December 2019

Dear Friends,

As a new year approaches, it’s worth contemplating what you would like to cultivate and invite into your life. Here at the Nyingma Institute, we take to heart our responsibility to hold open a space for inquiry, discovery, and transformation, so that we can empower individuals with life-long tools for accessing their own inner wisdom. We see ourselves as part of a greater movement supporting meaningful living, universal wisdom, and visionary goodness in a time when the planet’s very survival depends on such values.

Many of the fields of study we offer are powerful and unique in that they essentially address how to balance and transform mind without relying on Buddhist terminology, dogma, or ritual. In addition to supporting well-being and balance, we also hold open a doorway to an authentic and ancient lineage of Tibetan Buddhism in the Nyingma tradition for those seeking the richness, depth, and beauty of a traditional Dharma path. All these transformative teachings reach us through our founder, Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche, to whom we are tremendously grateful.

Awakened beings have described our experience of suffering to be like a bubble or weather pattern that forms when we operate from a view of the absolute centrality of the self. How can we investigate the dark unknowing that swirls in the center? We are very fortunate, here at the Institute, to be able to draw upon an array of incisive, accessible methods that allow us to question, touch, and release the deepest knots of mind, taking us right into the mystery of our being. As practitioners we come to understand that we must continually seek out the edge of the known, where there is an incredible play of light that moves between confusion and knowing. It’s deeply rewarding to see how individuals encounter these teachings and engage their own direct experience, shining light on fractured areas and discovering that these are the very places where wholeness and freedom can manifest.

We warmly invite you to join us at the Nyingma Institute for a class, workshop, or retreat this year, so that you may delve into your own being through Tibetan Yoga, Buddhist studies, contemplation, and meditation.

Pema Gellek and Lama Palzang
Deans, Nyingma Institute

P.S. How you can help:
• Have an old but reliable van or car you’d like to donate? We are seeking a vehicle.
• Full-time and part-time volunteer positions are open. Experience in bookkeeping, IT, promotions, or construction is particularly helpful.
• We have a major renovation and construction project to create a sacred contemplative garden that will continue through 2020. Donations are tax-deductible, as we are a volunteer-run, 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Thank you so much for your support!