Shenpen Hookham

Lama Shenpen Hookham (b.1946) is a Buddhist teacher in the Tibetan Tradition (Kagyu/Nyingma), originally from Essex, England, who has trained for over fifty years in the Mahamudra and Dzogchen traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. She has spent over 12 years in meditation retreat.

Lama Shenpen spent 7 years in India after being sent there by Trungpa Rinpoche at the start of the 1970s where she was ordained as a nun by the 16th Karmapa. The Karmapa later sent her back to the West to teach, and also to translate for the first wave of Tibetan Rinpoches visiting and teaching the West. In 1976 in France she met her main teacher Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, one of the foremost living masters of the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. She has been a student of his since then and he authorised her to teach Mahamudra.

She produced a seminal study of the profound Buddha Nature doctrines of Mahayana Buddhism, for which she was awarded a doctorate from Oxford University and which is published as ‘The Buddha Within’ (SUNY press, 1991). She is also the author of ‘There’s More to Dying than Death’ (Windhorse Publications, 2006) and the translator and editor of Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche’s seminal work ‘Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness’ and in 2020 her life story was published as ‘Keeping the Dalai Lama Waiting & Other Stories – An English Woman’s Journey to Becoming a Buddhist Lama, featuring anecdotes of her time spent with her teachers, some of the most eminent Tibetan masters of the Twentieth Century. The Guru Principle - A Guide to the Teacher-Student Relationship in Buddhism is published by Shambhala in August 2021.

Following advice from the teacher of all her teachers, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Lama Shenpen Hookham established the Hermitage of the Awakened Heart in north-west Wales, where she spends most of her time in semi-retreat, working with her students and on her writing.

Lama Shenpen is the founder and principal teacher of the Awakened Heart Sangha – the worldwide community of her students studying her Living the Awakened Heart Training programme, created to bring the essence of Dzogchen and Mahamudra to a Western audience in unique, accessible, experiential way, through spiral learning, reflection and meditation. For more information about the Awakened Heart Sangha and the training programme visit www.ahs.org.uk/training and for more information and teachings by Lama Shenpen visit www.buddhawithin.org.uk