Paramita Center Southeast

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Paramita Center Southeast the 14th Dalai Lama We offer meditations, teachings, retreats, initiations, and other activities.

Paramita Center Southeast - Meditation and Buddhist Philosophy in the Heart of the South sponsors teachings and events in meditation and philosophy in the Tibetan Buddhist Gelug tradition of H.H. Paramita Center Southeast - Meditation and Buddhist Philosophy in the Heart of the South

We are a US Center affiliated with the Paramita Centres of Québec, Toronto, France, and India. We teach meditation and Buddhist philosophy in the Tibetan Buddhist Gelug tradition, as founded by the great teacher Je Tsongkhapa and today led by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. The Centre made its beginnings in Quebec in 2003, founded by Geshe Lobsang Samten. Since then many Centers have been established in Quebec province and in France. The Centre started its activities in Ontario in 2015 and opened a location in Toronto in 2019, welcoming everyone to study and practice Meditation and Buddha’s Teachings in English. We are opening a center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to bring the Paramita Centre teachings to the US. The Center is directed by Lama Samten and one of his senior teachers, Tibetan monk Tenzin Gawa (Jason Simard). Lobsang Tharchin (Les Kertay), will teach classes in calm-abiding meditation and will organize other events through the Center.

10/03/2026

… what we all need is to be more warm-hearted. Amen

Lama Samten describes calm abiding as being able to remain in meditative equanimity for as long as you wish. It's easy t...
09/20/2026

Lama Samten describes calm abiding as being able to remain in meditative equanimity for as long as you wish. It's easy to hear that as the point — stay longer, get further.

It isn't quite. Staying is the evidence, not the goal. What the tradition points at is a mind that has become serviceable — one you can put to work on what the path asks next.

A mind that will hold still and never gets used for anything has done half the job. The other half is what it's for.

We teach calm abiding in Chattanooga, in person and online.

Most people practising on their own have never been told what they're aiming at.You hear that meditation makes the mind ...
09/18/2026

Most people practising on their own have never been told what they're aiming at.
You hear that meditation makes the mind calm, you notice your mind isn't calm, and you keep going on faith. What you don't get is a description of where this goes, precise enough to measure yourself against.

The tradition has one. It describes what an accomplished mind can do, names the sign of arriving, and lays out every stage on the way along with what goes wrong at each. That's what we'll work through.

Sundays, October 4–18 and November 15–22. 1:00–4:30 PM ET each session. In person in Chattanooga, or by Zoom from anywhere. Tuition is $95, plus a required course text ($20).

Register: https://buddhismsoutheast.org/event/calm-abiding-fall-2026/

Questions: [email protected]

Our continuing students close this block of Deeper Lamrim on Saturday, September 19, and pick the thread up again in October.

09/18/2026

Five conditions, in the tradition's list, that make the body and mind unusable for practice: desire for the things of the world, the urge to do harm, sleep and laxity, agitation and regret, and doubt.
Not one of them is a technique problem. They're what a mind does.

Suppleness is the antidote to all five. And here's why that matters — the mind is clear by nature. The veils don't make it unclear. They block our seeing, the way clouds hide the sun. Clear the clouds and what was always there shows.

We work through this together in Chattanooga, in person and online.

09/16/2026

Ask most people what progress in meditation looks like and you'll hear something about calm. We point somewhere else. Suppleness means the mind and body have become serviceable — flexible, usable, available for what the dharma asks of them. There's a physical side and a mental side: a body that can do the work without protest, and a mind that will go where you send it. To follow the path you need a mind and body that can meet its challenges.

Je Tsongkhapa makes a point about laxity that's easy to skim past: it can be virtuous. Not every obstacle in meditation ...
09/13/2026

Je Tsongkhapa makes a point about laxity that's easy to skim past: it can be virtuous. Not every obstacle in meditation is a defilement. Laxity is virtuous when it shares in the nature of concentration — which is exactly what makes it hard to catch. You are not doing anything wrong when it arises. You are doing something almost right.

That's worth sitting with if you've been treating your quieter session as your better one. Quiet is not the measure. Whether the mind is still holding on, with force, is the measure.

Part of why we're looking for a permanent home in Chattanooga: meditation gets stronger in a sangha, in a group of people sharing experience. More on that soon.

We teach calm abiding in Chattanooga, in person and online.

A kind of trouble in meditation announces itself. The mind runs off; you notice, you bring it back.And there's another k...
09/11/2026

A kind of trouble in meditation announces itself. The mind runs off; you notice, you bring it back.

And there's another kind that doesn't announce. The object is still there, still steady, and the mind has quietly stopped gripping it. Nothing feels wrong. That's the whole difficulty — it reads as a good session.

This is one reason the stages of concentration meditation get taught over weeks, with other people working on the same thing. Some of what goes wrong in concentration isn't visible to the person it's happening to.

Calm Abiding Meditation works through the stages of concentration one at a time. Beginners learn a new skill; experienced meditators sharpen one they already have.

Sundays, October 4–18 and November 15–22. 1:00–4:30 PM ET each session. In person in Chattanooga, or by Zoom from anywhere. Tuition is $95, plus a required course text ($20).

Register: https://buddhismsoutheast.org/event/calm-abiding-fall-2026/

Questions: [email protected]

09/11/2026

Vigilance has one job, and it isn't the one most people assume.

It checks. It reports. That's the whole assignment. What it doesn't do is fix anything — and in this system, noticing the slack and leaving it there is its own named fault, the fourth of the five obstacles, whose antidote is application.

Two jobs, not one.

We practice together in Chattanooga, in person and online.

09/08/2026

There's a kind of quiet that isn't the accomplishment it feels like.

The tradition separates it into two grades. In gross laxity, the object stays put but isn't clear. In subtle laxity, the object is clear and steady—and the holding has gone soft underneath, meaning that it is visible to the mind clearly but doesn't have a strong impact. Nothing about it announces itself, which is exactly the problem. From the inside, it reads like a session going well.

That's why the tradition treats it as the serious meditator's obstacle rather than the beginner's. A beginner's mind runs off, and they know it. This one waits until you're good enough to stay put.

We teach calm abiding in Chattanooga, in person and online.

In the nine stages, the third through the seventh — five of the nine — are described as the stretch where effort is inte...
09/06/2026

In the nine stages, the third through the seventh — five of the nine — are described as the stretch where effort is interrupted. That's easy to hear as a problem. It isn't. Early on you're pushing more or less constantly, because the mind won't focus; from the third stage our mind begins to stabilize, and the effort changes shape. You're not pushing as hard, your periods of focus get longer, and your wandering mind returns more easily.

If you've been judging your sitting by whether the mind wandered, that's the wrong measure. Everyone's does. The question is how long you were able to focus before having to bring your mind back.

We teach calm abiding in Chattanooga, in person and online.

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Chattanooga, TN

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+14236376606

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