Kālachakra Tantra Study & Practice Intensive

This is a hybrid retreat with both in-person and online participation options. To register for the online only option, please click here.

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

Monday, October 5th

• 3 – 8pm Check-In
• 6 – 7pm Dinner
• 7:30pm Introductory Session

Tuesday, October 6th – October 10th

• 6:30 – 8am Optional Yoga Asanas or Extra Self-Led Sadhana Practice
• 8 – 9am Breakfast
• 9:30 – 11:45am Morning Session
• 12:30 – 1:30pm Lunch
• 1 – 4pm Free time for Spa Services or Relaxation
• 1 – 3pm Optional Extra Self-Led Sadhana Practice
• 4 – 6pm Afternoon Session
• 6 – 7pm Dinner
• 7:30pm Evening Session

Sunday, October 11th

• 6:30 – 8am Optional Yoga or Extra Self-Led Sadhana Practice
• 8 – 9am Breakfast
• 9:30 – 11:45am Closing Session
• 11am Check-Out of Room
• 12:30 – 1:30pm Lunch & Departure

Note: Schedule is subject to change at anytime