Just half an hour's drive from the site of Venerable Geshe Kelang Gyatso Rinpoche's three-year retreat in the Forest of Ae, is Uma KMC in Carlisle a wonderful Kadampa center bathing in the blessings of this extraordinary holy being.

This weekend they invited Gen-la Kelsang Thubten to give a half-day course entitled Living without Stress. Here's their feedback:

"Uma KMC hosted a special event today at the Crown and Mitre Hotel in Carlisle. Nearly 150 people from all over North Cumbria and Dumfries and Galloway poured into the majestic ballroom venue to listen to profound and practical teachings from Gen-la Thubten.

Gen-la explained from Venerable Geshe-la's book How to Transform Your Life how much of the stress and tension we normally experience comes from our mind and how many of the problems we experience, including ill health, are caused or aggravated by this stress.

And then he explained how we can gradually remove this inner cause of stress through doing meditation regularly, patiently and gently and as a result come to experience a lucid and spacious mind.

He pointed out how our thoughts and feelings often seem welded together, but if we learn to create some inner space through meditation practice, we will have the mental space to choose how to respond peacefully to difficult situations. Only in this way will we truly be able to reduce our stress levels.

He encouraged us to find out for ourselves by meditating regularly for just 10 minutes a day and see if it makes a difference.

In the second session Gen-la explained a deeper and more lasting solution to stress. With great simplicity and skill, he gave us an exercise to do to try to find the self or I that gets stressed. The ballroom has probably  never been so quiet as it was during this meditation as people’s minds focused on the space-like emptiness of the self!

We discovered a method to change our habitual response of being stressed and create a new relaxed self-image in place of the stressed self.

Everybody left the course feeling so grateful for this precious advice.

What people said
“Gen-la put ideas into words that I could easily understand and he was so down to earth. I really enjoyed it”

“I loved listening to these teachings, they were so inspiring and practical.”

“Thank you very much, it was brilliant”

“Gen-la’s way of explaining things was very helpful; first he would explain something new, and then he would crack a joke, so we always relaxed and it was much easier to listen to him.”

Thank you very much Gen-la for such a wonderful half-day course!