In these dark days, when our world faces tremendous challenges, the question of how to respond to the suffering we see and experience is front and center. Warfare, violence, violations of human rights and decency, together with the breakdown of our ecosystems, biosphere, and the life-sustaining cycles of our planet, have catapulted us into a realm of suffering and fear that is at the least, overwhelming and paralyzing, and at the worst, devastating to the survival of the human and non-human races.

What tools can we draw on?

What ways of being, acting, and attending can we access to discover the resilience and compassion we need to grow into this time?

If these concerns keep you awake at night, this retreat is for you.  Lama Liz Monson and Matthew Bellows explore the phenomena of crazy wisdom as a way of being and acting so powerful that it “opens the door of confidence,” “destroys the mountain of conceptualizations” and “radiates the intense heat of compassion” beyond all limiting thoughts and fears.  They examine how our innate “crazy wisdom” provides us with deep insight into the nature of reality, freeing us to dance with love in the charnel ground of our own grief, fear, and despair.

By exploring the diverse manifestations of the “wildness” of our innate being, we discover that we do not have to be hemmed in by the dualistic frameworks we ordinarily inhabit to understand self and other, and for acting effectively in the suffering world. Instead, we are free to access the innate kindness and powerful expressive love, the wildness of compassion unleashed, that is our birthright.

To get more out of this course, it’s helpful to read Lama Liz’s book, Tales of a Mad Yogi: The Life and Wild Wisdom of Drukpa Kunley (Shambhala, 2021).

Here is a wonderful interview with Lama Liz Monson, speaking on “Understanding Crazy Wisdom in Vajrayana Buddhism” on the Noble Mind podcast platform. Lama Liz speaks about her motivation and process in writing this book and her understanding of how crazy wisdom can be useful in our own practice today.

This retreat includes the transmission for and in-depth instructions on the Sadhana of Mahamudra, a practice treasure text revealed at Takstang (Tiger’s Nest) in Bhutan by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche that focuses on the powerful form of Guru Dorje Trollo as the embodiment of crazy wisdom. This profound practice enacts the energy of crazy wisdom as a meditation designed to catapult the practitioner into the vastness and clarity of the mind’s essence, the true nature of things as they are.