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Kālachakra Study & Practice Intensive
August 12 - August 17, 2018
Robert Thurman brilliantly elucidates and vividly brings to life the many dimensions of the Kālachakra Tantra in this special series of study and practice Intensives. The 2018 Kālachakra Summer Intensive is a full 6 days (5 nights) and focuses on a special Kālachakra Mind Mandala sadhana practice which Dr. Thurman himself uses and will share with all participants. This retreat is intended and reserved for those who have participated in any Kālachakra Initiation with His Holiness the Dalai Lama or another qualified lama, taking the requisite lay, bodhisattva, and tantric vows, and who are interested in deepening their understanding and practice of the Kālachakra Tantra.Thurman has attended over a dozen Kālachakra initiations and has led small groups through the complex initiation process conferred by the Dalai Lama, shedding light on its underlying philosophy and its complex symbolism. Having been preserved for centuries in the fabled kingdom of Shambhala, the Kālachakra Tantra is an Unexcelled Yoga Tantra system of teachings which is believed to originate directly from Shakyamuni Buddha and which revolves around the concept of cycles (chakra) of time (kāla), from the cycles of the planets and the outer world to the cycles of human breathing and our physical-spiritual development.It teaches the practice of working with the most subtle energies within one's mind and body on the path to enlightenment, through famously complex deity yoga which helps practitioners with a basic understanding of emptiness dissolve their ordinary sense of self and re-create themselves in the ideal form of the Kālachakra deity pair in union who represent omniscient Buddhahood--the union of great bliss and the wisdom perceiving emptiness. Since Kālachakra is created of time and everything manifest is under the influence of time, Kālachakra Buddha is experiential knowledge of all manifest reality. Vishvamata, his spiritual consort and complement, is aware of all that is timeless, not time-bound, or out of the realm of time. In yab-yum union, they are temporality and atemporality conjoined and represent the full glory of the ultimate nature of reality, compassionately abiding in a vast multidimensional mandala rich with symbolic meaning.In this Kālachakra Intensive, Dr. Thurman will focus discussion and contemplation-based lectures on unpacking the very center of the mandala, the Mind Mandala, within the larger context of the Kalachakra and pulling from several textual sources to enrich our remembrance of our experience of the initiation and of entering the mandala and beholding Kālachakra-Vishvamata. Plenty of time for practice and mantra accumulation is allotted. Afternoons will include free time after lunch for spa treatments, further personal practice, and optional student-led discussions. The retreat will conclude with a day-long instructional puja and celebration lead by Thurman.Join us in the breathtaking hidden mountain valley of Tibet House’s Menla retreat and spa, for this personally transformative and very inspiring retreat intended to help initiates, from total novices to more advanced practitioners, deepen their connection to, their understanding of, and ultimately their embodiment of the magnificent reality of Kālachakra-Vishvamata.Please bring your own vajra, bell, damaru, and inner offering vessel (ritual skullcup).ScheduleSunday, August 12th
ABOUT THE TEACHERs
Robert A.F. Thurman
Robert Thurman is Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University as well as co-founder and President of Tibet House US and it's Menla Retreat & Spa in service of HH Dalai Lama & the people of Tibet. A close friend of the Dalai Lama’s for over 50 years, he is...
Michele Loew
Michele Loew is an international yoga teacher and the founder and director of The Yoga Space in Portland, Oregon. She is known as a teacher’s teacher and is respected for her 200 Hr & 500 Hr. Yoga Schools and her ability to combine Western knowledge of the body (Anatomy ...
Michael G. Burbank
Michael G. Burbank has been a student of Robert Thurman and HH the XIV Dalai Lama for 20 years, since his undergraduate years at Columbia University. In February of 2002 he was invited to help the Thurmans and Tibet House start the newly acquired Menla retreat. Over the years, he...
Kim Desrosiers
Kim Desrosiers is a student of Dr. Thurman, accompanying him to India for two Kālachakra initiations with H.H. the Dalai Lama. She has also studied under Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Her Eminence Jetsun Khandro Rinpoche, and has taught Tibetan Buddhism and meditation to prisoners t...
MENLA
