At a time when Western society is showing a growing interest in contemplative traditions, Ferrán Mestanza stands out for his ability to build bridges between the wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism and the contemporary world. His upcoming participation as a teacher in the online course "Vajrayāna and Tibetan Buddhism: teachings and practices", co-organized by the Fundació Universitat Rovira i Virgili and the Dharma-Gaia Foundation, offers a valuable opportunity to approach these teachings from a rigorous and accessible perspective.
Ferran Mestanza García, disciple of the renowned Tibetologist Ramon Prats, combines a solid academic background with extensive practical experience. He holds a degree in Humanities from Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) and in Oriental Languages and Civilizations, with a specialization in Tibetan, from the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO). He also holds a Diplôme d'Études Approfondies (DEA) degree in Advanced Asian Studies. He is accredited as a level 2 instructor in MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) by the Brown University School of Public Health. His academic and professional career has been enriched by three years in India and Nepal, as well as four years in Paris, where he deepened his study and practice of Tibetan Buddhism.
As founding director of the Mindfulness Center of Barcelona, Mestanza has dedicated his professional life to making Buddhist contemplative practices accessible to all audiences, while maintaining respect for the authenticity of the traditional teachings. His work as a teacher of classical Tibetan and translator specializing in Buddhist texts has also contributed significantly to the spread of the dharma in the Spanish-speaking world. In this interview, he recounts his significant initial encounter with Tibetan Buddhism, his academic training and practical experience in Asia, and reflects on the challenge of transmitting these teachings in an authentic and accessible way in the contemporary Western context.
BUDDHISTDOOR EN ESPAÑOL: Please tell us about your initial encounter with Buddhism.
FERRAN MESTANZA: Like many, if not most, things that happen to us, finding Buddhism was a coincidence or, as they say in Buddhist terms, a causality. In 1996, when I was 19 years old and studying Humanities at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, I attended with a small group of classmates a workshop on Tibetan Buddhism offered by Ramon Prats, who had been a professor of Tibetology at the University of Naples. At the end of the day, when the store closed its doors to the public, we would gather in the heart of Barcelona's Jewish quarter, in the alcove of the Santo Domingo Bookstore.
29 years later, I can see that this was the beginning and one of the most important turning points in my life, as what could have been just another "chance" and therefore one-off encounter, became a totally meaningful encounter and the beginning of a life dedicated to the study and practice of the Dharma.
In those informal evening sessions, Ramon spoke to us in a close and sincere way about his own experience with his Tibetan master Namkhai Norbu, with whom he had had close contact in Italy. The simple and direct approach to the natural state of consciousness, characteristic of the dzogchen tradition or "great completeness", as well as the simple meditation practices, devoid of all ritualism and dogmatism, did not seem distant or exotic to me, but totally close and full of meaning. In fact, I had the feeling that those teachings and practices made the most sense of all I had ever known and held a richness and depth that I wanted to explore.
Knowing that this tradition was so ancient and still alive through the transmission of lineages of masters and disciples, stimulated me to undertake a vital adventure of inner exploration into human nature and outward exploration into distant cultures. Thus, after that workshop, I began to study privately with Ramon Prats the basics of the classical Tibetan language and Buddhism, and two years later I began to travel to meet the sources and the living tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. In the spring of 1998 I attended my first meditation retreat on Mount Amiata in Tuscany with Namkhai Norbu, and that summer I traveled to India and Nepal, where I met various Tibetan masters in exile. Of these encounters the most important was with Chatral Rinpoche from whom I received the taking of refuge and the name Shakya Rinchen.
Chatral Rinpoche was 85 years old and lived a hermit's life. He lived in a wooden house in the middle of the forest, near the famous Nepalese temple of Dakshinkali and the legendary caves of Yangleshö and Asura, linked to Padmasambhava. Sitting in his meditation box, his presence filled the entire room. His gaze was deep and penetrating, and his eyes were crystalline and pure like those of a child. His voice was especially husky and deep, and he spoke slowly and softly.
