Jul 18 – Aug 16 2023

During the Buddha’s time practitioners would gather and practice together during the monsoon season. This month long intensive meditation retreat inspired by the form designed by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, joins together the classic Datün with the Buddha’s traditional rainy season retreat. We are delighted to reignite this tradition at Deer Park from July 18 to Aug 16 2023.

Led by senior students of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, this retreat will offer the opportunity to gain a deep familiarity with the sitting practice of meditation. These meditation instructions were taught by the Buddha in India 2,500 years ago, crossed the Himalayas to Tibet a millennium ago, have been taught in Europe and North America since the 1960s, and are now coming back to the land of their birth.

The datün environment is a 24-hour a day practice container. So the daily schedule, retreat guidelines, sitting and walking meditation, chants, silent meals, dharma talks, karma yoga, and regular individual meetings with meditation instructors are all part of the practice. The four-week datün retreat provides a space of simplicity and clarity rarely accessible in our ordinary lives, and is also a systematic way of putting the teachings into practice. Alternating formal sitting with meditation in action (daily living experience as practice), in Trungpa Rinpoche’s words: “creates a confrontation with hidden neuroses and a means to transmute them.”

Week I – July 18th – July 25th
Week II – July 25th – Aug 1st
Week III – Aug 1st – Aug 8th
Week IV – Aug 8th – August 15th

Participants are welcome to register for shorter periods, including any combination of Weeks I, II, and III. However, priority registration will be given to individuals committed to the entire four weeks of the retreat. Week IV is closed to new participants.

To register, please fill out this form. You will also need to arrange your accommodation and advance payment by contacting info@deerpark.in.

“Your instructors will include:

June Crow
June began her study and practice of  Buddhism when she met Suzuki Roshi, a Soto Zen Priest in San Francisco in l968. She later became a student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, of the Kagyu and Nyingma Lineage, from 1970 to 1987 and was a senior meditation instructor and teacher. Following the Parinirvana of ChogyamTrungpa Rinpoche, she has studied with Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche and in 1996 she received training in Buddhist philosophy and practice with Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche and taught the foundation curriculum at Nitartha Institute. Since 2010, June has been a student of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche and is furthering her understanding and practice of the Kagyu, Nyingma and Rime Tradition.

Lauchlan Learned
Lauchlan has been a student of the buddha-dharma and Venerable Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche since 1975, when she became immersed in his world of practice and study. In 1983, she moved to Karme-Choling, a contemplative centre under his direction, where she worked for 5 years, serving as Head of Practice and Education and staffing many datuns. Later, in Nova Scotia, she worked in community development and clinical mental health