Heart of Practice ONLINE Summer Retreat June 6-12, 2021

We are happy to announce that registration is now open for our annual June retreat practice intensive, meeting for the second year in a row online. We hope to meet in person again in Badger, California in 2022.

It is fortunate indeed to have the time to delve deeply into spiritual discovery. This is a rare opportunity to set aside our normal routines, unplug from distractions, and allow ourselves to experience the true relief that comes from cultivating a quiet mind and an open heart. Learning to be gentle with ourselves and “to relax in the doing” is liberating and transformative. Being at home in our own environments may prove supremely challenging. We may have to modify expectations, but at the same time it gives us more flexibility to participate fully or in a modified way to suit your individual needs.

We will still have the support of practicing together. The key is finding the balance between, “not too tight, and not too loose”, between relaxed discipline and awake relaxation. In doing so, we discover that peace and happiness are already present within our own mind, we only have to relax into our practice and let go of everything that obscures the innate qualities of wisdom and compassion.

We will provide various “Zoom Rooms” for the different practice sessions. The practice sessions will open and close together with traditional prayers. Which practice you do during the session can vary. Some of you will focus on sitting practice, others Ngondro, others on a particular visualization, generally called “deity” practice, and some will do combinations of the above. This is up to you. In addition we will offer morning Yoga sessions and evening Feldenkrais sessions as well as a daily Dharma talk.

We hope you will join us!

Registration is now open until June 1

Please follow the link for additional information and to registration:

https://ezregister.com/events/34170/

Khaydroup’s Ark

E Ma Ahoy!

 

Climb aboard!

Can’t you see!

 

There’s an ocean of suffering,

It’s time to be free.

 

Please come and relax,

You have been struggling for so long.

 

Please come and wake up,

From the sound of the morning gong.

 

Please come and be kind,

To yourself and to others.

 

After all…

All beings have been your fathers and mothers.

 

–Paul

 

Heart of Practice Retreat 2020

Tiny Spiders

Tiny spiders to us

Is like us

To thousand year old redwoods.

–Aloha, Don

 

Heart of Practice Retreat 2020

Joyful Presence!

I may not have become a better meditator.

But there were moments of being present,

There was an appreciation for the teachers

and an acknowledgement of how important

Supportive dharma friends are in our practice.

Thank You!

 

I may not have loved every activity,

But dharma methods were revived,

Enthusiasm for the Path rekindled,

And thanks to flexibility and creativity,

This retreat became possible.

Blessings.

 

–Peggy

 

Heart of Practice Retreat 2020

Mahākaruṇā

Great Compassion

 

Not from a sense of duty comes compassion to the fore.

It’s deep human understanding that can open wide your door

A gust of Grace now rushing in

Is all we need, no more.

 

Through Love’s most perfect grace

I offer up my self,

I offer myself up

To you,

To you dear one

No longer as a stranger

No longer fearing danger.

 

–Doug

 

Heart of Practice Retreat 2020

Prescription of my Extinction

From beginningless time, my extinction is a constant source of suffering for countless sentient beings.

Throughout beginningless time, my extinction has suffered ions of beings in countless samsaric cycles.

This extinction is like a pandemic that lasts forever, for all sentient beings in samsara.

Fear of this extinction has caused grief and turned us against each other and ourselves.

Fear like this also lead Milarepa to enlightenment by following the prescription from the enlightened ones.

On the prescription it reads

“To rid this extinction: Practice revulsion, devotion and non-distraction for meditation.

Engage and devote to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

Practice the six paramitas.

Practice the right view and profound perfection of wisdom…..”

The list of treatments goes on, with one treatment for one symptom of this extinction.

Throughout all of our lifetimes, may we never be separated from the perfect Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, and may we continue to practice Dharma until we reach enlightenment when we see something like,

“Just as five aggregates are empty of nature, there is no extinction and no no-extinction in emptiness.”

 

-Yuan

Heart of Practice Retreat 2020

 

Smooth Sailing

Mind and what arises,

oceans and waves, they are one and the same.

Just what does that mean really?

No surfing after enlightenment — only sailing.

– Levon

Heart of Practice Retreat 2020

This Boat

This Boat

(sing, you know the melody)

Row, row, row your boat, gently to the other shore,

Merrily, merrily, (may be a stretch!) can you please relax some more.

Chenrezig issued a standing invitation to board this vessel long ago. Finally you have accepted to come aboard this expansive ship, not only carrying us but carrying everyone we are carrying as well: our friends, enemies, loved ones (and their loved ones) and on and on and on…..

This boat holds us and all our hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, plans, dreams doubts, our yesses and our nos. Everything and anything that comes and goes, appears and disappears, we welcome aboard and we keep rowing and relaxing, relaxing and rowing, relaxing relaxing, rowing rowing…

(sing, you know the melody)

Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream,

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, this journey is but a dream.

Om Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha

 

Heart of Practice Retreat 2020

Is it for me?

Is it for me?

 

I am loud, and noisy

Proud and opiniated.

Always in a rush

After dreams that run my life. ….

 

Am I happy?

 

Perhaps… if I ignore the guilt

The remorse of inflicted wounds

The tears of defenseless people

 

Sometimes there is a spark of light

The look of my new-born child

The loving eyes of my dying father

The soft words of my best friend saying good bye

 

Hints that happiness is more silence than noise, more peace than rush,

That perfect wisdom is within us, ready to be uncovered if we only have the key

 

From long ago it comes the sound of church bells

The laughter of school children

The sunset playing with waves at the shoreline

 

Is it for me?

 

The calm sitting

The steady study

The loving dedication

The constant presence of Refuge

 

Paraphrasing Craig’s  beautiful words  “When dealing with pain and strong emotions, we just have  to remember the infinite blessing of Refuge. How fortunate to have the loving protection of The Budha, the Darma and the Sanga!   What else do we need?”

 

 

Mila Freire

June 12,2020

 

Thank you Khaydroup for your compassion and leadership. Thank you all for this wonderful experience. 

Don’t Make Waves

This lazy gray yogi

Who lives in the mountains

Rides the waves of thought

on the surfboard of awareness

 

Blessed are the winds of change

That bring waves of experience to surface

And this silver fox

Doesn’t make waves

 

–Jampa