The meeting consisted of a simple cordial conversation about my origins and my interests, after which he invited me to return in a few days. Before I left, he tapped me on the crown of my head with his fingers. It was a quick, sharp blow. An hour later, already on the bus back to Kathmandu, I realized that, since I had left his house, I had been experiencing a state of complete peace and mental clarity, an unparalleled state of quiet joy and total fulfillment.
Some time later I remembered that, as a child and adolescent, I had experienced similar states. In fact, I think most people experience these states naturally in childhood or at special times in their lives, but we forget them if no one tells us about them or teaches us how to reconnect with them. For me, Buddhism does not lead to some altered experience of consciousness or some kind of exotic enlightenment, but teaches us to return to the natural state of human wholeness, from which we can lead a meaningful and ethical life.
This was the real "encounter" with Buddhism, which in reality was a profound encounter with myself, and which made me orient my life towards the study and practice of the Dharma and, years later, to its teaching.
BDE: We would love to know more about your study and teaching of Tibetan Buddhism in academia. Could you tell us about your training and experience in this field?
After this first trip to India and Nepal in the summer of 1998, that same fall I went to study classical Tibetan at the University of Paris and began my university training in the field of Buddhist studies.
Over the next 14 years, I completed a Bachelor's degree in Humanities in Barcelona and, in Paris, I completed a Bachelor's and a Master's degree in Tibetan studies. In my Master's thesis, I did research on the 11th century Tibetan master, Rongzom Paṇḍita, and his role in the formation of the Ancient School(rnying ma) of Tibetan Buddhism.
My Master's directors were Ramon Prats himself, who during all these years was my main mentor, as well as the renowned Tibetologist from the University of Chicago, Matthew Kapstein. At the University of Paris I also met Lama Tenzin Samphel, a great scholar and Nyingmapa practitioner with whom I am still in regular contact and from whom I continue to learn.
During this time, I spent 4 years in Paris and continued traveling to India and Nepal, where I spent three years, studying and meeting different teachers. Under the guidance of Matthew Kapstein and Ramon Prats, I also started a PhD. However, after years of academic study and personal practice, in 2012 I decided to abandon the PhD and start training as a mindfulness teacher, in order to open myself to a modern and secular approach to Buddhism, and integrate its practice with my culture and society.
BDE: How would you say knowledge of the classical Tibetan language influenced your understanding of Tibetan Buddhism?
From the very beginning, it was very important for me to get to know the Buddhist tradition directly and not only to approach Buddhism from Western translations, adaptations or interpretations. For this reason, I decided to travel to India and Nepal to receive teachings personally from the masters and, on the other hand, I undertook the study of the language of the ancient texts and, thus, to be able to access the sources of the tradition itself.
Undoubtedly, this direct approach has been the most influential element in my understanding of Buddhism. At the same time, my subsequent approach to modern mindfulness has helped me to be able to integrate the traditional concepts and practices to my reality and my needs in today's society and times.
Thus, while publicly I teach mindfulness classes, privately I continue to teach classical Tibetan to a very small group in which we read, translate and comment on fragments of Tibetan Buddhist texts, especially from the Dzogchen tradition and from the 14th century master Longchenpa, whose translation of Chos dbyings mdzod: The Space of the Nature of Reality we are preparing.
BDE: In 2018 you founded the Barcelona Mindfulness Center. What was your path to mindfulness and what sparked such a deep interest in this practice in you?
On one occasion the Tibetan lama Dugu Choegyal Rinpoche said to me something like this: "We have gone to the West, we have tried to teach Buddhism and after many years we have seen that it has not worked. Now perhaps it should be you Westerners who come here who try to teach when you go back." For most Westerners, Asian Buddhist beliefs and practices are not applicable to their culture. Buddhism does not exist in a bubble, nor can it be transplanted from one society to another. Buddhism has always been part of the surrounding culture. What sense does it make for a Westerner to perform a medieval Tibetan ritual every day?
