LEVEL 4, 12 THOMAS STREET CHATSWOOD NSW • 02 9557 6814 • 0422 032 391
FOUNDER, OVERCOMING PROBLEMS PROGRAMS
INSTITUTE TEACHER
VENERABLE (Ani-la) CHRIS ROBERTS
- Ven. (Ani-la) Chris Roberts is a Tibetan Buddhist Nun and has been studying Tibetan Buddhis since 1980. Her teacher, His Eminence Khejok Tulku Rinpoche is an Abbot, a fully qualified Tibetan Lama and a Traditional Tibetan Medical Practitioner. Ven. (Ani-la) Chris has been with him from the first day he arrived in Australia in 1986 and is his first student.
- In 2007 His Holiness Khalkha Rinpoche, the spiritual head of Mongolia, visited the Institute and announced that Ven. (Ani-la) Chris had started a new system of Buddhism that was of benefit to all and this was re-affirmed by H.E. Khejok Rinpoche in the same year.
- In 2008, H.H. Khalkha Rinpoche offered her his support and became Patron of the Institute and officially recognised her system of Buddhism.
- Also in 2008, H.E. Khensur Rinpoche Ngawang Thekchok, the now retired Abbot of Sera Mey Monastic University, officially recognised Ven. (Ani-la) Chris's new system of Buddhsim, as did her own teacher H.E. Khejok Rinpoche that same year.
The Australian Institute of Tibetan Medical Practices was founded in 1992 by H.E. Khejok Rinpoche. At that time, H.E. Khejok Rinpoche asked Ven. (Ani-la) Chris to teach Buddhism within the Institute, because Tibetan Medicine is intertwined with Buddhism and is based on understanding the mind. Consequently, she taught both Buddhists and non-Buddhists, helping them to overcome their illnesses through learning to address negative states of mind and attitudes. The teachings began to reach people from all walks of life. In 1998 H.E. Khejok Rinpoche closed the medical institute and renamed the Institute to the Australian Institute of Tibetan Healing Practices, and instructed Ven. (Ani-la) Chris to keeping on teaching and developing her style within the Institute.
In 1998 Ven. (Ani-la) Chris was also asked to teach at Tibetan Buddhist Healing Practises, in Townsville Queensland, she has been running programs and teaching there ever since.
Subsequently, Ven. (Ani-la) Chris’s programs are very different. She puts the how-to into Buddhism, using techniques and methods that allow westerners to open up awareness, teaching them to overcome problems and make better decisions.
Ven. (Ani-la) Chris has deliberately tried to avoid Tibetan cultural and Western educational influences, and tries to hold the pureness of the teachings with a user-friendly Western style. These classes are not for those who wish to study Buddhism merely intellectually or to collect philosophy, but are for those who want to grow and change in themselves.
She has not studied any Western psychology, psychiatry or therapies, nor has she watered down the Buddhist teachings to suit the Western mind. Instead, she has solely applied Tibetan Buddhism to developing teachings, approaches, techniques and methods that are powerful antidotes, specifically designed for the Western mind and Western problems.
Ven. (Ani-la) Chris has given guest lectures to a diverse range of organisations, and has made presentations at conferences, both international and Australian. She is in the "Australian Who's Who of Women", has served on the Cancer Council of NSW Ethics Committee and was the Buddhist representative on the Women’s Interfaith Network for which she was a founding committee member. Ven. Chris also taught Buddhism for two years in the Ashfield Uniting Church, where Rev. Bill Crews runs the Exodus Foundation that works with disadvan taged and marginalised people. Photo History.