IN THIS NEWSLETTER:
In October, many of us were honored and fortunate to attend the teachings and abhishekas offered by Rabjam Rinpoche in New York and Boulder. Dharma friends mingled and smiled, teachings were imparted, and our lineage was refreshed!
Yet, our hearts broke at the shock and wounds of human suffering unfolding throughout the world – the Middle East, Ukraine, Lewiston, Maine & too many other corners of our earth.
As we go about our lives, offering our best to others as doctors and teachers, parents and neighbors, engineers and artists – as we partake in the joys and good fortune of our Buddhist heritage, may we all aspire to help others in every gesture we make. May we embody our tradition of the four immeasurables:
May all beings live a gentle and noble life.
May we open to the sadness of each other’s suffering.
May we cheerfully delight in each other’s joy.
May we be welcoming and brave, free from addiction, violence, and bewilderment.
21st Bodhi: The Joyful Life of a Bodhisattva
Taught by Michael Carroll and Matt DiRodio
As with all the programs offered at The Wisdom Seat, 21st Bodhi will be grounded in the practice of mindfulness-awareness meditation.
During this 10-session program we will:
Explore the tradition of the bodhisattva and consider how it can unfold in our everyday lives.
Learn and practice the fundamental gesture of a bodhisattva: formless meditation.
Share among others our experiences in traveling the bodhisattva path.
Thanks again for being a part of The Wisdom Seat and we look forward to learning together in 2024
Wednesday Meditation
Ongoing offering: Online meditation every Wednesday evening 6:15 to 7:30 PM EST
Worldwide Wednesday evening online sitting meditation practice.
We, at The Wisdom Seat, invite you to meet on Wednesday evenings from 6:15 – 7:30 PM Eastern Time to practice the sitting meditation discipline as taught in the Buddhist & Shambhala tradition of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
Nyinthun: Everyone is welcome!
Ongoing offering: Nyinthun (in-person and online) The first Sunday of every month. All day sitting interspersed with walking meditation. The word nyinthun*, is Tibetan for “day session.”
In understanding dharma, Trungpa Rinpoche placed a strong emphasis on mindfulness/awareness meditation practice. This community practice of Nyinthun - all day sitting interspersed with walking meditation - gives us the opportunity to experience the full spectrum of our mind, make friends with our immediate experience and rediscover our natural sanity.
For 2023, we have changed the nyinthun registration site, so that you sign up for each nyinthun retreat day individually. This replaces the old way of just joining a nyinthun email list and receiving a monthly reminder. This will help greatly by knowing how many people are actually coming to any given nyinthun, so we can arrange the shrine room to accommodate in person attendees, and plan for online attendees. Please take a look, and sign up to join us for some nyinthun retreat days. It is ok to join for as much of the day as you can.
Authentic Presence and The Feminine Principle
June 26–July 6, 2024 Taught by Susan Piver and Michael Carroll A 10-Day Heart Sutra Meditation Retreat
Offered in partnership with The Wisdom Seat and the OpenHeart Project
The Heart Sutra – the most pith of the Prajnaparamita Sutras – is a central text throughout all of Buddhism. It is widely revered, demonstrably powerful, and, one could say, thoroughly incomprehensible – at least by the conceptual mind. This is all great news.
On this 10-day retreat, we will bring these three elements together – study, meditation, and letting go – as we practice “The Sutra of the Heart of Transcendent Knowledge” in a supportive and spacious community. We will explore what is meant by authentic presence and the feminine principle, how each is invoked in our practice to reveal liberation, balance, and joy.
Katog Choling
Live Webcast Teaching
The Bodhisattva’s Garland of Jewels
by Atisha Dipamkara Shrijñana
Khentrul Rinpoche has chosen to teach on these profound instructions for the 2023 Annual Pandey Norbu Shedra. This text illuminates the path of how realized beings accomplish true and ultimately meaningful benefit for both themselves and others. It is a distillation of the direct experience of how such great masters of the past used their body, speech, and mind to tame their own mindstream and achieve the means to benefit others. Each verse is like a priceless garland of jewels, which form an immense treasury of tools that are particularly relevant to the circumstances, times, thoughts, and actions of the world today.
Three Consecutive Weekends
November 4 – 5, 11:00am – 1:00pm and 3:00pm – 5:00pm
November 11 – 12, 11:00am – 1:00pm and 3:00pm – 5:00pm
November 18 – 19, 11:00am – 1:00pm and 3:00pm – 5:00pm
Timezone: Central Time
Due to this profound topic, Rinpoche requests full live attendance for all sessions on all days to participate in these teachings. If you cannot reschedule something and must miss even one live session, advance permission is required to participate in this multi-weekend event. To make a request, please email courses@katog.org.
