Ratna Ling - Programs & Events
CALENDAR 2008
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Jan - June
July – December

March 17 - 22
Visionary Inquiry: A Mountain Retreat

The focus of this retreat will be the practice of 'breathing in' the sky as a way to bring insight into the nature of space and embodiment. Density and pain give way to the infinite energy that is 'here'. Ratna Ling's broad vistas and quiet prescence will intensify the power of the retreat. Begins Monday at lunch and continues through Saturday dinner. Includes the "Healing and Pain" workshop on March 21-22.

Primary Instructor: Sylvia Gretchen
Sponsor: Nyingma Institute
Cost: $600

March 21 - 22
Healing and Pain

In this workshop, four specific meditation and visualization exercises will be presented that can touch and transform emotional and physical pain. Discussion will challenge commonly held assumptions about pain.

Workshop begins with lunch on Friday and ends Saturday afternoon. Please register early since space is limited. Based on the Time, Space, and Knowledge vision.

Instructor: Sylvia Gretchen
Sponsor: Nyingma Institute
Cost: $175 (includes lodging at Ratna Ling Friday night).

First-Person Methodologies in the Study of Consciousness
March 30 - April 6

The conference brings together participants from all over the world, many well-known in the field of consciousness studies. It is open by invitation only.

This year's theme is Space, Time, and Self: The View from Within.
There will be a focus on more experiential work than in the previous two conferences.

Sponsor: Center for Creative Inquiry

April 10 - 13
Medicine Buddha Practice

Tibetan healing mantras and visualizations that evoke the blessings of the Medicine Buddha have been used for centuries to cure illness and increase well-being. This workshop offers instructions in traditional Medicine Buddha practices.

Begins Thursday at dinner and continues through Sunday lunch.

Instructor: Lama Palzang and Pema Gellek
Sponsor: Nyingma Institute
Cost: $325

April 17 - 19
Water Resource Symposium

By invitation only.

Sponsor: Ratna Ling

April 28 - May 2
Kum Nye Yoga Meditation

Kum Nye yoga is a natural healing method and a way for deepening meditation, introduced and developed in the West by Tarthang Tulku. This five-day Kum Nye training program teaches ways to restore wholeness and to relax in any tension.

Instructor: Arnaud Maitland, JD and MA in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and psychology;
Director of Dharma Publishing and the Center for Skillful Means.
Sponsor: Dharma Publishing International
Cost: $450 including room and board ($600 if combined with Visualization for Mind Clarity, May 3 - 4)

May 3 - 4
Visualization for Clarity of Mind

This weekend retreat on “Visualization for Clarity of Mind” will contain teachings and practices on the theory and practices of traditional visualization. Some of the lectures are based on Dharma Publishing’s e–Visualization program and will specifically use the pictorial Buddhist teaching of the Wheel of Life.

Instructor: Arnaud Maitland JD and MA in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and psychology;
Director of Dharma Publishing and the Center for Skillful Means.
Sponsor: Dharma Publishing International
Cost: $250 ($600 if combined with the Kum Nye retreat, April 28 - May 2)

May 5 - 10
Opening The Senses

This retreat makes use of the full range of intermediate and advanced Kum Nye exercises to help each participant integrate a rich array of positive feelings into body, senses, and mind.

Begins Monday at lunch and continues through Saturday afternoon.

Instructors: Donna Morton and Santosh Philip
Sponsor: Nyingma Institute
Cost: $600

May 16 - 17
Embrace the World

Dedication, openness, caring, and embodied intelligence: these are the inner resources that activists need to bring about and sustain positive change. This weekend workshop will explore how to develop and maintain these capacities in the face of the challenges that come with any meaningful undertaking. We will draw on exercises, dialog, new forms of inquiry, and the healing power of nature to create a sustaining community of inquiry. The workshop is open to individuals in the private and public sectors active in Sonoma County, or by permission of the instructors. Scholarships are available.

Instructors: Larry Robinson and Jack Petranker
Larry Robinson is the former mayor of Sebastopol, a therapist in private practice, and a member of the Green Party. Jack Petranker is founder of the Center for Creative Inquiry, a faculty member at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute in Berkeley, and a lawyer working in the non-profit arena.

Sponsor: Center for Creative Inquiry
Cost: $195

May 23 - 25
Mind in Nature

Living in our fast-paced, supercharged world, we lose touch with our own spirit, our capacities for joy and wisdom. In this program, we will learn to slow down and appreciate the world around us: reconnect with the beauty of our world. Much of the practice will be held outside; forest, meadow, and sky will be our guides.

Instructor: Jack Petranker, founder of Center for Creative Inquiry, former Dean of Tibetan Nyingma Institute, author of When It Rains, Does Space Get Wet?
Sponsor: Center for Creative Inquiry
Cost $195

June 6 - 8
Beyond the Story: New Foundations for a Therapy of Presence

Sponsor: Center for Creative Inquiry

June 18 - 21
Autism Conference

By Invitation only.

Sponsor: Ratna Ling Retreat Center

 

July 7 - 13
Gateway to Knowledge
Attuning to Dharma

Students deepen their search for awakened mind through in-depth study of topics from the Gateway to Knowledge book by the great Tibetan master Lama Mipham. Meditation practice will analyze the constituents of inner and outer experience. Kum Nye practice will help deepen analysis.

