For more information, please see the Integral Zen Website.

For questions or registration, please contact Janel Shikyo Jiryu at integralzenjanel@gmail.com.

An Integral Zen Healing Retreat – Where Silence and Healing Converge

7 day 6 night Zen Healing retreat, Doshin Roshi and Shikyo Jiryu

Vegetarian meals, location is high altitude, about a four hour drive from Denver and one hour from Alamosa airport. Single room occupancy with shared bathrooms, workshop size limited. A combination of silent meditation and interactive study and exploration of Integral Zen Healing.

More information coming soon, sign up for the the waiting list for early notice.

Dzogchen Treasure Teachings

Online Study Course with Ani Lodro

Teachings and commentary on Padmasambhava’s

“Treasures from Juniper Ridge”, Tulku Urgyen’s “As It Is”, and

Jamgon Kontrul’s “Buddhism’s Journey to Tibet.”

Saturdays: October 3rd, 10th, 17th & 24th

10:30 am - 1:00 pm Mountain Time

$150 for four classes and audio recordings

Click Here To Register for Ani’s Online Course

Summary

In Dzogchen practice, also known at the Great Perfection, we as practitioners do not try to stop or control thoughts, but relax into the mind’s natural condition, allowing thoughts and emotions to arise and dissolve naturally through self-liberation. Dzogchen is one of the most direct meditation practices of Tibetan Buddhism, designed to reveal our mind's already enlightened and pure nature.

In Mahāmudrā practice, also known as the Great Seal, we learn to rest without fabrication, allowing stillness and movement, clarity and awareness, to be recognized as inseparable aspects of mind’s nature. Through the union of shamatha and vipashyana, this recognition gradually becomes more stable and effortless.

This course is for those wishing to deepen their understanding and practice of Dzogchen and Mahāmudrā, with an emphasis on recognizing and stabilizing in the natural state. Through these teachings and practices, we come to recognize the pure nature of mind: primordial, luminous, empty yet vividly aware, and unaffected in its nature by passing thoughts and emotions.

Turning more directly toward the profound view and practice of Dzogchen, we will draw primarily from Padmasambhava’s Treasures from Juniper Ridge and Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche’s As It Is. The teachings will explore the nature of mind, the recognition of awareness, and the relationship between meditation and the naturally present wisdom at the heart of the Dzogchen tradition.

Through commentary, guided reflection, and interactive discussion, we will offer an accessible way to approach these profound treasure teachings as living instructions for recognizing our own experience and bringing the view of Dzogchen into meditation and everyday life.

Zoom sessions will be held Saturdays 10:30am - 1:00pm with a 20 minute break.

Requirements and study assignments

Beginner level meditation, At least 10 minutes of silent sitting daily, preferably in the morning and/or evening. Weekly reading assignments from selected texts (one chapter per week) prior to our zoom gatherings.

Reading Materials

As It Is by Tulku Urgyen

Treasures from Juniper Ridge by Padmasambhava & Yeshe Soygal

Click Here To Register for Ani’s Online Course

For more information, please contact Susanne Marie via her website.

To register for your attendance at Vajra Vidya, please use the Retreat Guru registration form.

Contact Email: susannemarieretreat@gmail.com

Devotion to Truth: An Awakening Immersion Retreat

7 Nights: October 2–9, 2026
Crestone, Colorado
Vajra Vidya Retreat Center

Enrollment is open. Limited spots available.

I am delighted to offer my fourth silent seven-night retreat at the beautiful Tibetan Buddhist Vajra Vidya Retreat Center in Crestone, Colorado. This immersion offers a profound opportunity to deepen your spiritual practice within a loving, embodied, and well-supported container.

This retreat will be held in a small, intimate, non-sectarian setting, allowing for depth, presence, and genuine connection. Noble silence will be observed throughout the retreat, with two daily group sessions that are not silent. Each day will include a morning teaching, followed by an afternoon session devoted to questions, inquiry, and shared dialogue.

Vajra Vidya is nestled at 8,300 feet in the Colorado Rockies, offering a spacious and pristine natural environment that powerfully supports inner stillness and contemplation. We are deeply grateful that the retreat center is offering an exceptional rate for private rooms and meals. There are 18 rooms available on site, with additional off-site housing options nearby. Due to the limited capacity, this retreat is intentionally small and is filling quickly.

