The United States

SPONTANEOUS CREATIVITY

with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

Contact:  John Jackson
Email: Chamma Ling Colorado (clinfo@ligmincha.org)
Website: Chamma Ling Colorado (https://ligmincha.org/centers-usa-colorado/)
Facebook Page: Chamma Ling Colorado (http://www.facebook.com/ChammaLing)

“You are the great completeness you have been searching for.”

Spontaneous Creativity, the title of Rinpoche’s newest book, “draws on the ancient teachings of the Tibetan Bon Buddhist tradition to guide us in developing the ability to show up fully for our lives and express our creative gifts for the greater good.”  Rinpoche will offer support for participants to engage their creative nature, release pain identities that create blockages, and awaken to greater inspiration, awareness, openness, and abilities to joyfully serve others.

Chamma Ling Colorado invites you to join in an engaging weekend of heart felt teachings and sharing.  This year’s annual event with Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche will be in Boulder, CO at the beautiful Shambhala Center, conveniently located downtown.

Schedule: A public talk (6:00-7:30) will be offered Thursday evening with a book signing to follow.  Friday morning teachings will begin at 9:00, concluding that evening at 5:00.  Saturday will also open at 9:00 and later that day we will have a fun and lively auction with beautiful items from around the world.  This annual fund raiser directly supports Chamma Ling Retreat Center in Crestone, CO; nestled in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, offering solitary and/or dark retreats for practitioners.  Following the auction, a traditional feast will be provided (cost included in registration), along with entertainment from retreat participants.  We conclude on Sunday at noon.

Lodging and Meals: A gala dinner will be provided Saturday evening, and tea and snacks will be provided at breaks. There are many nearby restaurant options for lunches during the retreat, and numerous lodging options throughout the Boulder area.

Child Care: We will not be providing child care during this retreat.

Registration: Tuition for this three day retreat is $300, or $285 if paid before August 20. Registration is now open.  

The soul is composed of of the five elements of earth, water, fire, air and space as these elements pervade all of life, and are the essential components of our entire worldly existence. The Shamanic rites of soul retrieval (la lu) and life force retrieval (tse lu) are methods of calling on the essence of the elements – elemental spirits – to balance and heal the individual.

It is believed that a traumatic event or other shock can cause an individual to loose connection with the elements and become dispirited.

Life force is the presence of energetic forces within one’s self. It is possible to retrieve the soul and life force through the use of mind and symbols in ritual. Through ritual and meditational practice, one can bring back the positive qualities that are missing or reinforce qualities that are weakened in oneself or others.

In this series of teaching retreats we will learn the ancient Bön methods of divination, meditation, and ritual of Soul Retrieval as Geshe Denma Gyaltsen teaches these methods in 3 separate retreats at Chamma Ling.

• Soul Retrieval (La Lu), October 3-6, 2019
• Life Ransom (Chi Lu), May, 2020

Each of these retreats is a whole and complete teaching unto itself, and will be open to all. However to gain a certificate of completion all three retreats must be attended, and all the practices and accumulations completed.

We have men’s dorm style housing available on site, as well as primitive camp sites. The camp sites require a hike in up a steep hill, and do not have water or electricity at the camp site. Campers may use the community house bathrooms and showers. All cabins are already reserved.

Questions? Contact the retreat coordinator at vpijoan@hotmail.com.

Geshe Denma Gyaltsen is the resident lama of Ligmincha Texas, resides in Houston, and has taught at centers throughout the United States and Europe. Born in northern Nepal, he began his studies at Menri Monastery in 1981, receiving all the teachings, initiations and transmissions in sutra, tantra and dzogchen, and was awarded the geshe degree in 1996. He taught at Menri, and then served two terms as the abbot of Zhu Rishing Yungdrung Kundak-Ling Monastery, a Bön Monastery in Sikkim, until 2003. Since that time Geshe Denma has traveled and taught throughout the West, as well as in India and Nepal. We are very pleased to welcome back Geshe-la to teach at Chamma Ling again!

THE POWER OF DREAMS

with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

Registration and Information: Eventbrite (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-power-of-dreams-a-dream-yoga-retreat-wih-tenzin-wangyal-rinpoche-tickets-69261552167)

In this dream yoga retreat, Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche will discuss the relationships between dream and waking, and dream and death. He will instruct participants in the “four preparations” for sleep, and the uses and methods of lucid dreaming.

It is said that the practice of dream yoga deepens our awareness during all our experience—the dreams of the night, the dreamlike experience of the day and the bardo experiences after death. The practice of dream yoga is a powerful tool of awakening, used for hundreds of years by the great masters of the Tibetan traditions. Unlike in the Western psychological approach to dreams, the ultimate goal of Tibetan dream yoga is the recognition of the nature of mind or enlightenment itself.

Guidance for Living and Dying: Commentary on the Bardo Teachings

with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

Contact: Serenity Ridge Retreat Center, 560 Drumheller Lane, Shipman, VA 22971
Tel: (+1) 276-698-8366 (Registrar) or (+1) 434-263-6304 (Serenity Ridge Office)
Email: Serenity Ridge Registration (sr.registration@ligmincha.org)
Website: Serenity Ridge (https://ligmincha.org/centers-usa-serenityridge/)
Facebook Page: Serenity Ridge Retreat Center (http://www.facebook.com/serenityridgeretreats)

The word “bardo” means “in between” in Tibetan, including the time between life and death, and the time between death and rebirth.

