The United States

The Truth That Sets You Free: Discovering Your Inner Wisdom Through Practices of Waking and Sleeping

with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

This three-week online workshop with personal support and guidance from Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche is about becoming liberated from fear and other disturbing emotions so you may live more fully and genuinely in all aspects of life. Ultimately, its practices are about achieving liberation, or enlightenment.

The meditations taught in the workshop include daytime contemplative practices from the dzogchen, or “great perfection,” tradition of Tibetan Bön Buddhism. They also include sleep yoga practices of the night from the Bön Mother Tantra, which offer helpful support for one’s dzogchen practice. Through these practices Rinpoche helps you to discover the truth of who you are: a state of spacious awareness that is beyond the ego-based identity and which is eternal, changeless, indestructible and serene. Realizing this truth is what liberates us from the fear and negative emotions that have trapped us in suffering.

Website: GlideWing (https://www.glidewing.com/twr/liberation_home.html)

THE BODY OF LIGHT, PART 3: TRANSFORMATION THROUGH SPACE, LIGHT, AND ENERGY

with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

Every one of us has the possibility of becoming more open, more aware, and more creative by lightening the densities that prevent us from experiencing ourselves as we truly are.

In  this five-weekend series, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche will teach practices that guide us towards this essential state of pure space and awareness, the body of light. These practices take us through the layers of our pain identities as they manifest within each of the five aspects of spiritual and personal development: body, speech, mind, positive qualities, and spontaneous creativity. As we release first the gross and then the subtler blockages we discover the body of light that becomes accessible as these blockages clear. This weekend will focus on mind.

All the weekends emphasize self-reflection and practices of the tantric and dzogchen teachings of the Bön tradition. There are no prerequisites needed in order to attend these teachings. Everyone is welcome.

The Body of Light flyer Part Three

NGӦNDRO: THE FOUNDATIONAL PRACTICES

Online Workshop with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

The ngöndro teachings are a set of nine practices that offer complete instructions for taming, purifying, and perfecting the suffering mind. Although these practices are considered the foundation for entrance into the five-part cycle of Tibetan Bön dzogchen teachings – Bön’s highest teachings on the nature of mind – many practitioners adopt the ngöndro as their main meditation and complete the nine sets of 100,000 repetitions over the course of a lifetime. Within each is contained the entire path to liberation. They are considered to be the foundational practices for the entire tradition.

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche rarely teaches the ngöndro, and recommends it for dedicated practitioners who feel a strong connection to the Bön lineage. Within the ngöndro are found practices that are used within many other practices, such as the Guru Yoga Prayer, Bodhicitta Prayer, Refuge Prayer, Prostrations, and the Three Heart Mantras, so the ngöndro supports and deepens all other meditation practices.

24-Hour Full Moon Practice of Sherap Chamma—Online

Update (February 13): If you previously registered for the March 9 Full Moon session, please be aware that due to technical issues, you will need to re-register using the link at https://cybersangha.net/24-full-moon/. By re-registering, you will receive a new link for joining the Zoom session. Thanks for your understanding!

On March 9, 2020, and each subsequent full moon of 2020, join Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche online for meditation followed by a 24-hour mantra recitation session. This is a precious opportunity to engage in the healing practice of Sherap Chamma, Mother of Wisdom and Love. Each session starts at 10 a.m. New York time on the day of a full moon and ends at 10 a.m. the following day. Rinpoche will be supported by Ligmincha International’s global community of practitioners. Note: Most of these 24-hour sessions will begin with a 20-minute meditation guided by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche; on March 9 and April 8, the initial meditation will be guided by Marcy Vaughn. In all sessions Rinpoche and Ligmincha lamas will take opportunities to join participants throughout the 24 hours.

Unlike Rinpoche’s CyberSangha® Facebook Live broadcasts, the 24-hour full moon practices will take place via Zoom, in an online meeting space. There is no cost to participate, but registration is required in advance of each 24-hour session; full details and instructions for participating are at https://cybersangha.net/24-full-moon/.

THE FIVE PRECIOUS WISDOM MEDICINES

with Geshe Denma Gyaltsen

The Five Precious Wisdom Medicines are the healing methods we can skillfully administer to ourselves to counteract the five poisons of everyday life—attachment, aversion, ignorance, pride and jealousy.