Integration and Support

There is an application process for all new participants. I will personally check in with each applicant to ensure the retreat is a supportive and appropriate fit for your current well-being and spiritual journey. Retreat energy can be quite powerful, and it is important to me that each participant feels well held and supported.

The final full day of the retreat will be devoted to integration, including small breakout groups and time to harmonize and ground the insights and experiences of the week.

Application Information

New applicants are invited to email us to request an application.
Those who have previously attended a retreat with me may simply email to express their interest.

Email: susannemarieretreat@gmail.com

Housing and Meals

Retreat Center Housing and Three Meals Daily:
$100 per night for a single private room (including meals). 
Housing is booked directly with Vajra Vidya Retreat Center once your participation is approved.

If on-site housing becomes full, nearby off-site accommodations are available.

Tuition

Susanne’s Tuition (separate from housing and meals):
$1,050

Non-refundable deposit: $200

If you feel called to contribute to our scholarship fund, please let us know via email. Your generosity helps make it possible for a sincere spiritual practitioner to attend. Thank you in advance for your support.

Warm blessings,
Susanne

For more information, please visit Sharon’s website.

To register, please contact Kathleen Brens.

Coordinator: Kathleen Brens

Email: thebrens@outlook.com

Discover Our Interconnectedness

We come to realize that the cells within the individual body contain the illumined life as the silent primordial ground. It arises as light and expresses itself as form.

This intimate embodiment of the cells is a knowing within, quietly alive. It is not something you reach for, it is already here. It is the felt sense that arises from within the cells themselves. Both intimate and immediate. One then recognizes that the individual body and the great universal body are one and the same.

In this retreat, you will experience a silent container with

• Guided meditation

• Transmission

• Q&A

• Supportive and caring community

We warmly invite you to join us for a Medicine Buddha & Mahamudra Retreat with Khenpo Lobzang

Note: September 2 and September 7 are travel days for those lodging at Vajra Vidya. We will have 4 full days of retreat with Khenpo Lobzang from September 3–6.

We warmly invite you to join us for a Medicine Buddha and Mahamudra retreat with Khenpo Lobzang.

Medicine Buddha practice is a profound support for healing, purification, and the pacification of suffering. Through this practice, we connect with the blessings and aspirations of the Medicine Buddha, purify obscurations, and cultivate the conditions for well-being, clarity, and Dharma practice. It is also a beautiful way to dedicate our practice for others, especially those experiencing illness, difficulty, or obstacles.

Khenpo Lobzang will also offer teachings on Rangjung Dorje’s Aspiration of Mahamudra, a profound prayer by the Third Karmapa that expresses the heart of the Mahamudra path. These teachings will help illuminate the view, meditation, and conduct of Mahamudra, and support our aspiration for realizing the true nature of mind.

This retreat is especially appropriate for those wishing to deepen healing practice, purify obstacles, and connect with the profound path of Mahamudra for the benefit of oneself and others.

During this retreat, Khenpo Lobzang will offer these beautiful teachings and guide participants with clarity, warmth, and support.

Schedule

Wednesday, September 2

Day of arrival for guests lodging at Vajra Vidya
4:00pm Check-In Time
5:30pm Dinner

September 3–6

6:00am - 7:00am Individual Practice
7:30am - 8:30am Breakfast
9:00am - 10:00am Community Practice
10:30am - 12:00pm 1st Session
12:00pm - 1:00pm Lunch
1:00pm - 2:00pm Karma Yoga
2:15pm - 3:15pm Individual Practice
3:30pm - 5:30pm 2nd Session
5:30pm - 6:30pm Dinner
7:00pm - 8:00pm Individual Practice

Monday, September 7

Day of departure for guests lodging at Vajra Vidya
Breakfast and lunch included.

For questions regarding registration, please reach out to us at vajravidyacrestone@gmail.com .

To register, please use the Medicine Buddha & Mahamudra Retreat Registration Form.

Welcome to a retreat that explores the profound changes of our time and reorients them within Buddhism’s vast vision of reality—an evolutionary, expansive, and transformative understanding of who we are and the universe we inhabit. In the midst of uncertainty, we are invited to ask: Are we ready to question the narrow ways we have been taught to experience ourselves and the world?

