Great Vow Zen Monastery

Celebrate freedom of mind on the Fourth of July! Join us at the monastery for a vegetarian potluck picnic.

At 11 a.m., the town of Clatskanie has a Fourth of July parade, including the monastery marimba ensemble float, followed by a logging show and barbecue in the town park. Clatskanie offers a Fireworks Spectacular at dark.

At the monastery, games, activities, and food preparation will begin at 2 p.m. The picnic will be at 3 p.m., and games and activities will continue until dusk.

All are welcome, including kids and outdoor pets! Please bring your playful spirit, and a vegan or vegetarian dish to share.
This is a great opportunity to visit the monastery and just have fun — free!

Great Vow Zen Monastery, 79640 Quincy-Mayger Road, Clatskanie, Oregon 97016 (70 miles from Portland)
For more information, go to our web page or call 503-728-0654.

Trace Foundation, New York City

In the age of the iPad, join us on June 22 for a day free of notifications, broken screens, and outdated software by celebrating the writing arts of Tibet, with calligraphy demos and hands-on traditional papermaking.

We are delighted to host international special guests Puntsok Tsering (classical and modern calligraphy), Kunsel Dawa (Bönpo scripts), Tsultrim Gyatso (sand letters), and Jim Canary (Tibetan paper-making) for what promises to be an illuminating tour through a tradition as rich as it is beautiful.

Admission: $10 / Students: $5

Artwork and hand-crafted paper will be available for purchase.

The Trace Foundation is located at 132 Perry Street, Suite 2B New York, New York 10014. For more information, visit trace.org.

Calligraphy by Puntsok Tsering.

Insight Meditation Society, in Barre, Massachusetts
Teachers: Annie Nugent and Deborah Ratner Helzer

Life presents us with the challenge of living from a place of wisdom and its resulting true happiness, rather than from delusion and its corresponding suffering. Insight meditation leads us toward that wisdom. As understanding deepens, we can live life with a wiser and more loving heart.

This silent retreat, open to all, aims to strengthen our understanding, enabling us to use everything in life as food for freedom.

F0r more information and to register, click here.

Annie Nugent has practiced since 1979 and was an IMS Resident Teacher, 1999-2003. Her teaching style aims to reveal how all aspects of our lives can help us come to a clear and direct understanding of the Truth.

Deborah Ratner Helzer has practiced with Western and Asian teachers in the Theravada tradition since 1995, including a year as a nun in Burma. She has been teaching in the Washington, DC, area and around the country since 2001.

At Dorje Denma Ling

Sleep and dream provide precious opportunities for spiritual awakening. Every night we drop into the enlightened state, do not recognize it, and miss another chance. By learning how to wake up in our dreams, we can transform sleep into a profound method to help us understand the nature of mind and reality.  Dream yoga is also an important preparation for death — lucid dreaming leads to lucid dying. In this weekend, we will melt the boundaries between day and night, dissolve the solidity of daytime appearances, and become children of illusion.

Dream and sleep yoga allow us to transform sleep into meditation.  Instead of going to sleep each night, we can practice waking up.

Andrew Holecek has completed the traditional three-year Buddhist meditation retreat, and offers seminars internationally on meditation, dream yoga, and death.  He is the author of The Power and the Pain: Transforming Spiritual Hardship into Joy.

To read more: http://dorjedenmaling.org/program-details/?id=135158

At Dorje Denma Ling

A weekthün is a week-long group meditation retreat that provides a precious opportunity to deepen connection with mindfulness/ awareness practice.  Enjoy sweeping views of the Northumberland Strait as you immerse yourself  in the natural beauty of Nova Scotia’s rolling hills, meadows, and woodlands.  Elegance, discipline, community and practice allow you to relax and reconnect with your inner wisdom. Establish or strengthen an ongoing meditation practice that will benefit your whole life. The program includes contemplative meals, walking meditation, dharma talks, study, discussions, and more.

Benoît Côté has been a student of Shambhala Buddhism for over thirty years. For many years, he was a member and part of the teaching and administrative staff of Centre Shambhala de Montréal. In 2010 he was appointed by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche as one of the three shastris, or senior teachers, assigned to the Halifax/Dartmouth area.

