Human Development Training Retreat
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT TRAINING RETREAT
If we can find ways to awaken the full power of awareness, we can enter a new phase of human evolution and revitalize ourselves and our world. Tarthang Tulku.
Tarthang Tulku, founder of the Nyingma Institute, taught the first Human Development Training Program at the Institute in the Summer of 1973. This program offered a comprehensive education in how to develop and expand the capacity to know, to be aware through all the senses, and to find new, more positive, ways of being in the world.
In 1984 Tarthang Tulku designed the present Four-Month Human Development Training Program which has been offered by his senior students annually since that time. The program blends meditation, movement, and awareness exercises with discussion in an environment that encourages retreatants to integrate what they learn into daily life.
What an experience! To have the opportunity to evaluate my life after sixty years, to realize who I have become, and to get a new foundation for the remaining part of my life. I wish I had discovered this possibility earlier.” Retreat Graduate.
RELAXATION AND APPRECIATION
The Human Development Training Program begins by focusing on relaxing tightly held patterns that manifest in the body, breath, and mind. Movement exercises, chanting, and meditative postures are among the methods used to give rise to states of deep relaxation and inner peace.
Next, specific practices reveal that all or our senses can become gateways to beauty, meaning, value, and truth. Our senses are cleansed and renewed: Whatever we see becomes art, whatever we hear is beautiful music.
“The spirit behind the program is one of tremendous adventure, of exploring the untested possibilities open to us as human beings. It was a joyful and rewarding experience to taste some of these broader possibilities, the different ways to use and experience the mind and the senses.” Retreat Graduate.
WISDOM AND COMPASSION
Old patterns connected with the self-image and emotion loosen, opening to love, compassion, joy, and equanimity. Experience becomes a mirror, reflecting awareness and the prospect of perfect freedom. Practices cultivate new insights and deeper compassion, both for ourselves and others. These practices develop and mature over the course of the retreat.
“I find a deeper sense of feeling, beauty, and wonder, especially in nature. Creating order and beauty feels very good, and I can appreciate even the simplest details.” Retreat Graduate.
TIME FOR CHANGE
The structure of the Human Development Training Program provides a vehicle within which individuals make positive and lasting changes in their lives. Retreat groups are small, so there is plenty of opportunity to interact with the instructors individually.
2010 FOUR-MONTH HUMAN DEVELOPMENT TRAINING PROGRAM
August 30—December 15, 2010
If you are ready to make a deep commitment to change and to deepen spiritual values within daily life, this is the program for you. The benefits of the program include: establishing a strong foundation for meditation practice (including visualization and mantra); insight into how the mind and emotions work; and appreciation of how to awaken our full human potential in any situation.
Although the program draws on the practices and insights from the ancient wisdom of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, it deals with the direct, human experience of growth and change and does not require acceptance of any dogma. Cost for this retreat: $5,200 (nonresidential); $7,600 (residential) which may be paid in monthly installments ($1,300 nonresidential; $1,900 residential.). Note that both residential and nonresidential costs include vegetarian meals.
Primary Instructors: Sylvia Gretchen and Jack Petranker.