Instituto Budadharma

Founded in 2011, Instituto Budadharma has offered adult continuing education in Spanish, with an emphasis on combining intellectual rigor with transformative practice. Most courses are conducted at an undergraduate or graduate level. The institute is under the direction of Damcho Diana Finnegan, PhD (University of Wisconsin-Madison), and Rosalía Vázquez Toríz, PhD, professor emerita of the Universidad Autónoma de Puebla in Mexico.

Thousands of adults across Latin America and around the world have deepened their understanding and experience of the Buddhist path through the courses that Instituto Budadharma has been offering for over a decade. Each trimester, over 500 students enroll in its courses. All the online courses are taught by highly qualified Buddhist teachers (see list below), in Spanish, and are always free of charge to all.

A key offering within Instituto Budadharma is a rigorous seven-year study program through Instituto Budadharma. The seven-year study program has been running since 2015 and currently has over 400 students enrolled. In addition, the institute offers 19 online courses offered on a three-quarter semester basis.

HOW OUR COURSES WORK

Our courses go far beyond the “a lecture, a guided meditation and a recommended reading” format that comprise so many Buddhist courses. Each of our courses is built around weekly modules, and each week Instituto Budadharma students receive access to 1) a video teaching, 2) questions for active listening, 3) a visual guide (mental map) of key concepts explored in the teaching, 4) a guided meditation or other structured exercise in self-reflection, 5) a daily exercise to bring the topic into daily life, 6) questions (prompts) for a discussion forum and 7) a recommended reading. Many courses also included 8) downloadable posters with a relevant quote and, where appropriate, 9) a glossary. Students meet regularly for video chats hosted by their facilitator.

The durations of courses ranges from five weeks to six months, in addition to our seven-year study program.

All the courses on Instituto Budadharma are offered via the Moodle learning platform, which allows us to monitor closely student participation to better support them in their use of course material week by week.

Although we do offer a small number of self-paced online courses, most of our courses are facilitated, because we believe in community-based learning. Our students benefit greatly from the interaction with others in their cohort. The Institute runs an annual program to train facilitators, with participation by invitation only, and we consider the role of the facilitator key in creating a holding space where transformation can take place in community, within each cohort.

Some of our courses

  • Buddhism and ecology (10 weeks)
  • Introduction to Buddhism (6 weeks)

  • Heart Sutra (5 weeks)

  • Buddhist Approach to Working with Emotions (10 weeks)
  • The 37 Practices of Bodhisattvas (11 weeks)
  • Tonglen: Transforming Suffering into Opportunity (10 weeks)

Our teachers

Teachers are all qualified Buddhist practitioners who have received authorization to teach from their respective lineages. Apart from our main teacher, Damcho Diana Finnegan, Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, Venerable Thubten Chodron and Geshe Lobsang Dawa are among others who have offered courses on Instituto Budadharma.

OUR COMMITMENTS

Instituto Budadharma is non-sectarian. All courses are offered to Spanish speakers entirely in their own language. They are all free of charge in a spirit of public service and generosity. We consider this policy crucial in creating and sustaining a fully inclusive community in which socioeconomic factors are never a barrier to participation.

Some courses are suited to non-Buddhists and provide tools in emotional intelligence, cultivation of compassion and secular ethics, while others provide continuing education for advanced Buddhist practitioners.

Instituto Budadharma is supported financially by Dharmadatta Community, a 501c3 tax-exempt nonprofit registered in the US. (Donations to make it possible to continue offering one access to high-quality Buddhist education can be made here and are deeply appreciated.)

Instituto Budadharma was founded in 2011 by Dr. Damcho Diana Finnegan who holds a PhD in Asian Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and underwent extensive traditional training in India for well over a decade, and by Dr. Leslie Serna (PhD in Social Education specializing in values-based curriculum, University of Granada, Spain).

Instituto Budadharma has been directed for the past eight years by Dr. Rosalía Vázquez Toríz, professor emerita from the Universidad Autónoma de Puebla with a PhD in Rural Development from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UNAM) in Mexico City), in collaboration with Damcho Diana Finnegan.

Teachers and other members of Dharmadatta Community collectively create the course content that is delivered by Instituto Budadharma.