Learn more here: http://dorjedenmaling.org/program-details/?id=125762

Summer 2013 Retreats: Continuity and Transformation

For forty years, the Nyingma Institute has offered a gentle path of self-knowledge and altruistic service based on the Buddha’s teachings. This summer, we continue to deepen this tradition by offering summer retreats for a range of interests and ages. The summer begins with two weeks of Tibetan Yoga retreat, Attuning to the Present Moment (June 10-15), and Kum Nye for Healing (June 17-22). Meditators of all ages will benefit from the retreats Mindfulness and Faith (June 24-29) and Reflection and Insight (July 1-6). Later in July, advanced retreats present teachings on how to release a lifetime of conditioning (July 8-13) and prepare for the time of death (July 15-20).

Meditators who wish to break through to the next stage of development will be interested in Stages of Meditation (July 22-27). Finding Freedom (July 29-August 3) presents basic teachings of the Buddha, along with meditations to foster discernment. Lightening Mind (August 5-10) joins powerful Kum Nye practices with insight meditations and dream yoga practice to bring about a transformation of consciousness. Finally, a skillful means retreat, Transitions (August 12-17), show how to utilize change, even difficult transitions, to deepen well-being.

Join us for a week or for the entire ten-week series of retreats for an unparalleled journey into understanding, in which we glimpse the immense goodness at the heart of our human being.

Residential costs for retreats include either a shared or private room. Both residential and nonresidential retreats include meals.  A private tour of retreat facilities available by appointment.  See our photo albums on Facebook for a virtual tour.  Click here for the 2013 Spring Program and Summer Retreats Booklet (PDF).

June 17-22: Tibetan Yoga (Kum Nye) for Healing and Energy (KNR505)

“The unique value of the Kum Nye system of relaxation is that it views the body and mind holistically, working to integrate and balance the physical and the psychological to achieve health.” Tarthang Tulku, Tibetan Relaxation.

Activating the body’s natural ability to heal, movement, breath and self-massage techniques awaken inner vitality as they harmonize and calm mind, feeling, and perception. This retreat presents Kum Nye exercises suitable to all ages and abilities. Participants learn to listen to the wisdom of their body as they master fundamental methods for self-healing. Lectures introduce principles of Tibetan and Ayurvedic medicine including suggestions for healthy eating attuned to the seasons.

Cost: $390 (nonresidential); $650 (residential). Instructors: Santosh Philip, Donna Morton, and the Kum Nye faculty.

June 24-29: Mindfulness and Faith (DHS515)

“Like an advanced guard, faith goes before us, encouraging us to enter an ever broader realm of experience and knowledge. Through such experience and insights, we learn to trust the teachings of the Dharma and become more willing to pass beyond the boundaries enforced by doubts, fears, and emotionality.” Ways of Enlightenment.

Faith, the focus of our heart, can guide and deepen mindfulness practice. In this retreat, faith is cultivated through contemplating the immeasurable aspirations of the Buddhas to benefit living beings. Mindfulness, wakeful awareness that observes immediate experience, is developed through sustained walking and sitting meditation. Confident and joyful, the combined power of mindfulness and faith energize our steps on the path to awakening.

Cost: $390 (nonresidential); $650 (residential). Instructors: Sylvia Gretchen, Olivia Hurd, and the meditation faculty. Based on Ways of Enlightenment: Buddhist Studies at the Nyingma Institute. Prerequisite: Sincere interest in the Buddha’s teachings.

July 1-6: Reflection and Insight: Making Peace with Ourselves (MED506)

Through chanting, meditation and Tibetan Yoga practices we arrive at a place of safety and quiet in our minds. From within this inner peace we are guided compassionately toward relaxation of our habitual emotional reactions so we may see through them to our intrinsic freedom. As our problems and internal conflicts start to lose their apparent substance we discover joy in the flow of energy that is life. With this appreciation as our foundation, we realize that we can be satisfied without needing anything to be”solved”.

Cost: $390 (nonresidential); $650 (residential). Instructors: Olivia Hurd, and the meditation faculty.

July 8-13: Cutting through Conditioning (NPS502)

This retreat presents powerful techniques designed to release the accumulated habits of a lifetime. Time itself–the process of change and evolution–guides our journey. We learn how to ‘enter’ into each moment of our lives—past, present, even future. Under the gaze of awareness, a moment unfolds like a delicate blossom, revealing the knowledge we need. We realize that each stage of life, even those that are dark and difficult, presents a distinct patterning and a special wisdom. Space opens up between us and the compelling forces of habit. Layers of accumulated conditioning become workable and transparent.

Cost: $390 (nonresidential); $650 (residential). Instructor: Sylvia Gretchen. Prerequisite: experience with Nyingma Psychology, meditation, and Dharma Studies. Note that this retreat will be translated into Portuguese.

