Rainy Season Retreat “Dathün” (Pali:Vassa)(POSTPONED DUE TO COVID-19 PRECAUTION)
(POSTPONED DUE TO COVID-19 PRECAUTION)
20th July – 17th August 2020
Deer Park Institute
We are delighted to announce the fourth annual Rainy Season Retreat this July 20th – August 17th. This month-long intensive Buddhist meditation (Shamatha-Vipashyana) retreat was originally designed by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche as a foundational practice for his students (datun). It is now offered under the direct guidance and with the ongoing advice of Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, who is adapting the retreat to present times and Indian conditions while maintaining the essential retreat practice.
During the Buddha’s time, practitioners would gather and practice meditation together during the monsoon season when it was difficult to travel. We are moved to bring together this powerful retreat format with this Vassa tradition of practicing during the rainy season.
This retreat, led by senior students of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche and Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, is a unique opportunity to gain deep familiarity with the sitting practice of meditation. The 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 returned to India, the land of their birth.
The retreat is a 24-hour a day practice environment. 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. The retreat offers a systematic way of putting the teachings into practice. Alternating formal sitting with meditation in action (daily living experience as practice), in Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s words: “creates a confrontation with hidden neuroses and a means to transmute them.”
To register please write to info@deerpark.in.
“Priority will be given to individuals committed to the full month of retreat. If you plan to attend a shorter period you may arrive on July 27th or August 3rd. No new participants will be admitted after the 3rd of August.”