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July 2008
CONTENTS
July Full Moon Chant – Friday, July 18th
Upcoming Workshops
Upcoming Retreats
Off the Cushion – Everyday Compassionate Love
July Dharma Talks (every Sunday from 6-7 PM)
July Full Moon Chant
Date: Friday, July 18
Time: 8 - 9:30 pm
Cost: Free
Join students, friends, and staff in chanting the Vajra Guru Mantra on the full moon in July. The chant includes short periods of meditation.
Please call (510) 809-1000 if you are attending for the first time or if you have questions about the chant.
Upcoming Retreats
To register, call: (510) 809-1000
Embodiment: An Awakened Vision
July 28 - August 30This retreat is a journey into the Buddha's vision of what embodiment means.
We will bring in practices from Nyingma Psychology and Tibetan Yoga
to integrate body and mind. We study the Buddhist teachings that provide an incisive vision of how to transform our ordinary way of being.
Week one, July 28-August 2: Recognizing the Potential of Body and MindWeek two, August 4-9: Stages on the Path
Week three, August 11-16: Awakening Vision
Week four, August 18-24 (at Ratna Ling): Joy of Being
Week five, August 25-30 (August 25-27 at Ratna Ling): Embodying Wisdom
Cost: $1,495 (nonresidential); $2,495 (residential).
Primary Instructor: Sylvia Gretchen, with additional instruction by Dharma Studies, Kum Nye, and Meditation staff
full listing of Summer Retreats
Upcoming Workshops
To register, call: (510) 809-1000Weekend workshops introduce new ideas in a gentle, meditative atmosphere.
Unless otherwise noted, Saturday workshops begin at 10 AM,
conclude at 4:45 PM and include a vegetarian buffet lunch.
Pre-registration is necessary for all Spring workshops.
July 12
The Art of Sitting Comfortably
10 AM-1 PMThis workshop is for those who have trouble sitting cross-legged on the floor. You will be led through a motion assessment of back, hips, knees, and ankles. A variety of sitting strategies will be introduced and a program of Kum Nye exercises will be tailored for you, taking into account your specific motion limitations. All are welcome, but register early for this workshop, since attendance is limited.
Cost: $60. Instructor: Donna Morton, Kum Nye instructor and physiotherapist.July 19
Waking to Space; Opening to Freedom
10 AM-4:45 PM
We live our lives within narrow limits. Accepting these limits as 'the way things are," we never notice how they channel us into pathways of frustration and disappointment. The Time, Space, and Knowledge vision offers practices and insights that help us break through our limits. When we focus on space instead of structure, we taste freedom in each moment. When we break down the old patterns that claim authority over us, we gain the power to reshape our lives. For all levels of students.
Cost: $80. Instructor: Jack Petranker.
July 26
Practices on the Path to Liberation
10 AM-4:45 PM
This workshop is for those who have taken one or more courses at the Nyingma Institute and wish to learn how meditation, analysis, chanting, study, and movement practices fit together. Faculty members will guide you through each of these areas, focusing on how the many aspects of Nyingma practice, like the many facets of a jewel, work together to display the diamond-like nature of Dharma.
Cost: $80. Instructors: Nyingma Institute faculty.
Off the Cushion -Everyday Compassionate Love
When we are in love, things suddenly seem fresh. Colors become brighter, we feel more compassionate and patient, and the world seems like a happier and less frightening place. When we love something, we see more of it. All of a sudden, everything reminds us of our beloved and they are there in every song, every word, and every gesture. Like a camera zooming out, love widens the aperture of our lives and we feel a quality of spaciousness and freedom.
So much of our culture has been dedicated to extolling (and later bemoaning) romantic love. What if we were able to look past the love that only two people can share and access a greater love for all beings? What if we could feel that great, fearless, spacious love all the time, even when we’re alone?
