Three Year Retreat
Venerable Lama Lodru Rinpoche graciously provides the opportunity for students to undertake the traditional Three Year Retreat. This retreat covers the entire cycle of teachings, from the preliminary practices (Ngongdro), through several creation and completion meditations (Kyerim and Dzogrim), culminating in Mahamudra practices. All of these practices lead one to understand the nature of mind and to maximize one's benefit for all sentient beings. The closed, protected environment which lasts for three years, three months, and three days allows the students to practice undistracted and with total focus.
Venerable Lama Lodru Rinpoche personally oversees the retreat and provides individual guidance for each student. The retreatants practice daily from approximately 3 am in the morning to 9 pm at night. Their daily individual practice is punctuated with two daily group meditations of Green Tara in the morning and Protector practices in the afternoon.
The present Three Year Retreat will end with a Mahakala Drubchen ceremony in April 2009. Lama Lodu Rinpoche requests that those who have completed a three-year retreat kindly make themselves available to join a Mahakala Drub Chen with non-stop recitation of the Mahakala mantra April 7 –16, 2009. Rinpoche also asks that those students who have had the Mahakala empowerment join with the lamas in mantra recitation. The Mahakala Drub Chen creates extraordinary merit for those who participate and limitless blessings for the environment and all beings. Many volunteers are needed to help with food preparation and other vital tasks, please see below.
Those who undergo the three year retreat receive a thorough grounding in Buddhism and meditation, and are the future lamas and teachers for the Sangha. As Buddha's teaching permeates the West, it is essential to have lamas and teachers who have the thorough, traditional training and understand Western culture.
Each student at KDK's three year retreat has paid from their own pockets $20,000 for the three years. These funds cover their living necessities of food, electricity and gas, practice necessities such as tsog (feast offerings done for the benefit of beings), and donations for visiting high lamas who provide critical instructions to the retreatants. The retreat money is carefully controlled and budgeted to last through the three years of living in seclusion at the KDK retreat land in Mendocino County; however unusual events such as the sudden high price of gasoline and propane, an unexpected automobile repair for the resident cook, or an increase in food costs, strain the budget.
Your donations, small or large, help the retreatants in their meditation practices, and benefit the Sangha at large ensuring the accurate and pure teachings of Buddha continue in the West.
If you are able, please make a donation to the retreat. You can donate by sending a check to:
KDK Three Year Retreat1892 Fell Street, San Francisco,
California 94117, USA
Please make your check payable to KDK and write Three Year Retreat in the memo section of your check.
We send our heartfelt respect and devotion to the men and woman who have dedicated themselves so diligently for the benefit of all beings from November 2005 until April 2009 when they will leave their retreat.
