Calendar

Please join Catskill Mountainkeeper for a benefit dinner on December 7th featuring an informative and empowering talk on the climate crisis by Robert Thurman, renowned author, academic, and expert on Tibetan Buddhism. The benefit, hosted by Sarah Johnson and Greg Cornell at their spectacular White Feather Farm in Saugerties, will benefit Mountainkeeper’s work to fight the climate crisis and advance our clean energy future. It’s going to be a great night, and we really hope you’ll be able to join us.

The evening will start with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, and then we’ll sit down for a delicious farm-to-table dinner in the White Feather Farm’s beautiful barn. Following dinner, Robert Thurman will present information from the Climate Reality Project–former Vice President Al Gore’s visionary effort to lead the global fight for climate solutions.

https://www.facebook.com/events/976067592756190/

New Year’s Dharma, Yoga, & Devotional Chanting Retreat with Krishna Das, Robert A.F. Thurman and friends happening this December 27th – Jan 1st, 2020 at Menla Retreat and Dewa Spa in Phoenicia, New York!

This retreat combines Krishna Das’ bhakti and universal love teachings—descended from his guru, Maharaj Neem Karoli Baba—with Bob’s teachings on mindful metta in the spirit of our annual new year’s retreat’s co-founder, Sharon Salzberg. Bob will also draw from the Indo-Tibetan non-dual wisdom and compassion tradition of the great Bodhisattvas, whose selfless love and compassion for all beings contributed in ancient India to the wondrous river of bhakti devotion and liberating joy.

On this retreat we will invoke Krishna-Radha, Sita-Ram, Lokeshvara, Tara, and Hanuman, celebrating their tireless divine efforts to save the world from needless suffering with chanting, learning, meditating, and energizing and healing the body.

We will learn together from the Bhagavad Gita, the Shrimad Bhagavatam, the Ramayana, the Metta Sutta and the Vimalakirti Sutra, among key ancient sources.

To build motivation for the coming year, we will look to the teachings of Neem Karoli Baba via Krishna Das and Ram Dass and of H. H. Dalai Lama via Bob to revitalize ourselves together to deal joyfully and successfully with the challenges of these pivotal times.

In addition to the teachings, stories, kirtans, and meditations led by KD and Bob, each day Carolyn Christie and Brooke Myers will offer pranayama and expert Iyengar yoga instruction, Nina Rao will lead Hanuman chaleesa chanting, and Paul Bloom will teach Qi Gong.

On New Year’s Eve, we will enjoy a spectacular sound healing session performed by Woodstock’s Sage Academy of Sound. Finally, two illuminating astrology classes—with master astrologer and astronomer Alexander Mallon—will help shed light on cosmic patterns we can expect in the near future, our “astrological forecast,” as we come together to let go of constricting habit-patterns and set meaningfully expansive intentions for the coming year.

Open to all levels of experience.

We encourage you to register early as space is limited!

https://www.facebook.com/events/325831248163166/

In 1994, Krishna Das started leading chant at Jivamukti Yoga Center, NYC. Over the years, he continued chanting, developing his signature style, fusing traditional kirtan of the east with western harmonic and rhythmic sensibilities. The audiences have been ever growing.

With a remarkably soulful voice that touches the deepest chord in even the most casual listener, Krishna Das – known to friends, family, and fans as simply KD, has been called yoga’s “rock star.” He has taken the call-and-response chanting out of yoga centers and into concert halls, becoming a worldwide icon and the best-selling western chant artist of all time.

KD now travels the world sharing his kirtan practice and wonderful stories of his life, of Maharaji-ji, of his life on the Path, and discusses bringing chanting into our lives through retreats and workshops.KD has released 14 well received albums, including Live Ananda (released January 2012) that was nominated for a Grammy in the Best New Age album category.

In 2014 the Kirtan Wallah Foundation was formed. This 501c3 is dedicated to spreading the teachings of KD’s guru and spiritual teacher, Neem Karoli Baba, Lovingly called Maharjji, his teachings can be summed up by his saying: “Love Everyone. Serve Everyone. Remember God”.

https://www.facebook.com/events/742306999591942/

Literally meaning the ‘utmost yoga,’ Ati Yoga (Tibetan: Dzogchen) is the pinnacle of Buddhist Vajrayana practice. It is the most simple, direct and profound path to reveal the primordial wisdom, which is our basic nature.

In this three day practice-centered retreat, Dr. Nida offers Ati Yoga instruction according to Tibet’s great 12th century physician and meditation adept Yuthok Yönten Gönpo’s teachings entitled “The Great Self-Liberation of Samsara-Nirvana of the Great Perfection of Yuthok”.

This year’s program focuses on Ati Yoga preliminary practices and trekchöd, ‘cutting through hardness’ and includes the essential empowerment of the Yuthok Nyingthig cycle of teachings.

The text we will study is Dr. Nida’s Mirror of Light: A Commentary on Yuthok’s Ati Yoga.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1016009258745319/

Tsaloong trulkhor, meaning the ‘magic wheel of channels and winds,’ refers to a system of Tibetan classical yogic practices that work with visualization, breath, and physical exercises. It awakens the channels, energy, and consciousness (body, energy, and mind) designed to awaken your deepest truest nature.

For the first time in the United States, Dr. Nida Chenagtsang, lineage holder of the Yuthok Nyingthig tradition of practice, will teach Yuthok’s system of tsaloong practice consisting of eighteen exercises (eight preliminary and ten actual practices).

These practices were transmitted by the great Tibetan yogi-physician Yuthok Yönten Gönpo in the 12th Century in order to train students physically, energetically and mentally for the tummo and karmamudra (inner heat and bliss) practices.

This is an excellent course for both Vajrayana Buddhist practitioners or for hatha yogi/nis to deepen their practice.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1052103041787900/

Robert Thurman brilliantly elucidates and vividly brings to life the many dimensions of the Kālachakra Tantra in this special series of study and practice Intensives.

In this Kālachakra Intensive, Dr. Thurman will focus discussion and contemplation-based lectures on unpacking the very center of the mandala, the Mind Mandala, within the larger context of the Kalachakra and pulling from several textual sources to enrich our remembrance of our experience of the initiation and of entering the mandala and beholding Kālachakra-Vishvamata. While emphasis is on working with students to ensure they understand all the symbolic elements of the practice and iconography, plenty of time for actual practice and mantra accumulation is allotted.

Afternoons will include free time after lunch for spa treatments, further personal practice, and optional student-led discussions. The retreat will conclude with an instructional puja and celebration lead by Thurman.

Join us in the breathtaking hidden mountain valley of Tibet House’s Menla retreat and spa, for this personally transformative and very inspiring retreat intended to help initiates, from total novices to more advanced practitioners, deepen their connection to, their understanding of, and ultimately their embodiment of the magnificent reality of Kālachakra-Vishvamata.

Please bring your own vajra, bell, damaru, and inner offering vessel (ritual skullcup).

https://www.facebook.com/events/544475972768727/