Rather than presenting human life as isolated, material, and self-contained, the ancient Tibetan Buddhist texts reveal a living cosmos of many dimensions, many realms, and many kinds of beings, all arising in dependence upon mind, perception, karma, and awareness.

Tibetan Buddhist sutra presents cosmological systems—including those of the individual way, the universal way, Kālacakra, and Dzogchen—not merely as outer descriptions of the universe, but as invitations to loosen our fixation on the small, habitual world we take to be absolute.

In this way, Myriad Worlds becomes a profound spiritual antidote to modern times: it widens our imagination, softens rigid identity, and opens our hearts and mind to a reality that is luminous, interconnected, and far more mysterious than we have been taught to believe.

For those of us feeling trapped in loneliness, anxiety, alienation, or the exhausted patterns of modern life, Buddhism’s visions of reality point toward another way of being.

When we no longer see ourselves as separate, cut off, and confined within a single fixed story, the causes of so much suffering begin to loosen. The Buddhist path suggests that confusion, mental affliction, and even forms of embodied distress are deeply tied to how we perceive and inhabit reality; as that perception opens, greater balance, vitality, meaning, and compassion become possible.

This retreat will include yoga, meditation, and the prophetic teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, which can help us break beyond the mental boxes that keep us small and rediscover the spaciousness and sacred depth of our own experience. The connection between cosmology, mind, and the arising of worlds comes at a timely and necessary point in our human evolution.

Material from this retreat is drawn from a variety of sources, including Jamgön Kongtrul’s sacred text, “The Treasury of Knowledge”, which encompasses the entire Tibetan Buddhist path, “enshrining all the wisdom of Tibet”.

Registration

This 6 day 5 night retreat begins with dinner at 5pm on Thursday, August 13th, and completes with lunch on August 18th.  Our four full days together will follow the schedule below, which includes a daily Gentle Yoga session and morning meditation session lead by Linda Stuart. Click here to find more information about Linda Stuart.

6:45 - 7:15  Meditation with Linda Stuart

7:30 - 8:30 Breakfast and Clean up

9:00 - 10:00  Tibetan Chants and Meditation

10:30 - Noon  Morning Session with Ani Lodro

Noon - 1:30 Lunch and clean up

2:00 - 2:45 Silent Sitting in Shrine Room

3:00 - 3:45 Gentle Yoga with Linda Stuart

4:00 - 5:15 Afternoon Session Q&A with Ani Lodro

5:30 - 6:45 Dinner and clean up

7:00 - 7:45 Silent Sitting in Shrine Room

6 Day Retreat Fees:

$825 Lodging, Meals, and Program

$500 Commuters: Meals and Program

$175 Online Zoom Attendance

To inquire about sangha discounts, or scholarships,

please email us at vajravidyacrestone@gmail.com

Click here to Register

For questions, please reach us at

vajravidyacrestone@gmail.com

For more information about this retreat, please visit Shar’s website.

To register for this retreat, please use the Vajra Vidya registration form.

https://www.coloradotibetans.org/

34 Garden Center

Broomfield, CO 80020

info@coloradotibetans.org

For more information or to register, please visit E-Vam Institute’s website.

Coordinator: Traleg Khandro

Email: evam.institute@gmail.com

For more information or to register, please visit Sharon’s website.

Coordinator: Kathleen Brens

Email: sharon@clearlightsangha.us

For more information or to register, please contact Janel Houton.

Email: integralzenjanel@gmail.com.

Website: https://www.integralzen.org/

For more information, please email vajravidyacrestone@gmail.com

Depiction of Milarepa done by the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa

We warmly invite you to a one-day or a six-day retreat focused on the life and teachings of Jetsün Milarepa, one of Tibet’s most beloved yogis and a cornerstone of the Kagyu lineage.

Milarepa’s story is a profound opportunity for us as spiritual practitioners to renew our hope, courage, and confidence in the path. He is a living demonstration that freedom is possible—even amid incredible hardship and cultural challenges, speaking to our modern circumstances and minds that can feel tangled in confusion, discouragement, distraction, and self-doubt.

Milarepa’s life shows that our challenges do not have to be obstacles; they can become the conditions that offer transformation and liberation. During this retreat we will explore key passages from Milarepa’s biography, and turning points of his life, and integrate the teachings through meditation and practice. We will also draw from Milarepa’s songs of realization—direct, and luminous expressions of awakened mind—teachings which are intimate instructions.

