Dzogchen Meditation Center Seminary Winter 2021-22
Dzogchen View Three Yana Journey: The Vajradhatu Seminary Teachings of Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and the Vajra Regent Osel Tendzin.
The Dzogchen Summer Seminary is based on the seminaries held each year by the Vajradhatu Sangha and taught by the Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and the Vajra Regent Osel Tendzin from 1973 to 1988. This year's seminary will be based on the 1978 transcripts.
We are very proud to be continuing this remarkable retreat -- following in the footsteps of our lineage forefathers.
The purpose of the Seminary is to engage the full presentation of the practice lineage of Trungpa Rinpoche from the Hinayana teachings up through the Vajrayana. Seminary is a balance of study and practice periods. Each section of seminary begins with a week of intensive shamatha/vipashyana practice.
“You can consider yourselves worthy of taking great pride in what you have learned and what you have experienced. This kind of opportunity only occurs once in your life. Even if you come back a second time to a seminary, the first experience will always be unique, absolutely unique. This is important for you to understand. Personally, I feel extremely good, without any reservations, none whatsoever. We have worked so hard with each other, and you have fulfilled what I have envisioned. I can see at this point that everybody is sitting up straight, which is a good sign. The whole thing is good, extraordinarily good. When you go back home and doubts come to you, come back to this vision. Be cheerful, raise your head and your shoulders, and look straight ahead. Be disciplined and compact at the hinayana level, the level of shamatha. At the Mahayana level, be disciplined, gentle, and loving. At the Vajrayana level, just be there. It’s fantastic. It is quite magical and miraculous that the people of this seminary can actually construct a complete Buddhist world. It is unheard of. If the figures of our lineage had been here, I think they would have been very impressed—all of them, including His Holiness. They would see how much we know what we are and what we are doing. We have actually tasted the dharma. Peoples’ reservations and complaints and misconceptions—all the rumblings of their ego territoriality—could be thrown in, too, because they have actually done the whole thing properly. Therefore, when people come up with their particular blockages and problems, they are able to relate with them properly and fully. That is actually delightful and fantastic—and lovely.”
Trungpa Rinpoche 1978 Seminary “Creating an Enlightened Society”
During the Dzogchen Meditation Center’s seminary program we study the talks given by the Vidyadhara during his seminaries and we apply these teachings to our practice. This is what it means to study, contemplate and meditate which is the only way for the Buddhadharma to enter our systems fully.
Seminary Schedule:
Hinayana Section
10/16/2020 -10/25/20 Hinayana Practice Period
10/25- 11/13/2020 Hinayana Study Period
Mahayana Section
11/16-11/22/2020 Mahayana Practice Period
11/24 -12/13/2020 Mahayana Study Period
Vajrayana Section (Only available to those who have completed Hinayana and Mahayana Sections and have made a commitment to enter the Surmang Kagyu Order.
12/16-12/23/2020 Vajrayana Practice Period
12/25-1/15/21 Vajrayana Study Section
The seminary program is taught primarily by Tashi Armstrong and other senior students of Trungpa Rinpoche and the Vajra Regent.
$2895.00 includes room and board for the whole seminary. A limited number of work/Study positions are available for the Seminary program.
pre-requisites for this retreat
Completion of a Dathun.
maintaining a regular shamatha/vipashyana practice
Refuge and Bodhisattva Vows
Students need to fill out an application and submit it to DMC by September 15th