About our Network meetings
Meeting 24 - 27 September 2023 in Brussels, Belgium
Register now!
If you have an invitation for this meeting, please register here before 12 May 2023
More information about the meeting
If you would like to receive an invitation, please contact the organizers
We are looking forward to hearing from you!
More information about the requirements for participation can be found here at the end of the page
Annual meetings in centers
The Network meets for three or four days annually at the end of September, immediately before or after the European Buddhist Union meeting. Meetings are hosted by Buddhist centers across Europe.
The meeting is not a conference, though there is often a theme. Many different formats are used to facilitate the meeting, open space discussion, small groups, presentations, practice sessions, world cafe, walks and sharing meals together.
Our meetings are after the EBU meeting.
Inspiration for the network
The inspiration for the network came from a meeting in 1993 held in Dharamsala, India, between His Holiness the fourteenth Dalai Lama and a group of Western dharma teachers from the major Buddhist traditions in Europe and America.
The aim of the meeting was to discuss a range of issues concerning the transmission of Buddhadharma in the West. The following themes emerged:
- a responsibility to work towards creating a better world for all forms of life
- avoidance of divisive sectarianism within Buddhism
- the need to affirm the equality of the sexes
- the relevance of contemporary psychological understandings of the mind
- the need to advise students of Buddhism to exercise care in choosing authentic teachers
- the importance of the highest standards of ethical behaviour from teachers towards their students
- the need to differentiate the essential teachings of Buddhism from its cultural trapping
Implementing these values is the raison d’etre of the Network of Buddhist Teachers in Europe.