join sages Robert Thurman and Ira Schepetin for a unique, collaborative inquiry as we delve into the nature of non-duality, seeking to say what it is and speculate on its utility and applicability to the course of our lives.

We will gather at the Woodstock Town Hall, at 76 Tinker Street, at noon on Sunday, November 23rd. The event will include introductions to the nature of non-duality by Thurman and Schepetin, a discussion between them, and a session of Q&A. We are asking for a suggested donation of $10 to underwrite this unique exchange. The dialogue will conclude at about 1:30 in song TBD.

"Nonduality" might be described as the experience or philosophy that reality is an undivided, interconnected whole, rather than a collection of separate parts. It suggests that the perceived separation between the self and the world, the observer and the observed, is a misperception created by the mind. Originating from Eastern spiritual traditions like Buddhism and Hinduism, this non-dual state can be realized through direct experience or self-inquiry and meditative practices.

Here's our Facebook listing, Non-Duality: What is It & What is It Good For? to stay abreast as we gather steam; also, we should be hosting a livestream, the link for which will be posted there. Also, INVITE your friends!

Please find below the brief biographies of Thurman and Schepetin.

On THURMAN and SCHEPETIN

ROBERT THURMAN was educated at Philips Exeter and Harvard and then studied Tibet, Tibetan Buddhism, and Asian languages and histories for fifty years with many teachers, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He held the first endowed chair in Buddhist Studies in the West, the Jey Tsong Khapa Chair in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies, at Columbia University before retiring in 2019. He has written substantial scholarly works, founding and editing a new series through Columbia University Press, Treasury of the Buddhist Sciences. He and his wife Nena Thurman founded Tibet House in 1987 at the request of the Dalai Lama, and subsequently Menla, the retreat center located the crater of Panther Mountain. He also writes popular books, lecturing all over the world in the "public intellectual" tradition, with special concern for ethics and human rights in general, and the fate of the endangered Tibetan culture and people in particular, as well as the role of mind in nature.

IRA SCHEPETIN is an Advaita Vedanta scholar and teacher who was the first Western disciple of Swami Dayanandaji, a renunciate monk of the Hindu Saraswati order of Sannyasa, and the only Western disciple of Swami Satchidanandendraji, a teacher recognized for rigorous scholarship on classical Indian philosophy linked to a philosophical tradition called post-Sankara logic. Schepetin is known for his teachings on Non-Dual Vedanta, drawing heavily from the original texts of Shankaracharya that date back to the 8th-century master Adi Shankara.