Vajrapani Institute
P.O. Box 2130
Boulder Creek, CA 95006
(831) 338-6654 

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Turning Inwards: Instructions on Personal Retreat
with Ven. Tenzin Chogkyi
September 11-13

“Students who are not interested in retreat and practice should realize if they want something for their heart, if they love themselves and want to do something to affect their heart, and fill their hearts with great satisfaction, deep joy, and meaning, then this comes from retreat and practice”.
                                                                                                ―Lama Zopa Rinpoche

  • Learn how to develop the realizations of the teachings that you have received
  • Learn all about meditation: techniques, obstacles and their antidotes, preliminaries, etc.
  • Structure an appropriate schedule for your private retreat

For the first time, Vajrapani Institute, a retreat center with more than 30 years of experience, will offer a retreat on how to do retreat. This will be a precious opportunity to receive instructions on doing personal retreat and to integrate the spiritual teachings you’ve already received on a deeper and more profound level.

This retreat is perfect if you have wondered how to set up the most conducive environment to review the teachings you have received and put them into practice, as only through meditation can you deeply transform your mind and therefore transform every day of your life. 

Vajrapani Institute feels honored to host Venerable Tenzin Chogkyi, an experienced practitioner who has spent six and one-half years in solitary retreat. She has a very interactive, down-to-earth teaching style. She led our Kopan West retreat last year, and participants offered much positive feedback about their experience:

“The retreat gave me the tools and conceptual framework to bring Buddhist practice back home and make it a part of my everyday life”.

“I was drowning in samsara and the experience was like someone throwing me a lifesaver. A new purpose has been made clear to me”.

Venerable Tenzin Chogkyi will offer instruction on the various types of meditation, meditation obstacles and antidotes, the qualities necessary for a good meditation place, the preliminaries for a meditation session, stages of Shiné or calm abiding, and how to set up and structure a private retreat, etc.

CLICK HERE FOR A TENTATIVE SCHEDULE


The Importance of Doing Retreat
By Lama Zopa Rinpoche

What is the importance of doing retreat? It is not simply to be quiet, to have a break from one's family. Instead, there are very crucial reasons, very urgent reasons. One simple reason is happiness.  The peace and happiness of parents, for example, depend upon their children having affection and compassion towards them.  And the children's peace and happiness depend upon their parents' affection and compassion. The same is true for couples, partners, teacher and students etc: each member's peace, happiness and success depend upon the compassion and kindness of the other person. And on a larger scale, the relationship between the leader of a country and its population.

One has to know how to develop such qualities. This is the first reason for doing retreat - to develop the basic human qualities of affection and loving kindness. The second reason is that it gives us the time for putting into practice the teachings we have received.  The third reason relates to the busyness of our ordinary life:  we are generally so caught up in hallucinations, sense enjoyments and our various obligations to others that retreat time is the only time we have to relax. In a retreat situation, you are forced to come to face with yourself, to see yourself in depth, to meet yourself.

Reciting powerful mantras and names of holy beings even once can purify tremendous amounts of negativity.  Meditating on the path to enlightenment helps rid us of immediate dangers, such as rebirth in the lower realms if death is imminent. At the same time, such meditational practice can purify the causes of this life's problems from difficult relationships, through unmanageable diseases such as cancer and AIDS up to dangers of untimely death.  Because one creates a great deal of merit through these practices, they become the cause of success and harmony in this life, bringing good fortune in business, wealth, good health and long life.

For all the above reasons, therefore, retreat gives us more hope, strength and encouragement for this life.  In conclusion, retreat is important because it involves retreating from ignorance, from the dissatisfied mind of attachment and from the self-cherishing thought.  These are the fundamental forces from which one must retreat.  Transforming the mind into virtue, freeing oneself from suffering and its causes: these are the essential meaning of Dharma practice.


PREREQUISITES

Although no previous personal retreat experience is required, it is helpful if students have had an introduction to the lamrim (Stages of the Path) (e.g., through FPMT’s Discovering Buddhism course, one of our Kopan West retreats, etc.).

Partial attendance is not allowed.


Ven. Tenzin Chogkyi's spiritual path was meandering and haphazard, and included several dead ends, until she bought a one-way ticket to India in early 1991 with the intention of meeting His Holiness the Dalai Lama. She became a student not only of His Holiness, but also of Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche and Lama Zopa Rinpoche during the year she spent studying at Tushita Retreat Center in Dharamsala and Kopan Monastery. In late 1991, she was asked by Lama Zopa Rinpoche to come back to the US to become the co-director of Vajrapani Institute in California. In 1995, she began working at FPMT International Office, first as co-director and then later as center services coordinator. In early 2000, she began a long, solitary retreat that lasted 6½ years. Tenzin Chogkyi decided to become ordained in the third year of her long retreat, and then left retreat for a quick trip to India in 2004 for novice ordination with His Holiness. When she emerged from retreat in the summer of 2006, she moved to Land of Medicine Buddha, where she taught both at LMB and the local community center in Santa Cruz, in addition to teaching in prisons, facilitating a support group for women with chronic illness, and providing spiritual support to hospice patients. In the summer of 2008 she embarked on the “homeless life” and has been teaching at various centers worldwide.  


Turning Inwards    
September 11-13    
Nights: 2  
     
Fees (inclusive of accommodation, meals, retreat fees)    
 
Regular Rate
 
 
Non-Member
Member
   
10%
Camping
$210.00
$189.00
Main Dormitory
$220.00
$198.00
Semi Private Dormitory
$230.00
$207.00
     
Private Room (single)
$300.00
$270.00
Private Room (double)
$270.00
$243.00
Cabin (single)
$340.00
$306.00
Most Secret
$400.00
$360.00
     
Scholarship application deadline: August 11th   

Click here for details regarding financial aid

Click Here for Course and Registration General Info

Cancellation Policy 

A position for Course Manager Scholarship may still be available for this course. Click here for more information about the Course Manager position.