Monday, November 17, 2008

Practice Weekends Continue

Gomde is hosting monthly study and practice weekend retreats which run Friday evenings through Sunday afternoon. The retreats are practice-oriented, but there are free hours for those who wish to contribute volunteer work as well.

The next retreat dates are December 12-14 and January 16-19 (there's an extra day in the schedule because of Martin Luther King Day). If you'd like to join the weekend, please send an email to manager@gomdeusa.org. For more details, visit the Gomde website, or call the office at 707-925-0201.

2 comments:

Debbie said...

wonderful practice weekend #2 at Gomde this weekend. Unseasonably warm and sunny weather - small but dedicated group of practitioners.

Claude Herail is leading these sessions, which are seeing a mix of old and new practitioners. This is a new approach - for many years the Bay Area Sangha has met in San Francisco once a month. Now that these sessions are actually happening on our retreat land - it's bringing a new dimension to group practice -not to mention we are doing several sessions instead of the one session we were able to do at our Sunday gatherings.

Here is what the schedule for last weekend looked like:

Saturday -Please note the morning will be silent until 11:00

7:00-7:40 Group Shamatha Meditation

8:00-9:00 Break and Breakfast

9:00-11:00 Guided Meditation by Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche or Khandro Rinpoche

Concise Daily Practice and group meditation

Afternoon

4:30- 6:30 Vajrakilaya practice and Dharmaphala Offerings

Guided Meditation by Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche or Khandro Rinpoche

Evening

7-8:30 Dinner

8:30-9:15 Group Shamatha Meditation in Shrine Room

Sunday -Please note the morning will be silent until 11:00

Morning

7:00-7:40 Group Shamatha Meditation

8:00-9:00 Break and Breakfast

9:00-11:00 Guided Meditation by Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche or Khandro Rinpoche

Concise Daily Practice and group mediation

11:30- 12:30 Lunch - Retreat ends


Are you visiting California anytime soon? If so, please do plan your travels around one of these weekends - with the smaller groups we're able to accommodate everyone in the houses on the land itself and the costs are minimal - just enough to cover simple group meals and utilities.

everyone has so many ideas about these weekends - which practices to do; torma making classes; learn details of the rituals - "how to" sessions.... and lively "juicy" discussions about practicing in English or Tibetan and a million other things that Dharma Practitioners talk about when they get together....

Your ideas?

paulgustafson said...

Were the guided meditations by Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche and Khandro Rinpoche on video/audio tape? What type of meditations were these?

PG

Ngakso Puja

Some photos from the beautiful Ngakso Puja on July 27, 2009.