About
Gem Boord has practiced Buddhism since 1994. He studied and practiced intensively at Kagyu Samye Ling monastery for three years and became a student of Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche. In 2003, he began following Mingyur Rinpoche after attending teachings in Brighton. Since 2016, Boord has led Tergar practice groups in southern England.
Teaching focus
Boord's core teaching draws on shamatha, analytical meditation, deity practice. The frame is the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition with its layered approach to sutra and tantra, but the language stays plain. Boord doesn't lecture from height. The talks tend to think alongside whatever's actually present in the room. Recurring themes include bodhicitta, emptiness, and tonglen. None of those get presented as abstract ideas. They're worked into the body, into ethics, into how a practitioner shows up in family life or at work, so that the dharma stops feeling like a separate compartment. There's a steady invitation in the talks to keep practice human-sized. Sit when you can, return when you've drifted, and trust that small consistent attention does more over the years than dramatic breakthroughs. Format-wise, Boord teaches in in-person, group, and the tone moves easily between guided sittings, dharma talks, and Q&A. Questions tend to get answered the way they were asked, without being reframed into something cleaner. That alone tells you a lot about how the room feels.
Background
Gem Boord has practiced Buddhism since 1994. He studied and practiced intensively at Kagyu Samye Ling monastery for three years and became a student of Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche. In 2003, he began following Mingyur Rinpoche after attending teachings in Brighton. Since 2016, Boord has led Tergar practice groups in southern England. Gem Boord has been practicing Buddhism since 1994. For three years he studied and practiced intensively at Kagyu Samye Ling monastery, then became a close student of Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche. He felt a powerful connection with Mingyur Rinpoche when Rinpoche came to teach in his hometown of Brighton in 2003. Since then, he has followed Rinpoche and tries to apply his meditation instructions as much as possible. Short times, many times! Since 2016, Gem has been leading Tergar practice groups in the south of England. Boord's teaching home is Tergar, where the practice community shapes the rhythm of retreats, sittings, and dharma talks. That work sits within the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition with its layered approach to sutra and tantra, and the recurring concerns of Boord's teaching, ethical foundation, steady attention, and the slow softening of habitual reactivity, echo the older texts without sounding distant from a 21st-century practitioner's life. What stands out across Boord's talks isn't a single technique but a steadying tone. Practice is treated as something built slowly, in ordinary life, with care. There's room for the difficulties practitioners actually bring into the room, grief, restlessness, the body's complaints, family obligations, and the encouragement is consistent without being pushy.
Lineage
Boord teaches within the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition with its layered approach to sutra and tantra. Source notes mention training with Mingyur Rinpoche. Current affiliations include Tergar. The lineage shows up less in titles than in the way Boord talks about practice, with steady reference to the older Buddhist vocabulary while keeping the door open for people who've never read a sutra. Whether that framing lands as monastic or lay depends on the specific talk, but the consistent thread is care for the form without letting the form become the point.
What to expect
Sitting with Boord, you can expect grounded instruction in shamatha, with space to ask questions and bring whatever's actually showing up in your practice. Group settings have a community feel without becoming social. People sit, listen, and check in. The teaching voice is steady. Boord won't push you past your edge, and there's a clear preference for slow, sustainable practice over breakthrough chasing. Bring a notebook if you like, or don't. Either way, you'll be met where you are.
