Online Dharma: Tergar Meditation Community Announces “Living, Dying, and Beyond” Retreat with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

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Online Dharma: Tergar Meditation Community Announces “Living, Dying, and Beyond” Retreat with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

By Craig C Lewis
February 5, 2024

The Tergar Meditation Community, founded by the revered Dharma teacher and master of the Karma Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, has announced that Mingyur Rinpoche will lead an online retreat from 15–17 March on the theme “Living, Dying, and Beyond: Mahamudra Wisdom for the Bardo States.”

“In Vajrayana Buddhism, the various stages or transitions of living and dying are viewed as powerful opportune moments to awaken. These stages, referred to as ‘intermediate states,’ or bardos, present a unique opportunity to discover the heart of enlightenment in the present moment,” Tergar said in an announcement shared with BDG.

“In bardo practices, learning how to die in awareness teaches us how to live in awareness. Most importantly, when we begin to see how we experience a small death in the passing of each moment of our lives, the distinction between the concepts of life and death begins to dissolve, and we can reconnect with who we truly are by simply resting in our own awareness, which is the essence of Mahamudra—the profound lineage of teachings on how to discover the buddha within our own minds.”

The three-day program is aimed at helping participants reach a deeper understanding of practicing mindful awareness throughout life and to the moment of dying, with the opportunity to receive bardo teachings with respect to Mahamudra from Mingyur Rinpoche himself.

The retreat includes an introduction to the Mahamudra teachings and some of its practices, and how they can be applied in daily life, alongside teachings on the interconnectedness of life and death. Sessions across the three days will feature live teachings, practice sessions, and Q&A with Mingyur Rinpoche, as well as, group meditation, teaching sessions with Lama Trinley, resident teacher at the Tergar Mingjue Phoenix Center, and Q&As with Tergar guides.

“Living, Dying, and Beyond: Mahamudra Wisdom for the Bardo States” is open to everyone. The teaching will feature live interpretation into Chinese, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

Click here for full details and to register

Mingyur Rinpoche, the founder of the Tergar Meditation Community, which has centers and practice groups across the world, is a renowned teacher and best-selling author whose books include: The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret & Science of Happiness (2007); Joyful Wisdom: Embracing Change and Finding Freedom (2009); and Turning Confusion into Clarity: A Guide to the Foundation Practices of Tibetan Buddhism (2014).

Born in 1975 in the Himalayan border region between Tibet and Nepal, Mingyur Rinpoche received extensive training in Tibetan Buddhist meditative and philosophical traditions from his father, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (1920–96), considered one of the greatest modern Dzogchen masters, and subsequently at Sherab Ling Monastery in northern India. After just two years, at the age of 13, Mingyur Rinpoche entered a three-year meditation retreat and then completed a second immediately afterward, serving as retreat master. At 23, Rinpoche received full monastic ordination.

Mingyur Rinpoche famously undertook a four-year solitary wandering retreat through the Himalaya from 2011–15. In recounting how he came to terms with the realities of his ambition to practice in the manner of a wandering yogi, Rinpoche revealed that he confronted many personal and spiritual challenges—including, at one point, his own mortality. Rinpoche has described the years he spent wandering in the Himalaya as “one of the best periods of my life.”*

You are already perfect. You are already a buddha. In fact, there’s no difference between your true nature, right now as you sit reading this, and the true nature of the Buddha, or any enlightened being for that matter. That’s the view of Dzogchen, a Tibetan word that means “Great Perfection.” Dzogchen is treasured above all other practices in the Nyingma school of Vajrayana Buddhism because it helps us connect directly with our own enlightened nature. — Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

* Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche Returns from Four-year Wilderness Retreat (BDG) and Y ongey Mingyur Rinpoche Releases Video Offering Insights Following His Retreat (BDG)

Craig C Lewis

Craig Lewis grew up in a transplanted Scottish family in southern England before setting off against all advice to seek light and wisdom in far-off places, rather than staying put and looking within. After repeated encounters with the Buddhadharma as a journalist in Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and across Asia, he eventually found refuge as senior editor at BDG, where he reports and writes on the diversity of contemporary manifestations of the Dharma. Craig is also a keen mountain trekker and photographer, finding particular inspiration in the peoples, cultures, and Buddhist expressions of the Himalaya. In his column for BDG, “Chasing Light,” Craig seeks to document encounters, experiences, and epiphanies resulting from his own tentative and faltering path toward liberation. Contact: [email protected]

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