Our first question in reply would be “Why not take an Introduction course?”. Buddhist understanding should not be measured in breadth but depth, and every good student knows that there’s always something new to learn! Although the courses are called “Introduction to Buddhism”, many experienced students also take part (even long-term monastics!) and find them of immense value. Students sometimes repeat the course; when teachings and guided meditations are heard from different teachers, their varied perspectives and styles - combined with your own personal experiences acquired since your last course - can stimulate fresh insights for even the most experienced students. We particularly recommend that you take an Introduction course if you have only learned about Buddhism from books; nothing compares to being taught by an actual teacher.

We often receive registrations for Intermediate Level courses from people who have meditation experience: we must stress that our courses focus on Buddhist Philosophy rather than the deepening of meditation practice and therefore meditation experience alone is not sufficient to qualify a student for one of our Intermediate Level courses.· For example, the Vipassana meditation technique (as taught by SN Goenka) is a wonderful practice which we wholeheartedly endorse, but we know from personal experience that the retreats do not provide equivalent philosophical depth to our 10-day “Introduction to Buddhism” courses.

If you have studied a lot within another Buddhist tradition, you will also find a great deal of new information on our courses. Here at Tushita, we follow a traditional presentation of Tibetan Buddhist teaching known as the Lam-Rim (The Graduated Path to Enlightenment). This is a systemized overview of Buddhist Philosophy and students of other traditions may not be familiar with some aspects of it. Buddhist Philosophy investigates many subtle conceptual points: different traditions often use different terminology or translations which may actually conflict with those common in other lineages. Consequently, long-term students of other traditions who have not studied Tibetan Buddhist philosophy before sometimes find our programs more challenging than those who have never studied Buddhism at all.

Therefore, we qualify students as being “Intermediate Level” once they have taken one of our (or our sister centre’s) 10-day Introduction to Buddhism courses or formal equivalent, because our Intermediate level courses assume a solid understanding of the Lam-Rim. It’s our way of making sure that everyone is “on the same page”; of course we try to be flexible, so if having read the above you still feel strongly that an Intermediate Level course would be more suitable for you, then contact us.