Meet Our Faculty
Description
What if your body, mind, and world were not separate things but luminous presences within a vast, open field? What if the space around you, and even your own thoughts and sensations, were dynamic unfoldings of a deeper wholeness?
Join us for a 7-week immersive course rooted in the Time, Space, and Knowledge (TSK) vision developed by Tarthang Tulku, one of the last living Tibetan Nyingma masters trained in pre-occupation Tibet. This course introduces the foundational themes of “SPACE” from his seminal work, Time, Space, and Knowledge: A New Vision of Reality a groundbreaking offering that reimagines how we live, perceive, and understand the nature of reality. This is not a class on Buddhism but it draws from a new vision of reality that opens a radically different relationship to awareness, embodiment, and experience.
Over seven weeks, we will explore the presence of space not as a passive backdrop, but as a dynamic, liberating dimension that gives rise to all experience. Exercises such as “The Giant Body,” “Thoughts as Space,” and “Participation and Space” open a surprising window into space not only as physical extension, but as the living presence in and through which all appearance arises.
This course is the first in a five-term series unfolding over 2025–2026, each term offering a 7-week course exploring a different dimension of the TSK vision. Future terms will delve into TIME, KNOWLEDGE, and the integration of all three. Whether you join for one term or the entire sequence, this curriculum invites sincere seekers, meditators, and explorers of non-dual insight to step into a new, living vision of reality where space itself becomes your teacher.
Testimonials
“Highly engaging and stimulating course with deeply committed teacher. There is an excellent mix of discussion and practice. Huge questions, and complex material, are skilfully unpacked and made both accessible and digestible.”
Gavin A.
“Ron’s systematic way to clarify the exercises and the commentaries have made the difficult concept of TSK in the first layer of understanding. The classes have inspired me to be patient to go deeper with my understanding. Exciting exploration.”
L C.
“Really appreciate the lengths Ron went in providing not only the detailed PowerPoint presentation, but also the the high level of the class Summaries. I particularly love the Summaries for followup study after class, I refer to them often. Also, the class size is small [intimate] enough to allow for relaxed discussion with all students”
David F.
Format
Readings From
All readings will come from Time Space and Knowledge by Tarthang Tulku
Instructors
Dr. Ron Purser
Ron Purser, Ph.D. is a Professor of Management at San Francisco State University. Author of eight books, including McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality (Penguin Random House/Repeater Books), the Handbook of the Ethical Foundations of Mindfulness and the Handbook of Mindfulness: Culture, Context and Social Engagement (Springer). He writes for such media outlets as Tricycle, The Guardian, Salon, Alternet, Tikkun, Pando Daily and Transformation. He began studying Time, Space and Knowledge (TSK) in 1982.
Bob Pasternak
Bob Pasternak was born in Budapest
Hungary and came to the US after the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. He Joined
the Peace Corps after college and spent 2 years in Nepal After returning to the
US he became an attorney and then a psychotherapist. He met Tarthang Rinpoche
in India in 1967 and then studied with Rinpoche starting in 1969 in
Berkeley. Bob taught various classes at the Nyingma Institute
in Berkeley and then was the Director of the Institute in Boulder Colorado.
from 1987 to 1992 Bob has now been teaching TSK and
Buddhism since 1981 and continues to do so.
Assistant Instructor
Dr. Carl Pilcher
Carl Pilcher is retired from a career in space science. He holds a B.S. and Ph.D. in Chemistry, the
latter from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an M.P.A. in
International Relations from Princeton University. He was on the astronomy faculty of the
University of Hawaii for a dozen years before becoming a NASA administrator for
almost 3 decades. His professional arc
took him from planetary science to serving as Director of the NASA Astrobiology
Institute. He began studying ancient
teachings in 2015 with a Hindu teacher and joined the Dharma College community
as a student in late 2021. Central to
his interests are integrating ancient wisdom, particularly of non-dualism, with
a modern scientific world view.
Level 200
Wednesdays, September 10th to October 22nd 2025, 9:30-11am Pacific Time
FREE CANCELLATION AFTER FIRST CLASS