks with students at RYI about the Shentong interpretation of Tathāgatagarbha on April 15, 2019.
Hookham, Shenpen. "The Shentong Interpretation of Tathagatagarbha Doctrine." Recorded April 15, 2019 at Rangjung Yeshe Institute, Nepal. Audio, 1:15:34. https://soundcloud.com/rangjung-yeshe-institute/lama-shenpen-hookham-the-shentong-interpretation-of-tathagatagarbha-doctrine.

Affiliations & relations

  • Awakened Heart Sangha · workplace affiliation
  • Kagyu · religious affiliation
  • Bokar Rinpoche · teacher
  • Gyamtso, Khenpo Tsultrim · teacher
  • Khyentse, Dilgo · teacher
  • Kalu Rinpoche · teacher
  • Thinley, Karma · teacher
  • Karmapa, 16th · teacher
  • www.buddhawithin.org.uk · websites

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