The ability to feel this unconditional love begins with the relationship we have with ourselves. Our hearts are our spiritual home, yet we fill them with tightly held painful memories and the voices of people who have hurt us. Would we ever decorate our actual home with reminders of these people, or fill our pockets with their pictures to carry them with us wherever we go? Each time we get into obsessing about “I should” or “I can’t” and feel less and less adequate, we are doing just that. We start to see more inadequacy in others, or envy those we think are more together than we are and before we know it we feel isolated. Truly, the people we love and hate most in the world are simply holding up a mirror to the thoughts and insecurities that are moving through our own minds. When we meditate, we are able to loosen our grip on the way we perceive. Instead of limiting our view by racing out to capture the world through the small, cracked lens of our tightly held assumptions, we find that we can create space to let the world come to us to reveal itself in a much more open and joyous way.
Sometimes it is very difficult to access this level of relaxation in our everyday lives. Even if we have a daily meditation practice, we have demands and schedules to contend with and we wait endlessly for someone to give us a break only to feel frustrated that it never seems to happen. If you take a rock that has been sitting at the bottom of the ocean for thousands of years and cut it open, it is still dry on the inside. In the same way, the energy of the present swirls around us as we hurry from one place to another but never really touches our hearts. For this reason, we can give ourselves an extremely valuable gift by taking a meditation retreat. Like a couple who sets aside time to re-connect, we can set aside time to slow down, relax and appreciate who we really are. In doing this we show ourselves a commitment to work on our problems before they reach a breaking point. In this love for ourselves, we begin to access a greater and more fearless love for others.
In meditation, this sort of spaciousness is just another word for relaxation. As the Tibetan spiritual master Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche writes, “Breath is the coordinator of body and mind.” As your body relaxes, your mind relaxes, and the two begin to coordinate like runners in a relay race who must go the same speed in order to pass the baton to one another. A retreat offers the perfect opportunity to practice long enough and steadily enough to let go of ongoing tensions. You find that it is almost impossible to hold on to a thought or obsession or preconception when your body is entirely relaxed.
Even if you feel too awful to relax entirely, you let the breath touch the areas surrounding the tensions in your body. When you’re frustrated by a distracting noise or difficult conversation, you learn to hear the space between sounds, between words and thoughts. And in that quiet space, it becomes possible to let go of “I should” and simply wish, “may I be what benefits others.” And in that shift, there is lasting love.
For more on this subject, join Sylvia Gretchen, Dean of the Nyingma Institute, for a very special workshop entitled:
Cultivating Unlimited LoveAugust 8-9
Friday, 7-9 PM; Saturday 10 AM-4:45 PM.
Cultivating the "four immeasurable" states of mind—love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity—is a classic Buddhist practice that teaches us to transcend our ordinary way of being and our limited way of understanding love. We discover an inner serenity that fosters the realization of selflessness.
Prerequisite: consent of instructor. Cost: $95.
Primary Instructor: Sylvia Gretchen.
Prayer flags above the Institute's front door transmit blessings and protection
July Dharma Talks
6 - 7 PM every Sunday
July 6
Tibetan Sacred Painting
Many Tibetan paintings were destroyed during the political upheavals of the past fifty years. Under the direction of Tarthang Tulku, artist Rosalyn White has created hundreds of Tibetan-style paintings, helping to preserve this rich heritage. In this talk, Rosalyn will describe the sacred symbolism of this art and speak about how it can catalyze the spiritual path.July 13
Right Here, Right Now: The Heart of Who You Are
When time does not move furiously from one crowded moment to the next and space does not close us off from others and from our world, we can discover a lasting freedom and joy. Jack Petranker, Buddhist teacher and author of "When it Rains, Does Space Get Wet?" will present these ideas based on the Time, Space, and Knowledge vision.July 20
Psychotherapy and the Buddhist Path
For decades psychotherapists throughout the world have worked with meditation and practices from Buddhist psychology as a way of deepening their ability to help their patients. Sandra Guimares and Roselene Costa, psychotherapists from Brazil, will speak about how Buddhist practice has changed the way they approach psychotherapy.July 27
Mental Clarity through Meditation
Meditation, the process of sitting silently with a quiet mind, deepens mental clarity and sharpens memory. Joleen Vries, co-director of the Dutch Nyingma Center, will describe how this happens. She will also lead participants through a meditation practice designed to evoke calm and clarity.
