We run three-week Introduction to Buddhism courses periodically through the year. They cover basic Buddhist concepts and practice (including meditation) and an overview of the different sources used in Buddhism. They are strongly recommended for anyone who would like to start attending our Wednesday evening Regulars group as this will no longer include any introductory evenings. The courses are on Thursday evenings from 7:30 to 9:30 and the dates for the next one are:
21st and 28th May, 4th June.
Each course is preceded by a three-hour Introduction to Meditation class. It isn’t essential to come on this as well since we do cover meditation on the Thursday evenings, but you might find that you get more out of it if you do since the morning class allows us more time to go over meditation in more detail.
Further details can be found in Meeting times.
Week 1: A Very Short Introduction to Buddhism
Seven key Buddhist concepts.
Week 2: Schools and Sources
Buddhism was passed down as an oral tradition for several hundred years. How did it come to be written down? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the different texts and traditions that we know Buddhism through?
Week 3: Culture and Practice
Buddhism comes with various bits of Eastern cultural baggage. What are these? Where did they come from? Are any of them useful today or can we practice Buddhism without any of them?
Aberdeen Buddhist Group 
Hi,
I am thinking of attending the February introductory classes, and would like to attend the introduction to meditation too, however, I will be away from the country for the January meditation class. Is it a good idea to try to attend it after the introduction to buddhism course (28th of February one)?
Thanks! Will hopefully see you there really soon! 🙂
There will be some meditation teaching in the Introduction to Buddhism course, so you might feel at the end of it that you don’t need to go to the Introduction to Meditation, but if you want to there is no problem at all with doing it that way.
Hi Karolis. Just to mention, I put the wrong dates up in the initial post. The correct ones, now showing, are the 5th, 19th and 26th of both months.
Thank you for letting me know. See you in February!
could I ask, can children come along to these?
Hi Lorna
I think it would depend on the children and how much attention they needed separate from the main group. The evenings are two hours including some meditation. We have had older children come along and join in the class before. There is also separate space within the venue (right next to the main hall) where children could go if they could read or play quietly for that length of time. We don’t have the capacity to watch over or entertain kids parallel to the classes, so if they needed that I don’t think it would work (if there is enough demand, we have often talked about having a meditation group with creche, but we haven’t ever had a critical mass of people interested in it so far). Hope this helps 🙂
thank you for getting back to me, it was more for them to be able to learn as opposed to a creche type facility, but if they were to be the only children there, they probably would feel a bit out of place