Wisdom Rising: Journey into the Sacred Masculine - VIRTUAL RETREAT

A Tara Mandala Virtual Retreat 

The Mandala of the Five Buddhas is for all of us who long to integrate the awakened, sacred, and wise masculine within ourselves. Buddhism sees the enlightened masculine as the capacity to act skillfully and with wise compassion. These are capacities that must be nurtured by all of us, regardless of our gender identity. The Jungian understanding of the psyche tells us that we each have both feminine and masculine aspects of ourselves, which he calls the anima and the animus. The work of healing and moving towards wholeness involves drawing forth and cultivating the positive aspects of each; otherwise, the hidden agenda of our anima or animus can be destructive and self sabotaging. With the Mandala Training we offer a sublime method to work with the anima in the Dakini Mandala, the animus in the Mandala of the Five Buddhas, and the union of the two in the Yab Yum Mandala. The Mandala of the Five Buddhas offers a practical method to awaken the enlightened masculine in all of us by empowering us to bring into balance the mutually supportive inner feminine-masculine unity. It is this inner union that allows us to find strength and clarity within so that we may become “in-powered” and effective change agents in the world.

During this retreat you will experience transformation through the power of the mandala—a universal map of inner wholeness and embodiment. The mandala is a template of wholeness with a universal structure of the center and four directions, represented here by five families connected to elements, colors, seed syllables, emotions, psychological types, and wisdoms. This training offers a journey into the Mandala of the Five Buddhas practice developed by Lama Tsultrim Allione to bring emotional transformation into alignment with the spiritual path.

In this experiential retreat, you will have the opportunity to:

• Learn the Mandala of the Five Buddhas, embodiments of sacred masculine and wisdom, and a daily meditation practice.
• Focus on one of the Five Buddha Families to explore more deeply your encumbered patterns and learn how to transform those patterns into the wisdom of that particular family.
• Practice three enhancement methods:
  (1) The 5-step practice of Feeding Your Demons®
  (2) Guided Journey with the Buddhas
  (3) Art through Mandala Work with your Hands

• Integrate with the elements through meditation (outdoors if weather permits).
• Further personal and dyad work relating to the Five Families.

Who Should Attend? 

• This is open to everyone.

To prepare for this retreat, we encourage you to:

• Read Wisdom Rising and Feeding Your Demons by Lama Tsultrim Allione.

What is a Virtual Retreat?

Our Virtual Retreat is a Tara Mandala At-Home intensive retreat during which you will receive teachings, engage in guided practice, and connect with other participants through an easy-to-use online platform (Zoom). We encourage you to create a retreat environment during our days together, by setting aside a dedicated retreat space, removing yourself as much as possible from social media, and taking care of necessities with the mind of compassion in action.

This retreat is meant to be attended live, however the entire retreat will be available for 7 days after the end of the retreat for additional viewing.

I registered for the original onsite retreat, what can I do?

If you have signed up for the onsite retreat at Tara Mandala, you can easily convert your registration to this new Virtual Retreat offering. Please connect with our Registrar to do this at registrar@taramandala.org.

Tiered-Prices

We’re asking our community to support Tara Mandala financially by considering our tiered-pricing model for our virtual retreats which we are launching  in 2020 to support those in our community that cannot travel due to the pandemic. These are difficult times for everyone, and Tara Mandala is no exception. We encourage you to pay at the highest level within your capacity to support Tara Mandala, our staff, and our sangha. We thank you in advance for your support and your practice!

$560 – Essential Level

Registration at this level helps Tara Mandala cover basic costs of holding this specific retreat, including compensating our teachers. 

$686 – Luminous Level (includes a 20% discount for self-paced online courses valid for 3 months)

Registration at this level helps support basic costs of this retreat, and additionally supports our onsite staff  at Tara Mandala during this year of uncertainty.

$756 – Mandala Level (includes a 30% discount for self-paced online courses valid for 3 months)

Registration at this level helps Tara Mandala cover basic costs for this retreat, supports staff, facilities maintenance and other critical operational needs onsite this year.

Any additional contribution to our Annual Fund will allow Tara Mandala Retreat Center to continue to be a year-round center, a repository for wisdom literature, a center for translation, a beacon for the feminine in Buddhism, an active dharma center with weekly dharma study and practice that provides refuge for deep practice and transformation. If you are able to provide a generous contribution beyond the prices listed above, you will also have the opportunity to do so in your registration and/or during the retreat.

Similarly, if you would like to offer Dana to the teachers leading this retreat, the information to do so will be provided during the virtual retreat sessions.

VIRTUAL RETREAT SCHEDULE

Listed times are the online portions of the retreat. All times are Mountain Time. If you are attending from another time zone, please know that recordings will be made available by 8pm MT daily so you can review missed sessions. Recordings will be available for seven (7) days following the conclusion of the retreat.

Please use this link to see how this daily schedule translates into your timezone.

September 2:
4:00-5:00pm: Opening Gathering

September 3:
10:00am – 12:00pm: Teachings
2:00pm – 4:00pm: Teachings
5:00pm – 5:45pm: Practice

September 4 – 7:
8:00am – 8:45am: Practice
10:00am – 12:00pm: Teachings
2:00pm – 4:00pm: Teachings
5:00pm – 5:45pm: Practice 

September 8:
10:00am – 12:00pm: Closing Session and Tsog (Ritual Feast)