Kālachakra Tantra Study & Practice Intensive

This is a hybrid retreat with both in-person and online participation options. If you would like to attend in person and stay at Menla during this retreat, please use this link to register for the residential option.

Robert Thurman brilliantly elucidates and vividly brings to life the many dimensions of the Kālachakra Tantra in this special series of study and practice Intensives focusing on a special Kālachakra Mind Mandala sadhana practice which Dr. Thurman himself uses and deeply explores with all participants. This retreat is intended and reserved for those who have participated in any Kālachakra Initiation with His Holiness the Dalai Lama or another qualified lama, taking the requisite lay, bodhisattva, and tantric vows, and who are interested in deepening their understanding and practice of the Kālachakra Tantra.

Thurman sheds light on this Tantra’s underlying philosophy and its complex symbolism. Having been preserved for centuries in the fabled kingdom of Shambhala, the Kālachakra Tantra is an Unexcelled Yoga Tantra system of teachings which is believed to originate directly from Shakyamuni Buddha and which revolves around the concept of cycles (chakra) of time (kāla), from the cycles of the planets and the outer world to the cycles of human breathing and our physical-spiritual development.

It teaches the practice of working with the most subtle energies within one’s mind and body on the path to enlightenment, through famously complex deity yoga which helps practitioners with a basic understanding of emptiness dissolve their ordinary sense of self and re-create themselves in the ideal form of the Kālachakra deity pair in union, who represent omniscient Buddhahood–the union of great bliss and the wisdom perceiving emptiness. Since Kālachakra is time itself, and everything manifest is under the influence of time, Kālachakra Buddha is experiential knowledge of all manifest reality. Vishvamata, his spiritual consort and complement, is aware of all that is timeless, not time-bound, or out of the realm of time. In yab-yum union, they are temporality and atemporality conjoined and represent the full glory of the ultimate nature of reality, compassionately abiding in a vast multidimensional mandala rich with symbolic meaning.

Schedule (All times below are Eastern Standard Time.)

Upon request, afternoon group chanting of Kalachakra sadhana with Michele or morning yoga with Michele can be zoomed. Yoga Nidra sessions will be based on ClearLight and Anuttara Yoga.

Monday, October 5th

• 7:30pm Introductory Class with Bob

Tuesday, October 6th

• 9:30 – 11:45am Morning Class with Bob
• 4 – 6pm Afternoon Class with Bob
• 7:30 – 8:30pm Evening Yoga Nidra with Michele

Wednesday, October 7th

• 9:30 – 10:30am Morning Class with Bob
• 4 – 6pm Afternoon Class with Bob
• 7:30 – 8:30pm Evening Yoga Nidra with Michele

Thursday, October 8th

• 9:30 – 11am Morning Class with Bob
• 4:30 – 5:30pm Afternoon Class with Bob
• 7:30 – 8:30pm Evening Yoga Nidra with Michele

Friday, October 9th

• 9:30 – 10:45am Morning Class with Bob
• 7:30 – 8:30pm Evening Yoga Nidra with Michele

Saturday, October 10th

• 9:30 – 11:45am Morning Class with Bob
• 4 – 6pm Afternoon Class with Michele

Sunday, October 11th

• 9:30 – 11:45am Morning Class with Bob
• 4 – 6pm Closing Class with Michele

* Schedule is subject to change at anytime