LATE SPRING CLASSES

8 weeks: Monday, April 14th – Saturday, June 7th, 2025

BUDDHIST STUDIES 

Introduction to the Mahayana: The Path of Heroes (Part 2) 

Tuesdays, 7:00—8:30 PM (April 15 – June 3, 2025) 

Online & In-Person at the Nyingma Institute

This class continues the engagement with the Bodhisattva path as illustrated and presented in the Path of Heroes by Tibetan lama Zhechen Gyaltsab with introductions to special topics by Tarthang Tulku. This term we focus on developing Bodhicitta in our own lives. We look at practices to transform emotionality, bring adversity onto the path, develop the resolve to practice on the path in the 21st century, and receive basic teachings for self-mastery. Open to all with a sincere interest in pursuing Mahayana practices. It is advisable to attend part 1 of this program, but not essential. One Saturday workshop on exchanging self and other is part of the course. 

Instructors: Mark Henderson and Hugh Joswick. Cost: $160. Registration: https://nyingmainstitute.com/courses-new/introduction-to-the-mahayana-the-path-of-heroes-second-term/

 Path of Heroes: Daily Practice Program (Part 2)

Mondays through Fridays, 6:45 – 7:30 AM, PT (April 14 –  June 6, 2025)

Online & In-Person at the Nyingma Institute

This class is open to those who enroll in Introduction to the Mahayana: The Path of Heroes (part 2). This rigorous meditation practice class will meet five (5) mornings a week. We will experientially engage the sequence of meditation practices presented in detail in Tarthang Tulku’s Four-Month Program for Study and Practice published in Path of Heroes, Vol. 2, pp. 568 – 597. 

Instructors: Mark Henderson, Caz Verde, Nyingma Institute Faculty and Staff. Cost: $160. Registration: https://nyingmainstitute.com/courses-new/path-of-heroes-daily-practice-program-part-2/

The Heart Sutra & Vimalakirti

Wednesdays, 6:00-7:30pm, PST (April 16-June 4, 2025)

In-Person at Nyingma Institute and Online

This is a class that uses practical meditation techniques to deepen one’s sense of reality. It’s a course for people who are yearning for a larger container than the self in which to hold the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism. Both the Heart Sutra and the Vimalakirti Sutra point to our inner reality: Boundless Wisdom and Original Love. In doing so they challenge everything we believe about ourselves, and the role, or lack of a role, of the self in Awakening. Please note that the texts will play a secondary role to meditation practice in this class. Such practices include Just Listening, Just Noticing, Just Noticing the one who notices, Just Seeing, and Just Seeing and Letting Be. All of this encourages the surrender of ego.

Instructor: Bob Byrne Cost: $160 Registration:  https://nyingmainstitute.com/courses-new/the-heart-sutra-vimalakirti

MEDITATION

Introduction to Establishing a Daily Meditation Practice

Thursdays, 6:00-7:30 pm PT (May 8th-29th) 

In-person at Nyingma Institute and Online

Whether you are new to meditation or simply wanting support to include meditation in your life on a regular basis, this class will serve as a foundation.  We will offer body/breath/mind practices and teachings to encourage a pathway, a deeper connection to your inner resources, your natural being. We need both understanding and direct experience to strengthen this thread within.  Tarthang Tulku, founder of the Nyingma Institute writes, This being is not something apart from us that we must recapture; we are this being. When we make natural being our spiritual home, truth and beauty arise as spontaneous gifts.

Instructors: Olivia Hurd and Emily Provosty. Cost $80. Registration: https://nyingmainstitute.com/courses-new/introduction-to-establishing-a-daily-practice/

KUM NYE

Advanced Kum Nye: The Paramita of Effort

Tuesdays, 6:00 – 7:30 pm, PT (April 15th  – May 27th, 2025) 

Online Only

But we can turn away from laziness, and listen instead to the wisdom of our inner nature. By developing strength and vigor, and by pursuing our goals with patience, we can withstand the seductions of lelo (laziness). We can provide ourselves with the confidence that comes from using our energies in a fruitful way. Once we break free from the laziness mind, there is no limit to what we can do.

–“Hidden Mind of Freedom” pp. 33-34

Effort, the fourth of the six paramitas to master, is a quality and a spiritual faculty that we consciously develop throughout our lives on the path to liberation. In this class we will work with Kum Nye practices that will guide us away from the seduction of laziness and unlock the full energy of our embodiment.

Instructor: Santosh Philip. Cost: $140. Prerequisite: two years of Kum Nye practice. Registration: https://nyingmainstitute.com/courses-new/advanced-kum-nye-the-paramita-of-effort/

 Foundations of Kum Nye Relaxation – Focus on Stimulating and Transforming Energies

Wednesdays, 8:00 – 9:00 am, PT (April 16th – May 28th, 2025)

Online Only

Energy is continuously being channeled through our bodies, from cell to cell, between mind and body, as well as between ourselves and the world around us. As we move and experience, even as we breathe, the energies within and around us continuously interact…Our physical bodies are much less solid than they seem. They are not fixed and impervious ‘objects’, but essentially flowing and open, participating in an ongoing process of ’embodiment’ of energies.’

– Tarthang Tulku, Kum Nye Tibetan Yoga

This course will introduce the basic theory and develop the foundational practices of Kum Nye Relaxation, as presented by Tarthang Tulku in the text Kum Nye Tibetan Yoga. The practice of Kum Nye includes stillness and movement, breath, and self-massage.

