Retreats

The Drinking Lesson:  "That which intoxicates dualistic mind is the anti-death potion indeed."  The Guyasamaja Tantra

prerequisites: Surmang Kagyu Order Members Only,Dathun ,Three Month Residency, Completion of ngondro, Vajrayogini abhisheka

As a young Tulku in Tibet, Trungpa Rinpoche was given a drink of chang, Tibetan barley beer, during practice sessions of a special Chakrasamvara Lama dance that was famous at the Surmang monastery.  He instantly had realization.

This retreat will be an exploration of the view and method of the "Left-Handed Tantra"  All those juicy, tantric things-- passion, intoxication and dharmakaya --will be explored from the perspective of the view, practice and conduct of Dzogpachenpo.

Trungpa Rinpoche's transplantation of the Surmang Kagyu Dharma in the West is based on that experience.  Without the fuel of alcoholic intoxication the destruction of spiritual materialism is not possible.

"When the three men of Kham were living at Boulders Like Horses and Yaks, Saltong Shogom said, "We of the lineage of Naropa must practice the tenth day celebration.  Wouldn't it be best to do a Vajravarahi ganacakra?" 

Khampa Dorgyal said, " Here, we are bound by the drinking rule.  If the head disciplinary monk finds out, we will be punished."  But Shogom did not listen. 

They deliberated on what to do on this tenth day festival of the first month of the summer season.  Each recieved permission from the precious guru to make a chang offering from three skull cups of barley, and so they brewed chang with these nine skull cups of barley. 

Dorgyal herded logs for the fire from behind Gampo hill with his slingshot.  U-se brought water in a net bag.  Shogom sent forth wind from his fingertips and kindled the fire.  They also found  the other things necessary for the ganacakra. 

That evening they performed the sadhana of Vajravarahi and their spirits were exhilarated.  They made many offerings of song and dance.  Moreover they performed the great Kagyu folk dance with this famous secret song of supplication: 

"On this occasion let us vajra brothers supplicate.  Let us genuinely supplicate and blessings will enter. 

You who dwell on top of my head on a sun-moon seat, kind root guru, I supplicate you. 

In theAkanistha dharma palace, Dharmakaya, Great Vajradhara, I supplicate you. 

In the east, in the precious monastery of Sahor, Tilo Prajnabhadra, I supplicate you. 

In the north, in Puspahari monastery, learned mahapandita Naro, I supplicate you. 

In the south, in the monastery in the valley of Trowo,  Translator Marpa Lotsawa, I supplicate you. 

In the east, in the glorious Taklha Gampo,  Dharmaraja, the Physician of Takpo, I supplicate you. 

In the west, in the palace of Uddiyana, consort Vajravarahi, I supplicate you. 

In the Cool Grove charnel ground, Dharmapalas, Mahakala and Mahakali, I supplicate you. 

May obstacles of inner and outer adversities not arise.  Please grant me the supreme and ordinary siddhis.

Thus they made supplication and danced a great deal.  The disciplinary monks of the tagye heard them and came. 
"You three have gone against the general laws of the sangha.  Singing songs and dancing, all these violate our traditions and go against the dharma law.  Therefore you cannot stay here;  you must leave right now," they said and beat them with sticks.

Dorgyal sang, "The ground is the field of equanimity..."telling him how to drink chang, but he would not listen.  He said, " Leave tonight, or else in the morning as soon as you can see the road, be off."

cost $295.00 includes room and board

 

Quintessential Trungpa Rinpoche:  Shamatha-Vipashyana Meditation: "Touch and Go"

April 4 to April 6, 2025

There are no prerequisites for this retreat

"A common misunderstanding is that the meditative state of mind has to be captured and then nursed and cherished.  That is definitely the wrong approach.  If you try to domesticate your mind through meditation--try to possess it by holding on to the meditative state-- the clear result  will be regression on the path, with a loss of freshness and  spontaneity.  If you try to hold on without lapse all the time, then maintaining   your awareness will begin to become a domestic hassle  It will  become like painfully going through housework.  There will be an underlying sense of resentment, and the practice of meditation will become confusing.  You will begin to develop a love-hate relationship toward your practice, in which your concept of it seems good but, at the same time, the demand this rigid concept makes  on you is too painful.

So the technique is based on touch and go  You focus your attention on the object of awareness then, in the same moment, you disown that awareness and go on. What is needed here is some sense of confidence--confidence that you do not have to securely own your mind, but that you can tune into its process spontaneously."  Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

The Quintessential Teachings of Trungpa Rinpoche series are a set of weekend retreats suitable for beginners and advanced students which engage the pith oral instructions of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.  In this retreat we will engage the fundamental instructions on Dzogchen and Mahamudra practice given by Trungpa Rinpoche to his direct students.  

As beginners one always comes at practice with a mind conditioned by certain assumptions.  Generally we attempt to sustain a fabricated concentration by focusing on a technique.  But in this case one needs to develop a fundamental awareness which knows when you are present directly and then we let go of  any attempt to hold on to a fabricated concentration.  This is both the development and realization of "knowing the one" or "resolving the nature of mind."  It is not about feeling "good" particularly or pushing away thoughts so that we can achieve a "thought-free state."  It is realizing that this moment of knowing when we are present in a way which is not conditioned by our habitual reactions is the ultimate reference point -- the ultimate nature of our awareness.