July 15-20: Preparation for the Time of Death (NPR501)

Meditation practices given in this retreat help forge a link to the power of time to carry us out of fear and uncertainty into clarity and ease. Specific meditations inspire insight unrelated to the self or any fixed identity, preparing us for death and, paradoxically, for the fullness of life. Instructions on the stages of dying and death based on Nyingma teachings help us negotiate this critical journey.

Cost: $390 (nonresidential); $650 (residential). Instructor: Sylvia Gretchen, assisted by the meditation faculty. Prerequisite: experience with Nyingma Psychology, meditation, and Dharma Studies. Note that this retreat will be translated into Portuguese.

July 22-27: Stages of Meditation (MED504)

Classic Buddhist teachings outline a clear progression of meditation practices that lead to awakening. This retreat is a contemplation of one such text, the Bhavanakrama by the famed 7th century master, Kamalashila. Guided study of the text will be interspersed with practice of the meditations it describes. Includes both Shamatha (calming) and Vipashyana (insight) meditations.

Cost: $390 (nonresidential); $650 (residential). Instructors: Sylvia Gretchen and the meditation faculty. Prerequisite: Two years of meditation practice. Prepare to be challenged to deepen your meditation.

July 29-August 3: Finding Freedom (DHS507)

We study and practice teachings of the compassionate Buddha that awaken our ability to attain true freedom and to put an end to suffering. Topics covered include the Four Noble Truths, the Eight-Fold Noble Path, and the power of virtue and merit.

Cost: $390 (nonresidential); $650 (residential). Instructors: Buddhist Studies faculty. Based on Ways of Enlightenment: Buddhist Studies at the Nyingma Institute. Prerequisite: Sincere interest in the Buddha’s teachings.

August 5-10: Lightening Mind (DHS510)

“Through meditation, you can understand how awareness itself has various densities and levels, and how images are projected before it. Awareness is self-stimulating: it creates images which ‘freeze’ and become ‘real’ when we identify with them.” Tarthang Tulku, Crystal Mirror IV.

Mind can transmit wisdom that penetrates the veils of illusion, revealing the sparkling reality of what is. We practice “watching the watcher” and work with dream awareness, staying within a light, incisive quality of mind. Working with dream practice to balance the mind and heighten awareness, we “wake up” within the dream.

Cost: $390 (nonresidential); $650 (residential). Instructors: Sylvia Gretchen and Santosh Philip, assisted by the Buddhist Studies faculty. Prerequisite: Experience in meditation.

August 12-17: Skillful Means: Transitions (SKM501)

Change may not always be welcome, but it is a fact of life. This practical Skillful Means retreat offers exercises and discussions that help us face the challenges and reap the opportunities of transitions in our work and life. Whether a transition comes as a reward or is forced upon us, we can follow the way of skillful means, putting aside the self-image and winning through to the easeful mind of self-knowledge. Practices focus on removing obstacles that steal the joy of willingness and stand in the way of living to our full potential.

Cost: $390 (nonresidential); $650 (residential). Instructor: Barr Rosenberg.

Enroll early reserve your choice of accommodations.   Learn More at the Nyingma Institute!

This class is for those interested in learning about and experiencing the practice of Zen Buddhism. We will investigate the traditional forms of Zen practice, learn basic meditation, and discuss how to maintain Zen practice at home and at work.

Our intention is that participants will leave with sufficient knowledge of Zen forms to be comfortable entering and practicing in a traditional Zen meditation hall.

A delicious vegan/vegetarian lunch will be provided.

No registration necessary, although your RSVP will help us know how much lunch to prepare.

Free; donations are greatly appreciated.

Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple (map), 6401 NE 10th Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97211.

To support Metta (Loving-Kindness) practice around the world, we will meditate together on nights when there is a full moon.

Metta meditation is an antidote to fear and anxiety, and a complement to the cool clarity of wisdom. The Refuge Ceremony is an opportunity to own and forgive our mistakes of the past and to reaffirm our intentions to live in harmony with our deepest truth.

Our evening will begin with the Refuge Ceremony at 7:30* p.m. to settle our past unskillful actions. After the ceremony (at about 8:00 p.m.) we’ll have a guided period of Metta meditation, followed by walking meditation and a period of silent Metta. We’ll finish the evening by chanting the Metta Sutta, which are the Buddha’s instructions on Metta (you can read the text on page 46 of our chant book).

All are welcome. You don’t need to be Buddhist to practice Metta meditation. We will still offer introduction to meditation for newcomers, and have “tea time” afterward. Free.

Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple, 6401 NE 10th Avenue, Portland, Oregon, 97211.