Empowered Wellness
Unconditional Confidence-Raising Windhorse with David Nichtern
November 4 - 5
Wilmington, DE
Raising Windhorse (Lungta in Tibetan) is a powerful practice which can help us cut through doubt, anxiety,fear and hesitation-and connect with an ever available source of life force, energy, vitality and goodness.
David will present this practice arising out of the mindfulness/awareness practices many of us are already familiar with.
Special focus on identifying and transforming obstacles of all kinds-emotional, physical, mental and environmental.
The Penn Program for Mindfulness
Mindfulness for Tweens: Stressed-out Tweens Course
The course is in-person over four consecutive Sunday afternoons: November 12,19, 26 and December 3
Time: 1:00pm - 2:30pm
Location: Children's Hospital Roberts Building, 734 Schuylkill Ave, Philadelphia, PA
This course is for tweens in grades 6-8 and creates a space where tweens can talk and learn about stress, its effect on their minds and bodies, and gain understanding about the nature of their reactions such as anxiety. They will be taught several mindful coping techniques specially created for their developing minds.
$195.00 per attendee
Mindfulness for Teens: Stressed-out Teens Course
The course is in-person over four consecutive Sunday afternoons: November 12,19, 26 and December 3.
Teens: Grades 9-12
Time: 3pm to 4:30pm
Location: Children's Hospital Roberts Building, 734 Schuylkill Ave, Philadelphia, PA
This course is for high school students, grades 9-12 and creates a space where teens can talk and learn about stress, its effect on their minds and bodies, and gain understanding about the nature of their reactions such as anxiety. They will be taught several mindful coping techniques specially created for their developing minds.
$195.00 per attendee
Drala Mountain Center
Sadhana Mahamudra Intensive
December 1-8 2023
Drala Mountain Center
Practicing the Sadhana of Mahamudra is a journey into the wisdom of our lineage ancestors inseparable from our own, and of cutting through the materialistic forces which impede that. The main figures are Dorje Trolö and Karma Pakshi inseparably, who also express the union of the Nyingma and Kagyu lineages Trungpa Rinpoche held and taught.
During this practice intensive, we will practice the sadhana multiple times a day, as well as formless meditation inspired by it, morning and evening chants. We’ll also have talks on the sadhana, study of Trungpa Rinpoche’s transcripts of teachings, group discussions, and more.
This practice intensive is appropriate for established meditation practitioners in Trungpa Rinpoche’s teachings from any community based on them or with any of his authorized lineage holders, or for established Vajrayana practitioners from any lineage who are interested in this practice. This context and background is essential for the practice. If you’re seeking an introduction to meditation or Buddhism, we warmly welcome you to our Path of Meditation programs,
and/or encourage you to explore a local community in your area. If you have questions about whether this intensive is the right fit or not, please feel free to reach out to Loden at loden@dralamountain.org
Westchester Meditation Center
WMC 2024 Annual Weeklong Meditation Retreat
Heart Essence of Meditation: Essential Points of Practice
We invite you to join us for this special occasion – Judy Lief will join us in leading this retreat! The main focus of this retreat will be on mindfulness-awareness (shamatha-vipashyana) meditation and is appropriate for practitioners at all levels. We will explore the simple practice of sitting and connecting to the earth, our bodies and our experience; contemplate the pithy meditation instructions of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche such as mixing mind with space, not too tight, not too loose, and touch and go; and appreciate the silence, nature, space, and welcoming environment of Garrison Institute.
Additionally, there will be a separate track for vajrayana practitioners.
January 19 to 26, 2024
Garrison Institute
Three Yana Society
Entering the Vajra World: A Three-Yana Retreat
July 19, 2024 to August 18, 2024
Drala Mountain Center
Next summer’s retreat is designed for students with a solid foundation in Buddhism, and the preparation, aspiration and commitment to become vajrayana practitioners trained in Trungpa Rinpoche’s inimitable style. The retreat will be led by senior teachers who were trained by the Vidyadhara and supported by a new generation of instructors committed to the propagation and preservation of these teachings.
The retreat will integrate training in all three yanas and include the opportunity to receive vajrayana transmission and begin ngondro practice within the retreat.
Drala Mountain Center is generously offering a 50% discount on lodging for the program; faculty and staff have waived honorariums; and there is no additional charge for tuition.
“Samsaric existence comes from karma and afflictions,they in turn from distorted perceptions, which, in turn, come from conceptual elaborations;it is through realizing emptiness that such conceptual elaboration is brought to an end.” – Root Verses on the Middle Way, 18:5
Nāgārjuna
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