Prof. Vesna Wallace will be back in Hong Kong in November as the 13th MaMa Charitable Foundation Visiting Professor in Buddhist Studies at The University of Hong Kong (HKU). She will deliver a three-part lecture series titled, “The Interrelationship Between the Texts, Images, and Rituals in Mongolian Buddhism.”
The lectures will be delivered in person at HKU on the following dates and times:
Lecture 1: “Imagination, Mental Image, and Memory” – Nov 16, 2025 (Sun) | 3:00-5:00 pm
Lecture 2: “Desire, Imagination, and Linguistic Imagery” – Nov 18, 2025 (Tue) | 7:15-9:00 pm
Lecture 3: “Imagination in the Ritual of the Transference of Consciousness to Śambhala and Other Related Practices – Nov 21, 2025 (Fri) | 7:15-9:00 pm
Register here for Wallace’s lectures
Wallace is a veteran scholar who has authored over 90 publications, including eight books (in addition to two books that are currently in press), and many articles and book chapters on the many aspects of Indian and Mongolian Buddhist traditions. She is currently Distinguished University Professor of South Asian and Inner Asian Buddhist Traditions in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB). She is currently the Executive Director of Mongolia Foundation in the US and serves on many international editorial and advisory boards.
As an expert on Mongolian Buddhism, its texts, and its history, Wallace has been particularly informed and articulate on the tradition of the Kalachakra Tantra and the myth-land of Shambhala as it was transmitted from Tibet to Central Asia and Mongolia. Her lecture series this year therefore rightly addresses the transmission of text, ritual, and imagery as “entanglements”—how these Buddhist complexes of the written and oral word, ritual practices, and art and symbolic re-enactment help to transport and preserve Buddhist culture and religious practice across vast periods and expansive lands.
With particular reference to Mongolian Buddhism, Kalachakra, and Shambhala, Wallace’s lectures will include diverse perspectives on ritual techniques of visualization, imagination, and visual material culture to explain how linguistic, mental, and material imagery can be powerful forces in shaping a religious experience that endures through the rise and fall of societies and empires.
The lectures will also examine how Buddhist texts, images, and rituals communicate the individual and communal realities. This is done through mental, verbal, and physical activity imbued by symbols and metaphors that can be both assertive and subversive. Wallace will weave this narrative through compelling and thorough analysis of the scriptures, figures, and mythology surrounding Tibeto-Mongolian Buddhism.
This is a special lecture series that sees one of the veteran names in Mongolian Buddhism scholarship returning to Hong Kong and linking up with the spirit of Shambhala. . . just as BDG screens Laurence Brahm’s films about the Lotus-Born Master and Shambhala, and Bhutan raises the flag of Shambhala and the Kalachakra Tantra at the upcoming Global Peace Prayer Festival in November.
See more
Buddhist Utopia: Prof. Vesna Wallace on Mongolian Visions of the Kalachakra Tantra and Shambhala
