Register for Online

 
This retreat has now concluded on-demand recordings of the retreat are now available.

In this year’s special 5-Day Dzogchen Retreat, Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche will be teaching on The Three Words of Garab Dorje, a key introductory text in the practice of Dzogchen.

The path of the Dzogchen teachings consists of receiving direct introduction to the nature of your own mind and finding enlightenment within you. Through recognizing the nature of your own mind and remaining in the nature of mind through meditation practice, you become free from the limitations of ordinary thoughts and simultaneously reach the innate enlightenment that lies within you.

Participants do not have to have attended previous year’s Dzogchen Retreats in order to attend this one; they just need to fulfill the prerequisites explained below.

Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche only recently started teaching from Dzogchen texts publicly in this way and it has marked a very special milestone in Rinpoche’s activity. We are very happy to share that Rinpoche will be continuing to teach Dzogchen this November.

Schedule:

Friday, November 8th – Tuesday, November 12th
More Details on the Daily Schedule to Come: Estimated Daily Start Time 9am Pacific Time

Pricing:

Online
$250 – Program Price
$251 – $1000 – Program Price + Donation
$75 – $249 – Scholarship Rate

In-Person
$475 – Program Price
$476 – $1500 – Program Price + Donation
$175 – $474 – Scholarship Rate (Limited seats available for in-person scholarship rate. Please contact us if you no longer see this option available upon checkout.)

No one will be turned away for lack of funds as space allows. Please contact us if you need to make special arrangements.

Important Notes:

Prerequisites:

Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche offered a two-part Ngondro Retreat to provide the necessary foundation for those interested in receiving Dzogchen teachings. Anyone who has attended the entire Ngondro Retreat (both Parts 1 and 2) with Rinpoche is qualified to attend this Dzogchen Retreat even if you are still in the process of completing the accumulations Rinpoche requested.

In addition, Rinpoche has said that people who did not attend our Ngondro Retreats but who have received Ngondro teachings on a Dzogchen Ngondro such as Longchen Nyingtik, Dudjom Tersar, The Clearly Illuminated Path to Liberation (Mipham Ngondro) or any other Ngondro from Padmasambhava’s tradition are also qualified to attend this retreat. Specifically, for the Ngondro practice to provide the recommended foundation in the tradition that Rinpoche is drawing from, the Guru Yoga portion of the practice needs to include the Vajra Guru mantra and have Guru Rinpoche Padmasambhava as the central focus of the Guru Yoga, such as in the examples listed above. This way a connection with the specific Dzogchen lineage that Rinpoche teaches from can be formed. As long as you have received teachings on this type of Ngondro and have either completed or are continuing to do the Ngondro practice, you may attend this Dzogchen Retreat.

Note: If you have just started receiving Ngondro teachings, Rinpoche has indicated that there is not sufficient time to develop the necessary familiarity with Ngondro prior to the Dzogchen Retreat at this point. So if you do not already have a background with Dzogchen Ngondro teachings and practice, Rinpoche encourages you to focus on Ngondro right now and wait to attend a future Dzogchen retreat and not attend this upcoming retreat.

If you have not done this type of Ngondro or are not currently practicing Ngondro as required in the prerequisites described above for this Dzogchen Retreat, please wait for future opportunities that we plan to hold for teachings like these.

In-Person Participants:

• Rinpoche has expressed that when studying Dzogchen, it is important to make it a priority. Therefore In-Person participants are asked to attend all sessions of the retreat. We ask those attending in-person to attend all sessions in-person in order to maintain the energy of the in-person group experience.
• This is a commuter retreat. If you’re coming from out of town and need local accommodations, here are several hotels within a 20 minute driving distance of the retreat:
  • Inn Marin and Suites Novato
  • Marriott Novato
  • Sheraton Petaluma
  • Hampton Inn Petaluma
• Please bring your lunch each day as there will not be time to leave during the lunch break. There will be plenty of refrigerator space and a microwave available for your use. We also recommend bringing a bottle or thermos of water if you wish.
• We ask that anyone who is not feeling well or has any recent symptoms of illness prior to the event not attend in-person. If you are no longer able to attend in-person, please let us know by emailing us at [email protected] as far in advance as possible so that we may offer your seat to someone else.

Online Participants:

• Rinpoche has expressed that when studying Dzogchen, it is important to make it a priority. Therefore Online participants are encouraged to watch the teachings live on Zoom. If your time zone or life circumstances do not allow you to join the live stream of the retreat as it airs, you may watch the recordings. However, Rinpoche has explained that it’s important to watch the teachings in order. To facilitate this, we will be providing replay links at the end of each day so that those in different time zones can keep up with the retreat as it airs. For those who are not able to keep up with the live stream teachings and/or daily replay links to receive the teachings in order, Rinpoche has said it is better to wait until the full set of recordings is available after the conclusion of the live teachings and watch the videos of the teachings in order On-Demand.
• Since Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche has asked participants to receive the teachings in order, online participants who wish to attend the retreat live as it airs must register by Thursday, November 7th at 6pm Pacific Time. We will not be sending out the live stream link or replay links for those who register after this time. Those who register after this time will receive access to the full On-Demand recordings of the retreat once they are available.
• On-demand video recordings will be available for all participants (In-Person and Online) as soon as possible after the retreat. The recordings will be available for 3 months.

Additional Notes:

• If you have a different time zone, you may convert the time to your local time here.