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Venerable
Robina Courtin
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Venerable
Robina Courtin, energetic and full of wisdom, has
been a Tibetan Buddhist nun for over 20 years. She is
world-renowned and well-loved for her dynamic, lively
presentations. After serving for ten years as editorial
director for Wisdom Publications, she created Mandala
magazine, a worldwide Buddhist publication. Currently
the director of the Liberation Prison Project, Venerable
Robina and her staff bring Buddhism into prisons across
the United States and in Australia, benefiting hundreds
and hundreds of prisoners. This prison work was
profiled in the award-winning documentary, Chasing
Buddha. |
Robina
Courtin has been a Tibetan Buddhist nun for twenty-three years.
She was the editorial director of Wisdom Publications until
1987. At the end of 2000 she resigned as editor of MANDALA,
international magazine of Buddhism, to increase teaching at
Buddhist centers around the world. She is based in the
international office of the FPMT (Foundation for the
Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition) in New Mexico, USA.
Since 1997,
she has run the Liberation Prison Project for Buddhist
Practitioners, which works with people in prisons throughout the
US, helping them with their practice and studies by writing them
and sending books and tapes an other materials. She visits
prisons in California, Massachusetts, Kentucky, North Carolina
and Virginia, giving teachings to groups and meeting them
on-to-one. Several of these men are on death row or have life
sentences, and some have been involved in gangs, both on the
streets and in prison.
Robina
Courtin was born in Melbourne, Australia and brought up as a
Catholic. She studied classical singing until her early
twenties, then went to London in 1967, where she lived for four
years. She became actively involved in the radical left, working
mainly with a London-based support group for black and Chicano
prisoners. In the early seventies she became a feminist and
returned to Melbourne in 1972 to work with other radical
feminists.
Robina began
studying martial arts in 1974 in her quest for a spiritual path,
moving to New York where she studied karate. She continuted
karate in Melbourne until 1976, when she attended a Tibetan
Buddhist course in Queensland given by Lma Yeshe and Lama Zopa
Rinpoche.
Venerable Robina Courtin,
energetic and full of wisdom, has been a Tibetan Buddhist nun
since 1978. She is world-renowned and well-loved for her
dynamic, lively presentations. After serving for ten years as
editorial director for Wisdom Publications, she created Mandala
magazine, a worldwide Buddhist publication. Currently the
director of the Liberation Prison Project, Venerable Robina and
her staff bring Buddhism into prisons across the United States
and in Australia, benefiting hundreds of prisoners. This prison
work was profiled in the award-winning documentary, Chasing
Buddha.
Robina Courtin was the
editorial director of Wisdom Publications until 1987. At the end
of 2000 she resigned as editor of MANDALA, international
magazine of Buddhism, in order to spend more time teaching at
Buddhist centers around the world.
Since 1997, she has run the
Liberation Prison Project for Buddhist Practitioners, which
works with people in prisons throughout the US, helping them
with their practice and studies by writing them and sending
books and tapes an other materials. She visits prisons in
California, Massachusetts, Kentucky, North Carolina and
Virginia, giving teachings to groups and meeting them on-to-one.
Several of these men are on death row or have life sentences,
and some have been involved in gangs, both on the streets and in
prison.
Robina Courtin was born in
Melbourne, Australia and brought up as a Catholic. She studied
classical singing until her early twenties, then went to London
in 1967, where she lived for four years. She became actively
involved in the radical left, working mainly with a London-based
support group for black and Chicano prisoners. In the early
seventies she became a feminist and returned to Melbourne in
1972 to work with other radical feminists.
Robina began studying martial
arts in 1974 in her quest for a spiritual path, moving to New
York where she studied karate. She continuted karate in
Melbourne until 1976, when she attended a Tibetan Buddhist
course in Queensland given by Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
She went to Kathmandu, Nepal, eighteen months later, in November
1977, and became ordained as a Buddhist nun at Kopan Monastery
in 1978.
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