Modern mindfulness is a reformulation of Buddhist teachings and practices adapted to the Western, secular and scientific context, but, for me, mindfulness and Buddhism are one and the same thing, which can be expressed in infinite ways.
BDE: You have taught hundreds of mindfulness courses in the last decade, sharing this adaptation of the traditional teachings of Buddhism to the modern context. What challenges do you face when teaching this practice to people with such diverse profiles and in such varied environments? How do you manage to transmit the profound essence of this millenary tradition in a fast-paced and pragmatic world, avoiding that mindfulness loses its authenticity when it becomes popularized?
This is the challenge and a question I ask myself every time I start teaching. The basis is, first, to maintain authenticity in oneself, leading a life as ethical and integral as possible. Mindfulness is not a tool or a meditation technique to alleviate the symptoms of our lifestyle, such as stress, anxiety or depression. What I mean is that, for me, mindfulness is not a practice that we do while we go on with our lives, our relationships or our jobs, but it is, in itself, an integral way of living that leads us to transform, little by little, our way of acting and living, to transform our attitudes, relationships, work, food, ...
The key point is ethics, i.e. the way of living. Awakening to the true nature of consciousness, being aware and mindful of the natural state of our mind and heart, returning to our human nature is healing, it leads us to transform our way of acting and living, and opens us to appreciate this wonderful life, even with all its difficulties.
Links of interest:
Mindfulness Center of Barcelona
Articles published in Buddhistdoor in English
"Editorial introduction to the special issue "Buddhist education in Latin America and Spain".of Buddhistdoor en Español
"The situation of Buddhist studies in Spain: the teaching programs."by Juan Arnau Navarro, Montse Castellà Olivé, Francisco Díez de Velasco, Ricardo Guerrero Diáñez, Basili Llorca Martínez, Daniel Millet, Agustín Pániker Vilaplana, Aleix Ruiz Falqués, Jaume Vallverdú Vallverdú, Abraham Vélez de Cea.
Key publications in Spanish-speaking Buddhist Studies
Buddhist Studies in Latin America and Spain (Volume I)edited by Daniel Millet Gil and Jaume Vallverdú. This first volume brings together a series of essays that explore the relationship between Buddhism and Spanish American culture, addressing topics such as the reception of Buddhism in Latin America and Spain, translations of Buddhist texts into Spanish and the impact of Buddhism in contemporary societies.
Downloadable at: https://llibres.urv.cat/index.php/purv/catalog/view/563/583/1270
Buddhist Studies in Latin America and Spain (Volume II)edited by Daniel Millet Gil and Jaume Vallverdú. The second volume expands the focus of the first, including contributions that analyze Buddhism from interdisciplinary and regional perspectives, with emphasis on its interaction with local cultural traditions and its impact on the academic sphere.
Downloadable at: https://llibres.urv.cat/index.php/purv/catalog/view/595/610/1301
--------------------------
Daniel Millet Gil holds a degree in Law from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and a Master's and PhD in Buddhist Studies from the Centre for Buddhist Studies at the University of Hong Kong. Recipient of the Tung Lin Kok Yuen Award for Excellence in Buddhist Studies (2018-2019). He is executive editor and regular contributor to the Buddhistdoor en Español platform and founder-president of the Dharma-Gaia Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the academic teaching and dissemination of Buddhism in Spanish-speaking countries. This foundation also promotes and sponsors the Buddhist Film Festival of Catalonia. In addition, Millet serves as co-director of the Buddhist Studies program at the Fundació Universitat Rovira i Virgili (FURV). In the publishing field, he directs both Editorial Dharma-Gaia and Editorial Unalome, both of which specialize in publishing translations of Buddhist texts. His numerous academic publications are available at: https://hku-hk.academia.edu/DanielMillet
