This week Annie will invite the bell for dharma teacher Shantum Seth who will speak to us about the life and teachings of the Buddha. Shantum's full bio is below. You can listen to him talk about his Buddhist journey here.
Shantum leads tours of the Buddhist sites in India and Nepal and was the teacher of Annie's trip to India in 2016. Shantum has been a student of Thich Nhật Hanh for several decades and has been a friend of Annie's for many years. You will definitely enjoy his talk!
After our meditation period, Shantum will talk, and then we will have some time to ask him questions and share about our practice.
Shantum Seth talks about his Buddhist journey.
More about Shantum:
Shantum Seth is a teacher, social development worker and a man of peace with Indian roots and a world experience not easily found in one person.
He is an ordained teacher (Dharmacharya) in the Zen lineage of the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh, and the foremost guide to the sites associated with the Buddha. He has been leading highly acclaimed pilgrimages 'In the Footsteps of the Buddha' and other amazing journeys of discovery throughout India and parts of South Asia since 1988. His tours have been featured in The New York Times and on the BBC/PBS’s “Story of India” (www.buddhapath.com ).
He advises the Government of India's Ministry of Tourism and Culture and was instrumental in initiating the Endogenous Tourism program for the United Nations Development Program where he worked for 15 years. He has used his considerable experience to contribute to a number of books, including “Walking with the Buddha,” “Planting Seeds…, Sharing Mindfulness with Children,” and “Volunteers against Conflict.”
Shantum has been in demand as a guest speaker at many forums including to the Young President’s Organization, the UNDP executive board, the Chicago Council for Global Affairs, the Confederation of Indian Industries and at a number of museums and universities East and West.
He is actively involved in the non-profit trust Ahimsa, which is pioneering work on ‘Mindfulness in Education’ and setting up a centre for this purpose in the foothills of the Himalayas (www.ahimsatrust.org). While at the University of East Anglia in England, studying Development Studies, he titled his thesis 'Ahimsa Shoes', basing it on Gandhian economics.
An itinerant traveler himself, he has visited more than 50 countries and has lived in England, the USA and France. He now lives with his wife, two daughters and parents in the suburbs of Delhi, India.
In many ways Shantum is an exciting window to today's India. He helps the world understand, interpret and value a multi-faceted civilization and its people.