This term will place a special focus on practices in the final section of our text, Stimulating and Transforming Energies. We will sample practices from all three stages of this part of the book.

This course is appropriate for those new to Kum Nye Relaxation, as well as those wishing to continue to deepen their understanding and embodiment of Kum Nye.

Instructor: Donna Morton. Cost: $105. Registration: https://nyingmainstitute.com/courses-new/foundations-of-kum-nye-relaxation-focus-on-stimulating-and-transforming-energies/

 Joy of Being: Senses and Perception  

Mondays 6:00 – 7:30 PM or Wednesdays 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM,  PT

(February 10   – June 7, 2025)

Online Only  

 Kum Nye is a way to relax and heal the gates of the senses, so that they also open inward, transmitting the full richness of experience and bringing more pleasure and joy into our lives. Kum Nye enables us to relax deeply and to be fully within the flow of sensory experience. (“Joy of Being”  Ch. 11 Tuning Our Physical Senses pg.73)

 Over early and late spring terms we go deeply into Part 3 of Joy of Being: Senses and Perception.  We will engage in practices for relaxing and healing the various sense organs. Nourishing the senses, distilling the pure juice of perceptions and experiences, we find a reliable source of contentment and meaning.  As we develop their potential, we open into a richness of experience that brings more joy and pleasure into our lives. Each term can be done on its own: if you are an experienced Kum Nye practitioner, please consider joining in Late Spring when we will be going deeply into the senses. As Tarthang Tulku writes, “the more complete the sensations, the richer the feelings; the deeper the flow of feeling, the more profound the experience.”  Joy of Being practices  transform our understanding of love and compassion, opening into the quiet joy of contentment (Joy of Being p.72).

The class is taught twice during the week: Monday the instructor is Abbe Blum at the Nyingma Institute;  Wednesday is taught by Bram Williams and Angela Bushaway in the U.K. Students can attend one or both. Each term can be done on its own. This course is also intended as groundwork for those interested in eventually teaching Joy of Being. Prerequisite: Several terms of Kum Nye experience or permission of Instructor. Cost: $160. Registration: https://nyingmainstitute.com/courses-new/joy-of-being-senses-and-perception/

NYINGMA PRACTICE

Essence of the Lotus Trilogy: Wisdom of Padmasambhava 

Time and the Opening of Knowledge 

Fridays, 10:00 – 11:30 AM, PT (April 18 – June 6, 2025) 

Online & In-Person at the Nyingma Institute

So much of what it means to be human is related to our use of language. Language is not just a road we must walk, or a forest in which we become lost. Language is our companion and our guide. (“The Lotus’ Many Petals” Lotus Language xxxiv; xxxiii)

In the Late Spring semester this program takes up Lotus Language and what Tarthang Tulku calls “the ‘text’ of our own experience” We examine language and meaning and the way experience is composed and presented. From the signals of perception to the symbols that express the mind’s regime, we look at the nature of the net that has captured mind. Along the way, we will listen to Padmasambhava’s wisdom advice. As he tells an elderly man, “Practice the true meaning! Take the practice to heart! Don’t mistake words and meaning!” Is it possible to open up the ordinary meanings that have shaped our lives, and create something new? New students who have sufficient meditation experience and interest in Nyingma Psychology can join the program, with permission of instructors.

Instructors: Lama Palzang, Pema Gellek, Abbe Blum, and Hugh Joswick. Scholarships are available.

Learn more and register: https://nyingmainstitute.com/trilogy/

NYINGMA PSYCHOLOGY 

Deepening Dimensions of Mind 9 month Program (NPS520)

Thursdays, 10-11:30 AM (PDT)/ 19-20:30 (CEST) (September 5 2024 – May 22 2025)

Online only

 Deepening Dimensions of Mind is a nine-month program (32 classes and two weekend retreats) that follows the order of topics presented in Tarthang Tulku’s Dimensions of Mind. We also bring in additional readings from Rinpoche’s work that aim to release worries, entanglements, and negative patterning by uncovering structures of mind that condition suffering. Working with inquiry, contemplation, sharing, and relaxation practices, we cultivate transformation and open to the rich opportunities available to us.

 The first part of the program develops a basis for well-being, inviting us to let go of the limiting conditioning of our experience. Through experiential exercises and deep inquiry, we begin to develop understanding of the four immeasurables—love, compassion, joy, and equanimity—boundless qualities that can open positive potential in all dimensions of time, space, and knowledge.

 Deepening Dimensions of Mind is a continuation of the Knowledge of Freedom program, but it can be taken separately.

Instructors: Abbe Blum, Elske Van de Hulst. Cost: $585 or €585 can be paid in 9 monthly installments of €65 per month.  Retreats can be taken by those not in the program. Email to inquire about late registration. Learn more here: https://nyingmainstitute.com/ddom/ 

TIBETAN LANGUAGE

Intermediate Tibetan Level XI

Thursdays, 6:15 -7:45 pm, PT (April 17  – June 5, 2025)

Online Only

Continued reading and translation of traditional texts and prayers in the classical Tibetan language. 

Instructor: Mark Henderson. Cost: $140. Prerequisite: Consent of the instructor. Registration: https://nyingmainstitute.com/courses-new/intermediate-tibetan-level-xi/