Being Vajrayogini: Vajrayogini Dathun  

The usual prerequisites apply.

"The main point is not to conjure up this practice in an effort to banish your awful thoughts or your inconsiderate ideas.  That is not the vajrayana way.  When you sit down to practice the Vajrayogini, you are Vajrayogini.  The guru is Vajrayogini.  On the shrine is Vajrayogini.  You have the dharmakaya, the sambhogakaya, and the nirmanakaya all at once.  You should not be sloppy, because the Vajrayogini is your basic mind, and beyond that Vajrayogini is your body, your speech, and also your karma.  What exists as your karma is the Vajrayogini.  You have to take definite pride that this particular sadhana was passed down from our forefathers, beginning with Tilopa, who recieved it directly.  How did he recieve it?  He pierced the veil of ignorance by not thinking of it as a mechanical thing to do.  He said, "Let's see."  You should do that when you practice the Vajrayogini sadhana."

Vajra Regent Osel Tendzin

Vajrayogini dathun is a month long Vajrayogini retreat which affords us the luxury of completely soaking in the discipline and blessings of the Vajrayogini Sadhana.  We will engage the full sadhana including the feast practice each day of the retreat.  We will rely on the pith instructions of the Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and The Vajra Regent Osel Tendzin.

Daily schedule:

 5:30 Wake up

6-8 Self Visualization

8-9 Breakfast;

9-12 Self, Front and Vase;

12-1 Feast with Readings and Discussion;

1-2:30 Rest;

2:30-4 work;

4-6 Self and Front Visualization;

6-7 dinner;

7-9 Self Visualization, Sampanakrama;

10 Lights Out.

Practicing the Pith Instructions of the Vajra Regent Osel Tendzin

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

April 22 to April 24th, 2022

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 concentratiion 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 

Kyudo Retreat

May 13- 22, 2025

prerequisite:  Touch and Go Introduction to Meditation.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche invited the 20th Generation Samurai, Kanjuro Shibata Sensei-- Bowmaker to the Emperor of Japan and Head of a Chikkurin Ryu branch of the Heki School of Japanese archery-- to come to the United States and instruct his direct students in the martial art of kyudo in 1982.  Sensei taught what he called "mind kyudo" which he said was the same as "standing zen." 

He differentiated this approach to kyudo from what he called "sports kyudo."  In Japan, Sensei would tell us, kyudo had become "sports kyudo," and that students there were more interested in hitting the target than in developing the awakened state mind.  Trungpa Rinpoche's students were receptive to Sensei's teachings on "mind kyudo" and they also purchased many of his bamboo yumis or bows.  Sensei moved permanantly to Boulder, CO from his home in Kyoto in the mid 1980's. 
   The claim that all kyudo in Japan is "sports kyudo" is not exactly true--though there is nothing quite like turning it into a competitive highschool sport to kill the spirit of it.  One only has to watch highly trained kyudoka in Japan to realize that these practitioners have reached a very high level of spiritual and physical refinement in their practice.

  It is the close connection between Trungpa Rinpoche's Shambhala and Dzogchen teachings that makes our training in kyudo unique here at DMC-- and that is the purpose of training in kyudo here.  You will not be training with a kyudo master during this retreat-- you will be training with a kyudo instructor-- Tashi Armstrong.  We don't offer internationally recognized belt ranks.  But we will invoke drala and extend our insight gained from shamatha/vipashyana meditation into our use of the Japanese contemplative art of kyudo-- the way of the bow.

Tashi was a direct student of Shibata Sensei starting in 1987.  Lived at Shibata Sensei's house in Boulder in 1993-4.  He was made an "instructor" by Shibata Sensei in 2000.  Tashiwas a direct student of Vidyadhara Trungpa Rinpoche and was accepted as a tantric disciple in 1986.

Class equipment will be provided along with room and board

$795.00

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 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 there residency at no charge.

