The United States

Cultivating Compassion for Our Natural World—Online

Join Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche live on Facebook for a free 40-min. teaching and guided meditation.

Click to view live

The ancient Bön teachings of soul retrieval place much emphasis on the sacredness of nature. In a teaching and guided meditation broadcast live on Facebook, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche guides us in cultivating compassion for all the beings of our natural world, along with a deep sense of regret for harming them through our individual and collective actions. He then helps us to connect with the space of being from which we can more spontaneously and effortlessly contribute to a solution. The broadcast is free and open to all; you don’t need a Facebook account to view it.

This is Part 2 of a four-part series on Cultivating a Sacred Relationship with Nature. Every day we hear new warnings from scientists that our world is facing cataclysmic change and mass extinction due to climate change. There is pervasive fear, anxiety, and denial; and because of rampant greed and corruption among those in power, a sense of impotence. This is an unprecedented moment in the history of humankind when we all need to take action for the benefit of ourselves and all around us. But to have the clarity, passion, and conviction needed to take advantage of our opportunities to act, we first must connect deeply with the reality of the beauty and sacredness of what our world has given us — and of what we stand to lose.

To help us become part of the solution, these teachings empower us to:

• embrace the sacredness of nature
• open our heart with gratitude for what we have received from it
• feel a true sense of regret for our individual and collective actions
• cultivate compassion for all the beings we have harmed.
• connect deeply with the raw elements of nature, so we can retrieve their sacred qualities and ultimately connect with the deeper wisdom to which nature gives access.
• live each day in the space from which we can act spontaneously for the benefit of all, with wisdom and compassion.

Each part of this series includes a teaching and guided meditation and most are followed at a later date by a question-answer session.

Part 1: Opening Your Heart with Gratitude / Q&A Session
Part 2: Cultivating Compassion for Our Natural World
Part 3: Retrieving the Elemental Essences from Nature / Q&A Session
Part 4: Opening to a Deeper Wisdom / Q&A Session

• View live at www.facebook.com/tenzinwangyalrinpoche
• Learn more about this broadcast and the series at https://cybersangha.net/cultivating-compassion-q-a/
• Learn about CyberSangha® (the gateway to Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche’s program of free live broadcasts and other social media activities), access the full broadcast schedule, and search hundreds of archived recordings at cybersangha.net
• Access real-time translation in multiple languages: https://www.ligminchalearning.com/tenzinwangyal-live-translations/
• Resource: These teachings are based on Chapter 2 of The True Source of Healing: How the Ancient Tibetan Practice of Soul Retrieval Can Transform and Enrich Your Life, by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
• Donations welcome! These free Facebook Live broadcasts are made available through the generosity of Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and volunteers worldwide. Donate now

Tibetan Sound Healing: A Live Webinar Through the New York Open Center

with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

What is at the core of Tibetan sound healing? Join acclaimed author, teacher and founder/spiritual director of Ligmincha International Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche on December 19 to learn how to use the vibration of sacred sound to cultivate the healing power within your body’s subtle channels.

This evening teaching is based on his book Tibetan Art Sound Healing, which includes and the five sacred warrior seed syllables (A, OM, HUNG, RAM and DZA). These syllables are termed warriors because they have the power to control and overcome negative emotions, problems, and dilemmas that we face in our daily life. They are connected with the chakras and have the potential to expand our awareness and clarity of mind.

DZOGCHEN PRACTICE RETREAT: TURNING INWARD

with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

Winter is a time when nature draws its energies inward to rest and renew itself for the coming season. We also need time to turn inward and rest in the nature of mind. This year’s annual Winter Retreat at Serenity Ridge will offer us the opportunity to do just that. There are no prerequisites to attend this retreat. All are welcome.

Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche warmly invites everyone to join him for this meditation and practice retreat. During his morning session, Rinpoche will offer teachings and lead meditation. Rinpoche’s afternoon session will focus on meditation and practice, with the opportunity for participants to ask questions and share their experiences. Both of Rinpoche’s sessions will be followed by meditation sessions led by senior teacher Marcy Vaughn. As a support for practitioners, this retreat will be in partial silence.

The teachings of Winter Retreat come from dzogchen, known as the “great perfection” or “great completion” and considered the highest teaching in the Tibetan Bön Buddhist tradition. The essence of dzogchen is to recognize the spontaneously perfected nature of one’s own being, allowing all that arises in the field of experience to exist just as it is without grasping, aversion or elaboration by the conceptual mind. As we become familiar with who we truly are, all the positive qualities of the enlightened nature of mind can begin to manifest.

Simultaneous live translation into Spanish. Con traducción simultánea al Español, en vivo. Para más información comuníquese con la oficina del Instituto Ligmincha.

