Upcoming Retreats

  • – By Donation only to support the North American Regional Office

North American Regional Merit-Making Friday, October 3rd 2025

Venerable Angie Muir, Don Handrick and Venerable Amy Miller

October 3, 2025

Please join the North American Region as we joyfully practice together to collectively generate merit for our region and each of our own centers, projects, services, and study groups.

 

● All are welcome – these practices are free, please invite others in the community.
● Join us for one or more sessions – drop in any time!
● Each 40-minute practice will begin at the top of the hour followed by a 20-minute break.

● The practices listed below are tentative and will be shared on the Zoom screen. We expect to do a variety of practices, including incorporating the latest advice concerning the search for Rinpoche’s Reincarnation, if possible.

 

Registration

These practices are offered freely with the intention of practicing together, building our collective merit, and strengthening our community bonds. If you would like to increase merit on this merit-making day and support the North American Regional Office—which works tirelessly to serve and sustain our centers—you may do so through the registration process. Registration is not necessary unless you would like to offer a donation. You can join the program through the Zoom Link Below. All donations directly support the North American Regional Office. 

 

Tentative Schedule: All times are (PT)

7:00 – 7:40 AM   How to Make My Lives Wish-Fulfilling: The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness including the practice of Blessing the Speech and Daily Mantras

Gen Don Handrick

8:00 – 8:40 AM   Lama Tsonghkapa Guru Yoga with Migtsema recitation

Ven. Amy Miller

8:40 – 11:00 AM  BREAK

11:00 – 11:40 AM Short Practice of White Tara with recitations of the Praises to the Twenty-One Taras

Ven. Angie Muir

12:00 – 12:40 PM Everflowing Nectar of Bodhichitta: Annihilating the Demon of the Self-Cherishing Mind

Gen Don Handrick

1:00 – 1:40 PM     Calling the Guru from Afar, Chanting the Names of Manjushri, and Prayers for the  Swift Return of Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Ven. Angie Muir

 

ZOOM LINK

 

No need to turn your camera on, merely hearing the prayers and being present will be of great benefit to the group.

We hope to see you soon!

 

Teachers

Venerable Angie Muir
Born in Scotland, in 1970, she obtained a Bachelors Degree in 1992.   Feeling disillusioned with her prospective career path and life ahead of her, she left Scotland and combined travelling with work in Asia for 3 years until in 1995 she felt a calling to go to India to explore meditation and find her life path. Within a few months “I had the incredible fortune due to some previous karma” to discover Tibetan Buddhism, meet her main spiritual teacher Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche (of almost 30 years) and become ordained.   Venerable Angie has been a buddhist nun for…
Learn more about Venerable Angie Muir
Don Handrick
Don Handrick is a touring teacher for the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), sharing the Dharma with centers and study groups in North America and other parts of the world, both in-person and online. Don’s study of Buddhism began in 1993 after reading The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche. Over the next two years he practiced with Sogyal Rinpoche’s organization, until he began attending classes in 1996 with Venerable Robina Courtin at Tse Chen Ling in San Francisco. Don left the Bay Area in 1998 to attend the FPMT’s Masters Program of Buddhist Studies in Sutra…
Learn more about Don Handrick
Venerable Amy Miller
Venerable Amy J. Miller (Ven. Lobsang Chodren) first encountered Tibetan Buddhism in the spring of 1987 during a course at Kopan Monastery in Nepal. Since then, she has spent a great deal of time engaged in meditation retreats, study, teaching, and Buddhist center management throughout the world. Prior to meeting the Dharma, Amy was a political fundraiser in Washington, DC and also worked for Mother Jones Magazine in San Francisco, California. Amy also trained as an emotional support hospice counselor during the peak of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco and offers courses and retreats on death and dying and…
Learn more about Venerable Amy Miller