All are welcome. There are no prerequisites for  either retreat. For those interested in reading Milarepa’s biography, “The Life  of Milarepa” by Tsangnyon Heruka is recommended. The Songs of Milarepa have  also been published separately by Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche and Choygam Trungpa which include  commentary from these two profound teachers of the Kagyu lineage.

MILAREPA 6 Day Retreat Schedule

This 6 day 5 night retreat begins with dinner at 5pm on Thursday, March 19th, and completes with lunch on March 24th.  Our four full days together will follow the schedule below, which includes a daily morning Yoga session and an afternoon meditation session lead by Linda Stuart. Click here to find more information about Linda Stuart.

6:45 - 7:20 Yoga and stretching with Linda Stuart

7:45 - 8:45 Breakfast and Clean up

9:00 - 10:00 Morning Tibetan Chants and Meditation

10:30 - Noon Morning Session Teachings with Ani Lodro

Noon - 2:00 Lunch and clean up

2:15 - 3:15  Group Circle Sharing with Ani Lodro or Linda Stuart

3:30 - 4:15 Meditation with Linda Stuart

4:30 - 5:30 Afternoon Session Q&A with Ani Lodro

5:30 - 7:00 Dinner and clean up

Evening - Free time to meditate in Shrine room or other practice

Please click here to register.

We will explore enjoying and caring for this raw and beautiful experience of being human, and arriving at the doorway of your own goodness and wellness from the inside of yourself.

It is about walking through the world with an upright presence and an open, tender heart, allowing kindness to move in and around you, and learning how to function as an open-hearted being in this world.

We will be held in a field of silence to support deep inward listening, with times for teachings, questions, and shared inquiry woven throughout the retreat.

“One of the most calming and powerful actions you can take in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, sends up flares, builds signal fires, and helps proper matters catch fire.

To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times—to be fierce and to show mercy toward others—are acts of immense bravery and necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it.

There can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours—they are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here.”
— Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Together, we will explore what it means to be a pillar of light in this world, a present, divine human being in this life, awakening your true presence, tending your human life, and shining from the inside out.

“Wherever I stand, may I be the soul of that place.”
— Rumi

To learn more about Elizabeth, and her upcoming events, guided meditations, and teachings, click here.

For more information, please visit Vova's website

Please email us at vajravidyacrestone@gmail.com for more information.

In preparation for this Losar Year of the Fire Horse, we will hold a Mahakala retreat, focusing on the main protector of our Kagyu tradition, especially in the form of Bernagchen Mahakala, the “Black Cloak,” the personal protector of the Karmapas and a principal protector of the Karma Kagyu school.

In Vajrayana, Mahakala is a dharmapala, a protector of the Dharma and its practioners, and a wrathful manifestation of enlightened compassion, often described as arising from Avalokiteshvara (Chenrezig) or Vajradhara.

We turn to Mahakala to:

• Dispel outer obstacles – illness, harmful conditions, natural disasters, and disturbances,

• Pacify inner obstacles – fear, depression, anger, jealousy, and doubt,

• Cut secret obstacles – subtle habits of ego-clinging and confusion that block direct recognition of our own nature.

In our protector supplications we invoke “Lama, Gonpo, Yermepa.” Lama refers here especially to the Karmapa as our root guru and, through him, the Kagyu lineage as a whole. Gonpo is Mahakala, the main protector deity of this lineage. Yermepa refers to the yidam deities, the intimate meditation forms of awakened mind. Calling on “Lama, Gonpo, Yermepa” together reminds us that guru, protector, and yidam are inseparable aspects of one awakened activity supporting our practice.

As some teachings explain, this is a way of remembering that guru, yidam, and protector are one taste: different expressions of awakened mind acting through blessing, realization, and protection.

Mahakala Biography

From the Buddhist side, Mahakala is understood as a fully enlightened wisdom deity, appearing in fierce form to subdue negativity and protect the Dharma. He is often depicted dark blue or black, wreathed in flames, wearing a crown of five skulls symbolizing the five poisons transformed into the five wisdoms, and trampling on obstacles to liberation.

