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 our 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 

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

Prerequisites: "Touch and Go: Introduction to Meditation

"The truth of the matter is that every time something happens, we become aware of it. Where do you become aware of it? We say, "In our mind," and that means in space. In other words, space becomes aware of its own movement. This idea, by the way, is basically pointing to ordinary experience by undercutting the quality of experience that is based on ego. Ego is constantly thinking and talking, constantly making up something about what is happening. However, from the point of view of meditation, the only thing that is happening is whatever instantly arises in space, and in that instant, whatever arises has no history. Therefore, it has no memory, and therefore, it has no future. And therefore, even in the present, it has no existence. It is simply pure being, which is like striking a match on a stone-- the flame that occurs is the same as what occurs in space when experience arises: strike! Ssst! Light! Bright! Smell, taste, touch-- everything comes out of that. Its instantaneous and immediate.

"Most people have no idea about this. In fact, most people think that everything has always been "this way." and therefore, it always will be "this way." Therefore, everyone is trapped. The whole world is trapped in passion, aggression , and ignorance. It's so tight that you can't escape. If you move from passion, you get trapped in aggression. If you move from aggression, you get trapped in ignorance. If you move from ignorance, you get trapped in passion. Bascially no one sees the ground out of which all this arises. The Buddhist teachings point out that the ground is unobstructed space. That space is, in the ordinary sense, equated with or associated with what we call mind. Mind is that which knows. It doesn't know anything in particular; it is the quality of knowing. And that quality of knowing is what is illuminated in the practice of meditation."
Meditation: The Practice of Being, Vajra Regent Osel Tendzin.

If you can sense the profundity of this teaching, this is what we call "wisdom."  From this sense, we discover genuine devotion.  Devotion is not the same as "loyalty."  It has no history, no future and in the present it is simply awareness itself.  What you see is what you are.  Samaya is binding oneself to THAT.

$595.00 includes room and board

Hopelessness and Crazy Wisdom

One of the main obstacles we have in our practice is "ambition."  Ambition in practice is just another way to turn your meditation practice into a project for habitual mind. 
Generally speaking, there is a vague notion of where we want to get to-- or what we want to get out of our weekend retreat or two hours of practice.  It is important to see that for what it is-- a projected habitual reference point.

Trungpa Rinpoche referred to students' habit of "perching" on their meditation cushion.  Meditation then becomes a little "self improvement project" engaged in with habitual mind -- sems.

During this retreat nothing happens and you don't get anything out of it.

Cost $195.00

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 

Kyudo Retreat

May 12-21,2026

prerequisite:  Touch and Go Introduction to Meditation.

"...the reality of the world is something more than the life-style the twentieth century world has embraced.  Pleasure has been cheapened, joy has been reduced, happiness has been computerized.  The goal of warriorship is to reconnect to the nowness of reality so that you can go forward without destroying simplicity, without destroying your connection to this earth...we are going to discuss how to discover the ground of nowness.  In order to rediscover nowness, you have to look back, back to where you came from, back to the original state. ...When you are in contact with this orginal ground, then you are never confused by the illusions of past and future.  You are able to rest continuously in nowness."  "Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior,"  Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche invited the 20th Generation Samurai, Kanjuro Shibata Sensei-- Bowmaker to the Emperor of Japan and Head of a Chikurin-ha 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.  Hitting the target is also a part of this refinement and it has very little to do with what we would call "sports."

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.  Instead 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.  Tashi was also  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