Geshe Denma Gyaltsen, resident lama of Ligmincha Texas, will teach us about the five problems that arise for us, destroy our peacefulness and cause us to react in habitual ways that compound those problems.He also will teach us five methods we can use to restore our peacefulness and choose positive, creative responses to those problems. Through this simple-sounding topic, Geshe Denma will take us a long way toward a new understanding. Please join us.

The retreat will begin Friday, March 13, at 7:15 p.m. and will end Sunday, March 15, at 1 p.m. Check-in for accommodations begins at 4 p.m. on March 13.

Geshe Denma Gyaltsen is the resident lama of Ligmincha Texas. Born in northern Nepal, he was brought by his father to Menri Monastery in Dolanji, India in 1981 and was awarded his geshe degree from Menri Monastery in 1996. An accomplished teacher, he was a senior teacher while in residence at Menri; was the first abbot of Zhu Rishing Yungdrung Kundak-Ling Monastery, a Bön Monastery in Sikkim, India; assisted with the Bön Children’s Home, which cares for many children in Dolanji, India; and has been co-editor of the publication Door to Bön. From 2009–2013 he often traveled to the United States to participate in Bön practices and learn more about the work his fellow geshes were doing to bring this tradition to the West. At the request of Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, he became the first resident lama of Ligmincha Texas in early 2016.   

SPRING SERVICE RETREAT PRIOR TO SPRING RETREAT

Join us at Serenity Ridge March 28–April 2, 2020 for a special service retreat just before the annual Spring Retreat. Registration is on March 28 starting 8 a.m., with work beginning promptly at 9 a.m.

Participants will be given a credit of $10 for each hour of service work performed, to be applied toward the cost of registration for the Spring Retreat on the topic of “Discovering the Melody of Silence,” which begins April 2.

A typical work day consists of six hours, broken down into three-hour morning and afternoon sessions. If you cannot participate in the full retreat, any amount of time you can offer will be appreciated. Service retreat participants who work the full six-hour day will be provided with free dormitory accommodations and simple meals.

This is a wonderful time to share with the sangha and to be of joyful service. 

Each day of the work retreat includes daily meditation, vigorous work periods and free time to walk along the Serenity Ridge grounds or the Rockfish River.

If you would like to participant, please email the Serenity Ridge Office.

TIBETAN MEDITATION: ACHIEVING GREAT BLISS THROUGH PURE AWARENESS

with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

This interactive online workshop, offered through GlideWing, allows you to learn and practice from your own home, at your own schedule, with personal guidance from Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. Its video-based teachings offer a direct introduction to the nature of mind. Rinpoche will guide you through each of the five steps of meditation in the Fivefold Teachings of Dawa Gyaltsen — an 8th century dzogchen meditation master — helping you to enter the state of pure awareness that leads to peace, joy and ultimately, to self-realization.

Website: GlideWing (https://www.glidewing.com/twr/meditation_home.html)

SPRING RETREAT: DISCOVERING THE MELODY OF SILENCE

with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

We affect both ourselves and others when we speak from fear, anger and pain—or hear this divisive speech from others. And often the voice that judges, blames and shames is heard from within and is turned toward ourselves.

What is the sound of a true voice, one that is not driven by ignorance or confusion? A true voice comes from the boundless openness of being and the awareness that recognizes this. In this retreat, we will engage in the healing power of collective silence and sacred chant to touch into that deep connection through which we can discover the sacred space within us and all of life.

Silence is not boring if you are connected to it—it is living, luminous. It is a source of healing, warmth, presence. More than merely stopping or controlling negative inner or outer speech, when we release effort and rest deeply in the support that silence offers, we discover a deep sense of peace.

When we meditate aware of silence, its restorative and healing power emerges. Awareness, liberated from effort, arises fresh and uncontrived, illuminating the sacred dimension of life. This is the music of silence. From this emerges one’s true voice, a voice that has the power to benefit ourselves and others and to create positive change in the world.

The retreat will begin Thursday, April 2 at 7:15 p.m. and will end Sunday, April 5 at 1 p.m. Check-in for accommodations starts at 4 p.m. on April 2.