Have you ever wondered how we so easily get caught up in obsessive patterns of thought that consume our attention and energy? Have you ever imagined that this experience of suffering might have a purpose in our lives and on our paths? Join the NDF Vajrayana team as we explore the tantric practices of creation and completion, processes that teach us how to co-opt our habitual immersion in discursive thought into a technology of purification and freedom from grasping and attachment. 

Tantric practice relies on our capacity to use the heart/mind’s natural tendency to bring reality into form, while transforming that process from one of entrapment in conceptual thinking to an expression of reality as it is, harmonized and deeply interconnected with the essence of our being. This process of reconfiguring reality through our imagination is known as the practice of “creation” (Tib. Kyerim), also translated as “the stage of giving birth.” When we learn how to take control of this ordinarily uncontrolled and limiting activity of the energy of mind’s nature, we discover our inseparability from and love for sacred world. Learning how to voluntarily initiate the dissolution of our storylines and grasping at duality, we discover the second main practice of Tantra, “completion” (Tib. Dzogrim), or “dissolution.” These two modes of skillful action release us from entrapment in our egoic identities, allowing us to sense the flowing paths of radiant energy and clarity that animate and express our essential nature. 

To help us to explore these practices more deeply, this retreat will include Dharma talks, practice intensives, and close reading sessions of Jamgon Kongtrul’s seminal Vajrayana text, Creation and Completion. Practitioners should plan to purchase this text before the retreat.

This retreat is open to all NDF Vajrayana practitioners. Vajrayana practitioners in other sanghas may also apply, but will need to have an interview with one of the NDF Vajrayana team teachers.