Welcome to Kagyu Samye Dzong Johannesburg

The first established Buddhist centre in the city

Our home is at 43 Floss Street, Kensington, Johannesburg.

Our name can be a mouthful at first.

Kagyu  is the name of the school or branch of Tibetan Buddhism that we follow. The head of the Kagyu school is His Holiness, the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje. For more on the Karmapa, see here.

His Holiness the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa with His Holiness the Dalai Lama at the Kalachakra Empowerment, Bodhgaya Jan 2017.

Kagyu is a compounded Tibetan word that means “Lineage of Transmitted Mastery” or “Lineage of the Four Transmitted Masteries”. There are four main schools in the Tibetan Tradition – the other three schools being Nyingma, Sakya, and Gelug. Samye is the name of the first Buddhist Monastery in Tibet. Samye means something like ‘inconceivable’. And Dzong means ‘fortress’, or a piece of land in a city.

We are affiliated to Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery in Scotland, the first established monastery in the west. Ling means a large piece of land (estate, campus). The head of our Samye Dzong is Choje Akong Rinpoche.

(Akong Rinpoche with his Representative in Africa,  Rob Nairn)

Activities:

We offer meditation, tai chi, yoga and Buddhist prayers. For our regular programme click here.

We also have a programme of visiting teachers – click here for more info.

We run a soup kitchen which feeds about 180 people – more info here.

For more about us, see here.