The weekend will consist of talks by the resident teacher and the Practice of "mixing mind with space" the essential training of Dzogchen practice.  There will be group discussion and individual meditation interviews.

 

Cost  $195.00

Includes room and Board 

Admiral John Perks' Memorial Purnachandra Regatta Penobscott Bay, Maine

 Name   PURNACHANDRA....

The Code.

Thusness is clear,

So this is our view,

We do not transgress this,

So this is our samaya,

We do not take it up or reject it,

So this is our practice.

Our self-evidence is indivisible.

This is our mandala.

We attain self-empowerment.

This is empowerment.

It is spontaneously realized,

So it is our good work.

We are not distracted,

So this is our samadhi.

July 9,2020

The pirate code was stolen by two pirates - Sri Singha and Vairochana - who broke into the palace by night where they broke the seals and stole the books. These particular books were put under lock and key by the King, because of some disturbance involving a prostitute and a nun. The translation of the books into English, by another pirate with the initials C.W., were on my desk and I was thinking about the pirates’ code for some time, and there it was written on the back of the book. So I stole it.

The Commodore.

Some time ago Rinpoche was invited to the Disney World in Anaheim California. We went with a small group. Rinpoche went on one or two rides -The Haunted House and the Jungle Boat ride. But he insisted on going on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride over and over again, drinking sake from a large coke-a-cola bottle, and singing:

Yo Ho,  Yo Ho,

A Pirates life for me,

We pillage, we plunder, we rifle and loot,

Drink up me 'earties,

Yo Ho.

We were all encouraged to sing along,

Some- time after, Rinpoche said, "Major, we should have a navy".  I said, “yes”, thinking more of Hornblower. "I will be the head. What is that called?" asked Rinpoche. "Admiral" I replied. "And you can be the second in command. What is that rank?" "Commodore" I said. 

And so it was."

"You are invited to join us for the 5th annual Regatta and Fleet Rendezvous for the New England Purnachandra.  The fleet will assemble in Rockland Harbor where we will engage in the usual pirate activity which will include both practices involving form and practices without form. 

From Rockland Harbor the mandala will set sail on adventures to Vinylhaven and North Haven Islands where we will come in contact with different civilizations and unexplored bays--looting and pillaging our personal experience in these strange lands."  
Yo ho!

Commodore Tashi Armstrong 

 H.M.S. Veritas

Surmang Kagyu Retreat Center
Three month residency

prerequisite: "Touch and Go" Introduction to Meditation.

The three month residency is an invitation to engage the three yana teachings of Vidyadhara Trungpa Rinpoche's Surmang Kagyu and Shambhala Lineages.

 We follow the daily schedule of practice/ study and work Trungpa Rinpoche developed at his main practice center, Karme Choling and Vajradhatu Seminaries, during his lifetime.

 Participants engage a daily and bi-weekly schedule of practice and study with approximately 5 hours of communal practice each day; individual meditation instruction twice a week; and, two hours of class instruction studying the pith instructions of our lineage.  
This is a work/study position.  There is no charge and participants staff and participate in all group retreats held during their residency at no charge. 

There is also a 2 week solitary retreat included at the end of the three month residency for participants.

The Truth of Suffering-- Trungpa Rinpoche's Hinayana Teachings

prerequisite: Touch and Go Introduction to Meditation at DMC

"In order to cut through the ambition of ego, we must understand how we set up me and my territory, how we use our projections as credentials to prove our existence.  The source of the effort to confirm our solidity is an uncertainty as to whether or not we exist.  Driven by this uncertainty, we seek to prove our own existence by finding a reference point outside ourselves, something with which to have a relationship, something solid to feel separate from.  But the whole enterprise is questionable if we really look back and back.  Perhaps we have perpetrated a gigantic hoax."

Trungpa Rinpoche

When people first hear about Buddhism and the teachings of the Hinayana which focus on "the truth of suffering" they often wonder, " Why would I want to study a religion that is so depressing?"

When the Buddha attained "so-called enlightenment" (Trungpa's words) under the bodhi tree 2600  years ago he spent 7 days wondering how he could communicate what he realized to confused people like ourselves.  Essentially, what he realized was that we only glimpse the awakened state when our habitual mind-- the mind of hope and fear-- experiences a gap.  Because we are attached to the process of mental projection and fixation (dualistic fixation) a gap in its speed and smooth operation produces tremendous anxiety and panic.  So in the Hinayana we come into contact with this world beyond habitual mind--sems-- as a full blown panic attack.  This reality is "The Truth of Suffering."  Mind beyond habitual projection and fixation is reality.  Dualistic fixation is a fantasy or dream world.  In the Hinayana we have no idea about a reality beyond habitual reference point until our habitual reference point falls apart.  That is a great shock. 

 If we hold our seat in the midst of ego's panic attack we discover a reality beyond --or as a background to --habitual mind's fantasy world.  This reality is the enlightened state but to our samsaric way of being it doesn't feel that way. 

 Trungpa Rinpoche describes this as the "cosmic joke" in the talks transcribed in " The Myth of Freedom."  

  This is the Hinayana of the Backwards Ati-- it has the view of Dzogchen in it already.  When we understand this Hinayana through direct experience then we have in many ways understood the fundamental teaching of Dzogchen.  Dzogchen is said to be so simple that even an uneducated farmer can understand it and reach enlightenment.  I'm not so sure about college educated Americans... But certainly uneducated farmers-- or yak herders.

Cost $595.00 includes room and board