The Truth of Suffering--Backwards Ati, Trungpa Rinpoche's Hinayana Teachings

"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 and 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 relkationship, 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."

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 hundred 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.  If we hold our seat in the midst of egos panic attack we discover a reality beyond --or as a background too --habitual mind's fantasy world.  This reality is the enlightened state.  Trungpa Rinpoche describes this as the "cosmic joke" in the talks transcribed in " The Myth of Freedom."

Fearless Compassion

Awakened heart, Awakened mind-- generating fearless compassion.

"Compassion is based on some sense of 'soft spot' in us.  It is as if we had a pimple on our body that was very sore--so sore that we do not want to rub it or scratch it.  During our shower, we do not want to rub too much soap over it because it hurts.  There is a sore point or soft spot that happens to be painful to rub, painful to put hot or cold water over.  That sore spot on our body is an analogy for compassion.  Why?  Because even in the midst of immense aggression, insensitivity in our life, or laziness, we always have a soft spot, some spoint we can cuktivate-- or at least not bruise.  Every human being has that kind of basic sore spot, including animals.  Whether we are crazy, dull, aggressive, ego-tripping, whatever we might be, there is still that sore spot taking place in us.  An open wound, which might be a more vivid analogy, is always there.  That open wound is usually very inconvenient and problematic.  We don't like it.  We would like to be tough.  We would like to fight, to come out strong, so we do not have to defend any aspect of ourselves.  We would like to attack our enemy on the spot, single-handedly.  We would like to lay our trips on everybody completely and properly, so that  we have nothing to hide.  That way, if somebody decides to hit us back, we are not wounded.  And hopefully, nobody will hit us on that sore spot, that wound that exists in us.  Our basic makeup, the basic constituents of mind, are based on passion and compassion at the same time.  But however confused we might be, however much of a cosmic monster we might be, still there is an open wound or sore spot in us always.  There will always be a sore spot."

The path of the bodhisattva is based on genuine love for "other."  
Having experienced "the truth of suffering" as the simultaneous collapse of habitual mind's deluded approach with the momentary glimpse of freedom beyond habitual reference point we realizes that our path depends on engaging what is perceived as "other."  

"Holding our seat" in our coemergent panic attack-- we discover a warrior's heart.  This heart is a broken heart-- which is the experience of genuine compassion.  When engaged in this way through tonglen and the six paramita's our awakened heart/awareness extends to all the hidden corners of our experience.  
Genuine compassion and the warrior's heart of sadness allows our momentary glimpse to expand into the experience of non referential awareness or sunyatha-- emptiness and compassion.

Devotion Mahamudra

January Dathun 2025

Prerequisites: "Touch and Go" weekend

"Disgust with samsara leads us to seek a discipline that will cut through habitual patterns.  We look for a path, a teaching that is not based on accumulating further neurosis and confusion.  The discipline that provides the framework for out entire path is the formal practice of sitting meditation.  Meditation practice allows us to look at things clearly, and we begin to develop mindfulness.  Mindfulness means paying atttention to the details of our experience.  Without mindfulness, we stumble, we get confused, we lose our way, and there is no possibility of proceeding.  When we do not miss the details of our experience, we are awake, alert , and precise."  The Vajra Regent Osel Tendzin

Dathun "Month Session" is a seminal retreat developed by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.  The retreat format is a combination of two practice traditions-- the dzogchen/mahamudra teachings of Trungpa Rinpoche's Surmang Kagyu tradition and the Soto Zen Teachings of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. 

Dathun Schedule

5:30  Wake up

6-8  Shamatha/ Vipashyana meditation

8  Oryoki Breakfast

9-12 Morning Chants and Shamatha/Vipashyana

12 Oryoki Lunch

1-2 Rest Period

2-4 Work Period

4-6 Shamatha/Vipashyana and Protector's Chants

6  Dinner

7-9 Shamatha/Vipashyana and Closing Chants