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 

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,

$595.00 includes room and board