More about Heart of Wisdom can be found on our website.

*Beginning in July, monthly Full Moon Metta Practice will begin at 7:00 p.m.

Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche‘s Modern-Day Bodhisattva Seminar, June 8-9 in Vermont, aims directly at how we can become bodhisattvas right now, in the midst of our everyday experiences. The Modern Day Bodhisattva teachings — which cover topics like the four immeasurables, tonglen, or the six perfections — relate to everyone, and they require no more knowledge of the dharma than an inclination for self-reflection. They open up a future that is as big as we make it. More information.

This year we introduce same-day-download “remote attendance.” For $50, you will be able to download Kongtrul Rinpoche’s four teachings within 12 hours after they are given. This new form of attendance allows all of us to keep in step with this important and most wide-reaching aspect of Rinpoche’s work and vision. We invite you to join us at the program, either in person or through audio download, to make becoming a modern-day bodhisattva the center of our lives.

Change your mind to change the world

We live in a vivid and precise field of causality with infinite other beings. – Ethan Nichtern, IDP Founder and Senior Teacher

Change your mind to change the world

Change your mind to change the world

Join Shastri Ethan Nichtern and IDP Lineage Mentor Sharon Salzberg in this exciting online summer series. This course, offered only as part of IDP’s unique Home Study program, will provide you with everything you need to deepen and support your studies. Along with eight insightful lectures from two highly regarded meditation teachers, IDP’s Home Study offers weekly readings and practice guidelines to help you begin, deepen, or sustain your practice. Sharon and Ethan will be available via the online discussion board, where you can post comments and questions.   Wherever you are and wherever you’ll be this summer, you can join us for this enlightening and enriching series!

Classes will be posted online each Thursday, no later than 7 PM.

Week 1 – Thursday July 11 – Introduction – What’s My View of Life?
Week 2 – Thursday July 18 – Clarifying My Intention
Week 3 – Thursday July 25 – Speaking Well, Speaking Compassionately
Week 4 – Thursday Aug 1 – Being an Ethical Person on the Path
Week 5 – Thursday Aug 8 – Working It Out: Right Livelihood in the 21st Century
Week 6 – Thursday Aug 15 – Effort, Stress, and Laziness
Week 7 – Thursday Aug 22 – Mindfulness in Every Part of Life
Week 8 – Thursday Aug 29 – Concentration and Awakening

Classes will be posted online each Thursday, no later than 7 PM.
Registration can be found here.

Change your mind to change the world

Wednesdays, 7 to 9 pm

Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one. – Voltaire

Everything is always changing moment to moment. We don’t have to be mystics or physicists to know this. Yet at the level of personal experience, we resist this basic fact. – Pema Chodron

Today our lives are filled with new and better technology, more and more information, endless ways to communicate, and greater demands for protection and law enforcement. Though these advances may seem to offer more control and certainty to our situation, impermanence is a fundamental fact of existence, and our need to create security in the face of continual change is the cause of much anxiety, fear and depression.   Rather than continuing our frustrating and ultimately futile attempts to control the uncontrollable and predict the unpredictable, we can change our relationship to the flux and flow of life simply by recognizing the facts of our circumstances, and opening to the possibilities inherent in change.

Join us for this exciting new eight-week course, which will lead us to understand, both intellectually and experientially, the ways in which
our grasping at security interferes with our personal happiness, limits our connections with other people, and undermines our society.

7/10 – Class 1 – The Myth of Security
7/17 – Class 2 – Identity but Non-self
7/24 – Class 3 – Relationships and Impermanance
7/31 – Class 4-  War & Peace
8/7 –   Class 5 – Personal Engagement – An Experiential Lab
8/14 – Class 6 – Interpersonal Relationships – An Experiential Lab
8/21 – Class 7 – Collective Action – An Experiential Lab
8/28 – Class 8 – Grace within Groundlessness - Putting it All Together

Registration and Homestudy available here.

Join us every Sunday at the  Interdependence Project  from 3 pm to 5 pm for meditation instruction and sitting practice led by IDP teachers David and Heather.   Appropriate for beginners as well as experienced meditators, this afternoon session offers guided instruction, discussion, and opportunity for questions and comments in an encouraging and compassionate environment.  Beginner’s Mind at IDP is a perfect introduction to our community and our unique multi-lineage, secular approach to Buddhism — allowing the chance to create or explore  the basic foundations of our practice.

http://tinyurl.com/9pqg2f8

http://theidproject.org/events/2013/01/06/sundays-beginners-mind-weekly-guided-meditation