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Himalayas
I study, and try to practice, Vajrayana Buddhism. My main areas of interest are Chod, Kagyu and Nyingma traditions as well as Buddhisms interactions with the West, pop-culture and engaged Buddhism.

Monday, December 14, 2009

I've been asked to share how my retreat went so here goes.

I kept an extremely 'light' schedule vaguely based on doing regulr sessions. I took Sojong vows and kept to one meal per day, effectively following a NyungNay non-fasting approach.

In terms of the actual practice I mostly did Ngondro (Foundation practice) of Refuge and Bodhicitta with prostrations and Dorje Sempa (Vajrasattva) as well as the Guru Rinpoche practice known as "Union of the precious ones".

It was only three days, yet it felt very good all the way through. And as with every retreat, I had the sense that I could quite happily live like this.

I mentioned Bodhicitta above. I should say that Bodhicitta is also as much part of Dorjesempa or any other practice as well. I remember my friend Tulku Jampel Wangpo of Mindroling monastery saying that when you do Dorjesempa, Bodhicitta will naturally come through. This is certainly how I feel.

So basically the micro-retreat went very well and I wish I could share the immense sense off inner peace and happiness I felt, and still feel.

Having generally failed to develop any sort of compassion, let alone Bodhicitta, getting small glimpses like this consolidates my conviction that if you have a solid grounding in Dharma with a good Lama, then you really need nothing else.

1 comment:

Jon said...

hi Aksel,

as a non-Vajrayana practitioner i'm afraid i understood very little of that beyond refuge and bodhicitta.

i understand and respect that a great deal of Vajrayana practises must be discussed carefully as without proper guidance and instruction they can be damaging but nonetheless i was wondering if you'd kindly share (as much as you feel comfortable with) a little more about what practices such as Dorjesempa and Ngondro involve?

also, what is meant by a NyungNay approach? :-)

Gassho
Jon