Summer 2012 Retreats at the Nyingma Institute

Summer 2012 Retreats at the Nyingma Institute

Retreats offer fresh insights and spiritual refreshment in a gentle, meditative atmosphere. Residential costs for retreats include vegetarian meals and either a shared or private room. These retreats are open to all levels of students. Retreats begin Monday morning and conclude Saturday afternoon.

Time, Insight, and Tranquility

This summer’s retreat sessions focus on awakening insights and fostering serenity that endures through all the stages of our lives. Teachings include Nyingma meditation, Tibetan Yoga and medicine, Nyingma Psychology, Buddhist Studies, and Skillful Means.

The goal of these retreats is to lead each participant to discover sources of nourishment that do not diminish with age nor disappear with death. The retreats guide us in a search to find ways to transform memory into wisdom; to transform loss into generosity; to transform the accumulated sorrows of a lifetime into pure love; to transform even pain and death into brilliant awareness.

The first week of retreat (June 11-16) is all about cultivating serenity. Meditation, contemplation of gentle Buddhist teachings and the beauty of the Nyingma Institute work together to bring participants to a point of deep calm. Techniques for maintaining inner peace in daily life ensure that these experiences will continue after the retreat.

In two weeks of Tibetan Yoga retreats (June 25-July 7), participants discover new ways of ‘operating’ the senses. Deep tones are found within each sensory ability that do not depend upon what we sense. Through gentle Kum Nye practices that can be done at every stage of life we tap into these tones, developing an abiding trust in our capacity for connection and communication.

“Cutting through Conditioning” (July 9-14) presents powerful techniques from Nyingma Psychology to release the accumulated habits of a lifetime. We focus on the power of time to change us and everything we know, seeing how each stage of life we pass through, even those that we may know as ‘difficult’ has a distinct patterning and special wisdom to reveal. When we ask, “How did this moment of time arise?” the delicate blossom of the present moment is not crushed by the weight of past conditioning. A space opens up between us and the compelling force of habit. We can look through layers of conditioning, using awareness like a microscope that penetrates to the core of wisdom.

The “Preparation for the Time of Death” retreat (July 16-21) presents an outline of the teachings of the Tibetan tradition for the time of death. Its focus will be on gentle awareness practices that can be utilized at the time of death and beyond to ease and open this transition into an opportunity for vast knowledge.

“Entering Openness” (July 23-28) brings the realization of change and impermanence to bear on the negative forces of anger, attachment, and ignorance, making way for an experience of the openness of being. Classic Tibetan teachings on the nature of mind and consciousness blend with powerful analytic meditations to foster these insights.

Turning to the Buddha’s teachings on self-mastery (July 30-August 4), we learn to relax ordinary mind and attachments. Reorienting awareness through study, analysis, and meditation, we form a lasting partnership with an enduring lineage of compassionate wisdom. Establishing a bond of loving kindness with all living beings, we come to the end of loneliness. Our heart learns to speak in gentle tones, and there are no unhappy endings.

The final week of this summer’s retreats shifts to an experiential exploration of how we communicate and connect with ourselves and others. The Skillful Means approach points out how every moment’s purposeful endeavor, no matter how small, can be the means for drawing forthall that is valuable in our lives.

June 11-16: MED502 Finding Inner Peace

Finding tranquility, even in the midst of a busy life, is the goal of this retreat. Focusing on calming meditations (shamatha) reveals the clear, luminous nature of mind itself.

Primary Instructor: Olivia Hurd.

Cost for week: $370 (nonresidential); $600 (residential).

June 25-30: KNR505 Tibetan Yoga for Healing and Energy

Breath and movement exercises awaken an inner vitality that is directly linked to natural healing. Students will also be introduced to fundamental principles of Tibetan and Ayurvedic medicine.

Instructors: Kum Nye faculty.

Cost for week: $370 (nonresidential); $600 (residential).

July 2-7: KNR503 Kum Nye: Attuning to the Present Moment

This retreat makes use of the full range of Kum Nye exercises to help each retreatant integrate a rich array of positive feelings into body, senses, and mind.

Instructors: Kum Nye faculty.

Cost for week: $370 (nonresidential); $600 (residential).

July 9-14: NPS502 Cutting through Conditioning

Through skillfully observing mental images, we can recognize and then release the layers of conditioning that have accumulated throughout our lives. Topics covered include: self-image; the cyclic nature of fascination and anxiety; and Abhidharma analysis of discerning mental events.

Primary Instructor: Sylvia Gretchen.

Cost for week: $370 (nonresidential); $600 (residential).

July 16-21: NPR501 Preparation for the Time of Death

Meditation practices given in this retreat will help to prepare for the time of death. Rather than waiting for an unknown destiny, students learn to turn inward and learn the nature of their minds. What they discover heightens appreciation for the value of every moment and every type of experience.

Primary Instructor: Sylvia Gretchen.

Cost for week: $370 (nonresidential); $600 (residential).

July 23-28: DHS523 Entering Openness

Meditation and mind training exercises help to overcome the obstructive forces of anger, attachment, and ignorance, making way for the experience of the openness of being. Meditation practice is supported by an examination of classic Tibetan teachings on the nature of mind and consciousness.

Primary Instructor: Sylvia Gretchen.

Cost for week: $370 (nonresidential); $600 (residential).

July 30-August 4: DHS535 Guidelines for Self-Mastery

Even today it is possible to find those who have traveled this path of heroes; we have models of kindness and compassion, and we have the history of the great lineage holders to inspire us. Drawing on these resources to nourish our sense of devotion, perhaps we can give the teachings an opportunity to work their wonder.” Tarthang Tulku, Path of Heroes.

Self-Mastery means that we can act in ways that nurture and sustain the power of wisdom and compassion within our being. This week of retreat focuses on integrating our positive aspirations with the actions of body, speech, and mind. Topics include making meditative practice a way of life, letting a joyful mind sustain us, and cultivating unlimited love.

Instructors: Sylvia Gretchen and Olivia Hurd. Based on Path of Heroes by Zhechen Gyaltsab.

Cost for week: $370 (nonresidential); $600 (residential).

August 6-11: SKM501 Skillful Means: Communication and Connection

In this experiential retreat, students learn to enjoy communicating well. Discussion and exercises clarify a path towards more reliable and rewarding connections with others. We see how working together to accomplish shared purposes both fosters and depends upon effective communication and strong interconnection, bringing knowledge and fulfillment.

Instructor: Barr Rosenberg.

Cost for week: $370 (nonresidential); $600 (residential).