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— Develop the mind, transform the situation into happiness, then it becomes a beautiful island, pure land, heaven. —

Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Ven. Robina

Robina Courtin has been a Tibetan Buddhist nun for thirty-one years. Based in San Francisco, California, she is the executive director of Liberation Prison Project and works with people in prisons all over the world.

Ven Robina regularly visits prisons in Australia and the United States, giving teachings to groups and meeting prisoners one-on-one. Many of these men are on death row or have life sentences. Most have been in gangs, both on the streets and in prison.

Robina was born in Melbourne, Australia and brought up as a Catholic. She studied classical singing until her early twenties, then went to London in 1967, where she lived for four years. She became actively involved in the radical left, working mainly with a London-based support group for black and Chicano prisoners. In the early 70s she became a feminist and returned to Melbourne in 1972 to work with other radical feminists.

In her quest for a spiritual path, Robina began studying martial arts in 1974 and moved to New York, where she studied karate. She continued her studies in Melbourne until 1976, when she attended a Tibetan Buddhist course in Queensland given by Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

In November 1977 Ven. Robina went to Kopan Monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal, where she was ordained. Since then, she has lived as a Buddhist nun in the Tibetan tradition, traveling, teaching and bringing the Dharma to people both in and out of prison.

Ven. Robina was the editorial director of Wisdom Publications until 1987, before moving to the FPMT's international journal Mandala as editor.

At the end of 2000 she resigned to spend more time teaching at Buddhist centers around the world and to devote her time and energy to Liberation Prison Project.

In 2001 Ven. Robina began leading Chasing Buddha Pilgrimages, organized by Effie Fletcher, to holy sites in India, Nepal and Tibet to raise money for the prison project.

Ven. Robina led all of the pilgrimages for the first five years, using practices Rinpoche had given her. In 2006 she invited other nuns to join the team: Americans Ven. Nyinge and Ven. Amy Miller, and Tibetan Ven. Tsenla.

Related Links
ChasingBuddha.org
FPMT.org
LamRim.com