In the Kagyu tradition—especially in the Karma Kagyu—Mahakala is regarded as the main protective deity of the lineage, intimately connected with the activity of the Karmapas.

Mahakala Losar New Year Retreat Schedule

Friday, February 13th

Day of arrival for retreatants lodging at Vajra Vidya

Saturday, February 14th through Tuesday, February 17th

7:30 am - 8:00 am | Breakfast

9:00 am - 10:00 am | Community Practice with Khenpo Jigme

10:30 am - 12:00 pm | 1st Session with Khenpo Jigme

12:00 pm - 12:30 pm | Lunch

2:30 - 5:30 pm | 2nd Session and Tsok Offering with Khenpo Jigme

5:30 - 6:00 pm | Dinner

Wednesday, February 18th

Day of departure for retreatants lodging at Vajra Vidya

Please email us at vajravidyacrestone@gmail.com for more information.

Our first retreat focuses on Konchog Chidu – “The Embodiment of the Precious Ones” or “The Embodiment of the Three Jewels”, a Guru Rinpoche terma cycle revealed by the great tertön Rigdzin Jatsön Nyingpo (1585–1656).

Konchog Chidu is regarded as a complete practice:

• It gathers the Three Jewels and Three Roots into one mandala of practice.

• It contains ngöndro, outer, inner, secret and most secret instructions.

• It is fully in harmony with our Karma Kagyu lineage, and has been upheld and practiced by great Kagyu masters.

In this retreat, we rely on Konchog Chidu as a bridge between our present condition and the mind of awakening. Through this practice we:

• Purify obstacles that block the path,

• Receive blessings that make the mind soft, clear, and workable,

• Deepen our connection with the Three Jewels and with Guru, Yidam, and Dakini as the living Three Roots.

As Guru Rinpoche promised, in these later times those who remember him, call his name, and recite his mantra with faith will be swiftly protected and guided. This commitment to us allows “Om Ah Hung Benza Guru Pema Siddhi Hung” to be a direct connection to Guru Rinpoche in this degenerate age.

Guru Rinpoche Biography

Padmasambhava, Guru Rinpoche, the “Precious Guru,” is the great Vajra master who brought Vajrayana Buddhism to Tibet in the 8th century. Invited by King Trisong Detsen, he helped establish Samye, the first monastery in Tibet, and opened the mandala of Vajrayana to his twenty-five main disciples at Chimphu.

He is revered as an emanation of Buddha Shakyamuni and the source of the Nyingma school, and his blessings are cherished in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Through his activity he tamed obstructing forces, turned local deities into Dharma protectors, and hid countless treasure teachings (terma) to be revealed later, exactly when beings needed them.

Guru Rinpoche is a living presence—a guru, protector, and wise friend who responds directly when we supplicate him with faith.

Tertön Jatsön Nyingpo Biography

Tertön Jatsön Nyingpo (1585–1656) was a great Nyingma master and tertön of 17th-century Tibet. He is remembered as a vidyadhara, a bearer of profound realization.

Tradition recognizes him as a reincarnation of Nyangben Tingdzin Zangpo, a close disciple of Guru Rinpoche. His revealed treasures (terma) were collected into six volumes known as the Jatsön Podruk, and among them, Konchog Chidu is considered his principal cycle.

Tertön Jatsön Nyingpo was also unusual among tertöns in that he was a fully ordained monk, known for his strict discipline as well as his visionary realization. The fact that Konchog Chidu arises from such a realized master, and has been carried in an unbroken practice lineage until today, makes this retreat an opportunity to connect directly to the blessings of Guru Rinpoche.

Guru Rinpoche Retreat Schedule

Thursday, January 22

Day of arrival for retreatants lodging at Vajra Vidya

Friday, January 23rd through Monday, January 26th

7:30 am - 8:00 am | Breakfast

9:00 am - 10:00 am | Community Practice with Khenpo Jigme

10:30 am - 12:00 pm | 1st Session with Khenpo Jigme

12:00 pm - 12:30 pm | Lunch

2:30 - 5:30 pm | 2nd Session with Khenpo Jigme

5:30 - 6:00 pm | Dinner

Tuesday, January 27

Day of departure for retreatants lodging at Vajra Vidya

Please email us at vajravidyacrestone@gmail.com for more information.

For more information or to register, please visit for Vova’s website.