Saturday, April 25, 2026

4:00–6:00 PM at the Koi Ponds

Kunzang Palyul Choling, Poolesville, Maryland

Free · RSVP appreciated

The Therigatha — the “Verses of the Elder Nuns” — was composed in the 5th century BCE by the very first women to enter the Buddhist monastic order. It is the oldest surviving collection of women’s poetry in the world. In it, women who had left families, marriages, and the expectations of the world behind wrote with startling directness about freedom, grief, impermanence, and the quality of a mind finally at rest.

This April, we invite you to the koi ponds at Kunzang Palyul Choling for an afternoon that begins there — and travels forward through 2,500 years of the living Buddhist poetic tradition.

The afternoon opens with a short talk by Khenpo Tenzin Yeshi of Namdroling Monastery — a traditionally trained Tibetan scholar in residence at KPC — on why poetry is not incidental to Buddhism but central to it. For centuries before anything was committed to writing, verse was the primary technology by which the dharma was memorized, transmitted, and kept alive.

Designated readers will then offer a curated selection of poetry drawn from the Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana traditions, each piece introduced briefly in its historical and doctrinal context. The afternoon closes with the contemporary poetry of Her Eminence Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo Rinpoche — the first Western woman to be officially recognized and enthroned as a reincarnate lama in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and the founder of KPC.

All are welcome.

Practical details

• Free admission; RSVP appreciated: [RSVP LINK]
• Light refreshments served
• Wheelchair-accessible pathways at the koi ponds

Kunzang Palyul Choling

18400 River Road · Poolesville, Maryland 20837