Lena Leonteva

Lena Leonteva was born in Ryazan, Russia, in 1965. She studied mathematics in Lvov, Ukraine and studied at the Karmapa International Buddhist Institute. She lives in the Moscow Diamond Way Buddhist Center and has been giving lectures on Buddhism since 1998. In 2011 she defended a doctoral thesis on works of Marpa the Translator. She is currently working as editor-in-chief in a publishing house and teaching history of Buddhism at the Oriental University of Moscow. 

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The Spread of Diamond Way Buddhism

The Spread of Diamond Way BuddhismBy /

In 2005 Lama Ole Nydahl asked his long-time student Lena Leonteva to go to graduate school, get a degree in the history of Buddhism, and write a book—under the auspices of the Russian Academy of Science—which, as he put it, “we could quote from if we are attacked.” The book is entitled Guidebook to Buddhism: An Illustrated Encyclopedia (Putevoditel’ po buddizmu: illustrirovannaia entsiklopediia; Путеводитель по буддизму: иллюстрированная энциклопедия) and was published in Russian in 2012 by the publishing house Orientalia.

Originally written as a textbook for Lena’s students in the history of Buddhism, the book turned into a guidebook to Buddhism after Orientalia offered to print it in a richly illustrated format. Lena wrote it to be understandable for teenagers, and Lama Ole gave it a subtitle “Buddhism Made Easy.” This excerpt comes from the fourth chapter, entitled “The Spread of Buddhism.”

Translated by Michał Mucha, Masha Chlenova and Annik Foreman.

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