During this retreat, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche will offer guidance on living and dying. Rinpoche will lead participants in exploring the transition between life in death, including preparation for dying, the process of dying, practices related with the bardo, how to prepare for one’s own death, and how to help others who are dying.

In the process of dying, one of the most challenging things, and what makes transition difficult, is attachment. A key issue is that things always change, and we are always in transition. Rinpoche will guide participants in discovering the changeless self within all of our changing experiences—the stillness, silence and spaciousness beyond the body, speech and mind.

Ample time for meditation, practice, and questions and answers will be included in the retreat.

The teachings on the bardo are one of the six great methods of the path of the Mother Tantra (Tib: Ma Gyü), one of the major tantric cycles of Bön. The fall retreat will conclude the latest cycle of Rinpoche’s teaching of the six paths of meditation from the Bon Mother Tantra—Sleep, Dream, Elements, Chod, Powa and Bardo.

Retreat Cost (includes meals; accommodations extra): $605 received by August 23; $655 after August 23.

Check-in for accommodations, including tenting, begins at 4 p.m. on October 22. A light dinner will be served at 6 p.m., and announcements and teaching by Rinpoche begin at 7:15 p.m. Retreat registration includes meals beginning with the evening of October 22 and ending with lunch on the final day of the retreat on October 27.

Heartdrops of Dharmakaya: Introduction to Dzogchen

With Khenpo Tenpa Yungdrung Rinpoche
Abbot of Triten Norbutse Bon Monastery, Kathmandu, Nepal
Chamma Ling, Crestone, Colorado, October 25-27th, 2019

The nature of our own mind remains hidden behind clouds of thoughts and emotions, until a master points out directly the source, the essence, the Heart Drop. This is the method of direct introduction to Dzogchen, the highest and most subtle path of meditation in Bön.

Heart Drops of Dharmakaya was composed by Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen, a Tibetan master who passed in 1935, achieving the rainbow body in which his physical body dissolved into light. Shardza Rinpoche was one of the most influential teachers of his time, and his works are used as textbooks in many Tibetan monasteries.

Unlike methods that watch the breath or calm thoughts, these practices use body postures and simple yet potent visualizations to draw us directly and quickly to experience our essence. There could be no better place to learn these ancient practices than the high mountains of Crestone.

Khenpo received these teachings from his root teacher Yongdzin Namdak Rinpoche, the greatest living Dzogchen master of the Bön lineage, and the author of the commentary on Heart Drops of Dharmakaya. Please join us for this rare and unique opportunity!

RETREAT COST $350.00 Teaching materials, lunches, and snacks are included.
No lodging is provided. Crestone has many nearby B&B facilities. This is a very personal, small retreat with limited space. Teachings will be given at the Community House located on the land at the Bon Chamma Ling Center in Crestone.

This retreat is now full. People who have paid a deposit may continue to pay their balance.
Your balance must be paid on Friday October 25th. No refunds on deposits after Oct 1st.

Questions: retreat@chammaling.org or andreaheckman333@gmail.com

Join us November 8–10 for a special retreat with His Eminence Menri Ponlop Trinley Nyima Rinpoche. He will teach on the topic “Pith Instructions from the Golden Advice,” based on the ancient sage and lama Drenpa Namkha’s succinct advice to dzogchen practitioners.

A renowned scholar and meditation master, His Eminence is the head teacher at Menri Monastery in Dolanji, India and teaches internationally. He will explain the meaning of the instructions and guide students in gaining direct understanding through experience.

Golden Advice is an extensive dzogchen text written by the master Drenpa Namkha, who was born in the eighth century and accomplished the ultimate result of dzogchen. These pith instructions are the quintessential points of the text extracted by Drenpa Namkha himself in order to guide dzogchen practitioners. They are written in a clear and direct manner and are a complete dzogchen instruction, beginning with advice on taking refuge and generating the mind of enlightenment and concluding with advice for experiences during and after death.

Drenpa Namkha concludes Pith Instructions from the Golden Advice with this aspiration:
“May those who have fortunate karma meet with this heart’s marrow of quintessential instruction, this advice regarding the ultimate meaning, this scripture of personal experience. And having met with this advice, may they practice! And having practiced, may they reach to the final conclusion!”

H.E. Menri Ponlop Trinley Nyima Rinpoche was born in the remote, high altitude village of Tsarka in Dolpo, Nepal into the esteemed Yangton family. He began his training in 1976 at age 10, completing a series of three-month retreats focusing upon tantric deities, as well as the preliminary practices of dzogchen. In 1979 he began his formal studies at Menri Monastery. He received his geshe degree from the Bön Dialectic School of Menri in 1989 and began teaching soon thereafter.  In 1992, he was appointed as the lopon, or head teacher of the school by His Holiness Lungtok Tenpai Nyima Rinpoche, the 33rd Menri Trizin, and H.E. Yongdzin Tenzin Namdak Rinpoche.

SCHEDULE
Thursday, November 7: 4–7 p.m. registration open
Friday, November 8: 8 a.m. breakfast (8–8:45 registration)–6 p.m.
Saturday, November 9: 7 a.m.–6 p.m.
Sunday, November 10: 7 a.m.–1:30 p.m.    

Retreat Cost (includes meals; accommodations extra): $320 received by Sept. 8, 2019; $350 after Sept 8, 2019

Check-in for accommodations, including tenting, begins at 4 p.m. on November 7. Retreat registration includes meals starting with the first evening of the retreat and ending with lunch on the final day of the retreat.