For the first time this fall, Fall Retreat and Serenity Ridge Dialogues will merge! The retreat, titled The Five Elements and Serenity Ridge Dialogues, will be held October 11–16, both at Serenity Ridge Retreat Center in Virginia and online via Zoom.
In the mornings, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche will teach on the five elements of earth, water, fire, air, and space—fundamental aspects of a living universe—with special emphasis on the cleansing and healing power of the five tsa lung exercises and the nine breaths of purification. He will be supported by Geshe YongDong Losar, who is joining us from Vancouver, Canada.
The afternoons will bring presenters together with Rinpoche and Geshe YongDong around specific areas of scientific investigation. Menpa Phuntsog Wangmo, founder of the American Tibetan Medical Association and the international director of the Shang Shung School of Tibetan Medicine, will be one of three special guests. Dr. Sat Bir Singh Khasla, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard University and a specialist in body-mind medicine and yoga therapy, and Lonny Jarrett, an expert scholar, teacher and practitioner of East Asian medicine, also will join us.
For much of the past decade, Serenity Ridge has offered a program known as the Serenity Ridge Dialogues, which has brought scientists, health care professionals, and practitioners and teachers from many different lineages into conversation about aspects of practice.This year, by merging it into the Fall Retreat, the goal is to deeply shift the conversation toward practice. Rather than just engaging in intellectual conversation about practice, we will follow Tenzin Rinpoche, Geshe YongDong and presenters into an exploration of how practice works and how we can inform it through contemporary and traditional understandings of breath, movement and the five constituent elements.
This event will be both in person at Serenity Ridge and online. However, in the past years, much of the event takes place in conversations between sessions in the dining hall, on walks and sitting outdoors. We strongly encourage everyone who can to come in person for this special inaugural event!