The first teaching will be held December 26 at 7:15 p.m.

Personal Practice Retreat

with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

Come to Serenity Ridge for a personal practice retreat. You are welcome to do a personal retreat of one to four days beginning the afternoon of January 1, 2020 and ending at 2 p.m. on January 5.

Whether you are practicing the teachings of Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, in The 3 Doors program, have another practice or just wish to relax in a serene atmosphere, you are welcome to join us. Enjoy Serenity Ridge at your own pace—stroll around the property and meditate in our shrine room, in the meditation hall, on the deck or in the woods. This is a great way to begin the new year, resting and recharging, or deepening your practice.

There is space both for those who want to observe silence, and for those whose practices involve gentle sound (mantra, pranayama, etc.) The cost of this retreat is $40 per day plus accommodations, which range from camping to private rooms with private bathrooms. Three vegetarian, vegan and/or gluten free meals per 24-hour period are included in the registration price.

Check-in for accommodations begins at 4 p.m. on January 1; however, those who wish to participate in the tsok on January 1 may arrive by 12 noon.

When registering, please select the dates of your stay, check your room choice and then add your meals.

Questions about registration? Email the registrar or call 434-263-6304.

Transforming Our Emotions Through the Six Lokas

with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

This meditation course will give you a thorough introduction to the Six Lokas practices of the Bön Buddhist tradition.

At one time or another each of us suffer strong emotions that throw us off balance, cause us to act in ways that we later regret, and make us lose touch with our true nature. Centuries ago the masters of the Bön lineage developed the meditations of the Six Lokas specifically to remedy this situation, to help us live our lives in a balanced and relaxed way.

The meditations focus on the root causes of our suffering: anger, desire, greed, ignorance, jealousy, pride and laziness. Through each meditation we examine our habitual patterns so that we may recognize them, then invoke the enlightened energy of the Buddhas to purify and transform us so that we and all other beings might not continue to suffer in this way. The practices have a deep healing and transformative power, and are traditionally practiced at length as a preliminary to dzogchen contemplation.

The Power of Forgiveness—Online

A Facebook Live conversation with Kia Scherr, Svati Chakravarty Bhatkal and host Tenzin Wangyal

View live

In the face of tragedy, loss, crime, or social injustice, how can we break the cycle of anger, conflict, or violence? Forgiveness has tremendous power to engender tolerance, hope, empathy and peace. In a Facebook Live conversation, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and his guests will explore the healing power of forgiveness and its potential impact on the mind and psyche. Kia Scherr will share how forgiveness played a crucial role in her rebuilding her life after losing family members to a terrorist attack in India. Film director Svati Chakravarty Bhatkal shares Kia’s story, testimonies of other victims and perpetrators of violence, and their stories of forgiveness in her documentary Rubaru Roshni (Where the Light Comes In). Together they will investigate how some people manage to emerge from their pain by discovering light within it.

• View live at www.facebook.com/tenzinwangyalrinpoche
• Learn more about this broadcast and the presenters at https://cybersangha.net/cultivating-compassion-q-a/
• Learn about CyberSangha® (the gateway to Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche’s program of free live broadcasts and other social media activities), access the full broadcast schedule, and search hundreds of archived recordings at cybersangha.net
• Access real-time translation in multiple languages: https://www.ligminchalearning.com/tenzinwangyal-live-translations/
• Donations welcome! These free Facebook Live broadcasts are made available through the generosity of Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and volunteers worldwide. Donate now

THE POWER OF MANTRA: A, OM, HUNG

with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

An open mind and compassionate heart are important and necessary virtues to lead a good life. But we are often bound and limited by our prejudices, fears and divisions. Awareness is the key that frees us and allows our positive qualities to be expressed. Awareness is essential for spiritual transformation. When we open our body, speech, and mind with awareness, our inherent capacity for love is found to be already present.

In the Bön tradition of Tibet, sacred sound is used as a skillful means to release tensions and blockages in our body, free our speech of divisions of exclusion and bias, and activate the compassionate qualities of an open heart. Through engaging the sacred syllables of A, OM and HUNG, we employ the power of mantra to awaken the sacred dimension of our body, speech and mind and transform our life for the benefit of ourselves and others.

The Practice of Chöd: Fear & Attachment—Doorways to Liberation

with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

Everyone faces problems in life, many having to do with fear and attachment, which are also the most critical obstacles to realizing our essential nature. The practice of chöd is a creative, skillful method for dissolving emotional conflicts and dissatisfaction in your life by cutting through, with compassion, the fear and attachment that obscure your natural state of mind, unleashing creativity as you reconnect to your natural state—open, awake and fearless.