Primary Instructor: Sylvia Gretchen
Sponsor: Nyingma Institute
Cost: $2,495 for the 5 week Gateway to Knowledge retreat.
Prerequisite: Three years of Dharma Studies and consent of Instructor

July 14 - 20
Gateway to Knowledge
Time and the Arising of Suffering

Students deepen their search for awakened mind through in-depth study of topics from the Gateway to Knowledge by the great Tibetan master Lama Mipham. Meditation practice will analyze the constituents of inner and outer experience. Kum Nye practice will help deepen analysis.

Primary Instructor: Sylvia Gretchen
Sponsor: Nyingma Institute
Cost: $2,495 for the five week Gateway to Knowledge Retreat
Prerequisite: Three years of Dharma Studies and consent of Instructor

July 21 - August 3
Mandala Retreat

This two week retreat is an introduction into the structure of the Mandala and will teach methods that will support in making life balanced and significant.
The lectures and practices will deepen the knowledge of how to restore and express wholeness, using specifically Tarthang Tulku’s teachings on:
• Kum Nye - learning to relax in the tension and become more natural,
• Skillful Means – promoting the potential of body and mind in harmony with the power of time,
• Knowledge of Freedom – emphasizing “questioning mind” to find that we already have the knowledge to be successful, and
• The Dharma teachings on Bodhicitta (enlightenment mind) and impermanence.

Instructor: Arnaud Maitland, JD and MA in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and psychology;
Director of Dharma Publishing and the Center for Skillful Means.
Sponsor: Dharma Publishing International

July 31 - August 3
Opening the Heart

By Invitation only.

Sponsor: Ratna Ling Retreat Center

August 6 - 10
Time, Space and Knowledge

Time is the meaning of our lives and space the vision of our potential. When we are deeply playful yet resolute in our questioning, limits dissolve, and we make friends with our highest possibilities. Exercises, discussion, and lots of time for exploration.”

Instructor: Jack Petranker, Founder of the Center for Creative Inquiry and a long-time student of the TSK vision.

Sponsor: Center for Creative Inquiry
Cost: $540 for registration before May 15. $600 thereafter.

August 13 - 16
Lyme Disease Symposium

By Invitation only.

Sponsor: Ratna Ling Retreat Center

August 18 - 24
Embodiment: An Awakened Vision
Joy of Being

This retreat is a journey into the Buddha's vision of what embodiment means.
Students will: use teachings and practices from Nyingma Psychology to integrate body and mind; learn to release unnecessary tension and stress through Tibetan Yoga; study the teachings of the Buddhist Abhidharma;
learn about the symbolism of the Buddha's form; be introduced to the stages on the path and its view, result, and application; and deepen experiential knowledge of the mind through training in meditation.

Principal Instructor: Sylvia Gretchen
Sponsor: Nyingma Institute
Cost: $2,495 for the 5 week Embodiment: An Awakened Vision retreat.

August 22 - 24
Opening the Field of Awareness

Students work with introspective practices that focus on how the senses interact with mind and self. These practices work to break free of the oprdinary chain of perceptions that leads to misery. Students learn to rest within the open space of awareness, simply 'seeing,' 'feeling,' and 'knowing' beyond interpretations or labels. For all levels of students.

Begins with lunch on Friday and continues through Sunday lunch.

Instructors: Sylvia Gretchen & Barr Rosenberg
Sponsor: Nyingma Institute
Cost: $275

August 25 - 27
Embodiment: An Awakened Vision
Embodying Wisdom

This retreat is a journey into the Buddha's vision of what embodiment means.
Students will: use teachings and practices from Nyingma Psychology to integrate body and mind; learn to release unnecessary tension and stress through Tibetan Yoga; study the teachings of the Buddhist Abhidharma; learn about the symbolism of the Buddha's form; be introduced to the stages on the path and its view, result, and application; and deepen experiential knowledge of the mind through training in meditation.

Principal Instructor: Sylvia Gretehen
Sponsor: Nyingma Institute
Cost: $2,495 for the 5 week Embodiment: An Awakened Vision retreat.

September 12 - 14
Joy and Spaciousness

Gentle Kum Nye movement and breathing practices enhance a sense of spaciousness and develop joyous feelings. Taught mostly outdoors, the beauty of nature will help foster and expand inner joy.

Cost: $220
Instructors: Sylvia Gretchen and Jack van der Meulen. For all levels of students.
Sponsor: Nyingma Institute

September 24 - 27
CFIDS Symposium

By Invitation only.

Sponsor: Ratna Ling Retreat Center

October 10 - 12
Healing Sound

If you are very silent and alert, you may hear a beautiful, soft music in your body—a sort of silent music between thoughts. Tarthang Tulku, Openness Mind.

There is an art of deep listening that hears all sounds as music and recognizes a vast healing silence at the very heart of all sound. This workshop blends music, mantra, and silence to inspire this realization.

Cost: $220
Instructors: Sylvia Gretchen and Barr Rosenberg
Sponsor: Nyingma Institute

October 23 - 26
Observing Consciousness

Contemplating teachings from the Buddha's Surangama Sutra illuminate the nature of mind, perception, and consciousness. Our goal is the transmutation of ordinary awareness.

Begins with dinner on Thursday and continues through Sunday lunch.

Instructors: Sylvia Gretchen and Barr Rosenberg
Sponsor: Nyingma Institute
Cost: $325