Stupas are powerful sources of support on many levels. Central to understanding why stupas are beneficial is an outlook on our practice that includes the interplay between the inner elements of our body-mind and the outer elements of appearances and other beings. Understanding how to bridge and dance between the inner and outer, we can access connate awareness and celebrate it with others. We will explore this interplay with a guided practice, and then explore how it relates to the design, construction, and activity of stupas.

Originally found in the “Reverberation of Sound” and the “Union of the Sun and Moon” tantras of the Upadesha class of Dzogchen, the 21 Semdzin were codified by Longchenpa in the 14th Century. Each semdzin, “lit. holding the mind” is a practice of using light, sound, and embodiment to release grasping and rest in unfabricated presence. This is the second part of a two-part series. Listen to part-one.

“Whether you practice the Dharma of sūtra, tantra, terma, or pure vision, train in every part, from beginning to the end, until you achieve confidence.”

But what is the kind of confidence that arises through Dharma practice? Is confidence the same as certainty? Does it come from accumulating information or receiving teachings?

Yukhok Chatralwa Chöying Rangdrol writes that, through “training in the power of recognition,” we can come to a “deep-seated, heartfelt confidence.” In this Dharma Sunday, Camille and Shemaleiah will explore what it may mean to cultivate this heartfelt confidence for ourselves.

What is the difference between information and knowingness? How do we move from ideas about the view toward realizing it? What does it mean to be honest and authentic? What keeps us on the path? Where do we direct our devotion? What would it be like to stop trying to attain something outside ourselves and instead belong to what is already here?

Perhaps we may discover that heartfelt confidence is not based on having answers, but on being open to the questions. We hope you will join us for this exploration.

Many new and long-time meditators discover that Feldenkrais practices can help them feel greater physical ease and less pain, both in meditation and in everyday activities, by freeing up habitual patterns embedded in the neuromuscular system.

For this program, you will need a place to lie down and a chair to sit on. A resource handout will also be available for participants.

In what ways do we minimize the harm we have done, or exaggerate it? In what ways do  we confuse our own distress as others’, or vice versa?

In this talk we will cover what the Buddha offered as wisdom in relation to harmdoing, recovery from harm being done to, or by, us and adjustments we can make in our perspectives to have more confidence that our future actions will be harmless to life. We will specifically explore how the perfections of character (Paramitas) can be seen as corrections to our tendencies towards harm-doing.

Here is the link to The Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva he will be teaching about.

We might imagine that Buddha’s teachings were directed to all people from the beginning, but that is not the case. Sanskrit sources contain a detailed account of the interventions that women needed to make in order to be able to receive the Dharma from the Buddha. Drawing on material she encountered during research for her doctoral dissertation, Damcho will narrate that story, opening spaces for collective reflection on its implications for the seat women take in Dharma communities today.

Wansong: Even at dawn, it’s not revealed.

Linquan: Even at dawn it’s not revealed, Like dragons howling in misty places. By not relying on words, Opportunities to pivot are forever intersecting. Sunlight is about to rise over the ocean, Just as a cloudy haze seems to conceal it.

Combining the realization of the Kagyu and the Nyingma schools of Tibetan Buddhism, the Sadhana of Mahamudra emerged at a time of revolution and tumult. The author, Trungpa Rinpoche, was struggling to find a way to connect his deep training in Tibetan Buddhism with the modern world. This sadhana was his answer.

Please join us this Sunday for a discussion of the Sadhana of Mahamudra, and then a group practice session. Most sadhanas are not available without finishing preliminary practices, but in this case the lineage holder has given us permission to do this practice at NDF.

Within our practice traditions, there is sacred technology that helps us touch into the fertile darkness of Prajna Paramita. We will explore these practices together in support of resiliency. This then helps us to navigate in seasons of collective groundlessness.

Many traditions describe awakening as a kind of remembering, recognizing what has always been here. If this is true, what prevents us from seeing it?

In this workshop, we turn our attention to the subtle ways the sense of separation is maintained: patterns of thought, emotional conditioning, and unconscious identification. Rather than trying to fix or transcend them, we explore how seeing them clearly allows them to soften and release.

Through guided inquiry and shared exploration, we begin to uncover the ever-present awareness that is not separate from our experience, but is the ground of it.

This is a deeply experiential session using Collective Interactive Meditation, a method that brings insight alive through direct, shared exploration.

In the Buddha’s first teaching, he named the forms of suffering that define the human condition, two of which are the pain of being separated from what we love and the stress of being forced to associate with what we loathe. This talk draws from years of experience working within the correctional system, with people from widely varying backgrounds all needing to cope with their powerlessness over their surroundings. We will explore several meditative and reflective techniques that are effective in meeting the presence of dukkha and our own unskillfulness with a steady heart, moving toward a practice of radical acceptance without reactivity.

We’ll journey through Carl Jung’s discovery of archetypes of the collective unconscious during his personal crisis, Ibn al-Arabi’s teachings on the alam al-mithal (the imaginal realm between spirit and matter), and the Vajrayana understanding of sambhogakaya—the dimension of luminous appearance where deities arise. Through stories of these masters’ own visionary breakthroughs and guided contemplative exercises, we’ll discover how imagination serves as a genuine organ of spiritual perception.

Whether you’re new to meditation or an experienced practitioner, this talk offers practical insights for deepening your own contemplative life. Discover how archetypes, imaginal forms, and deity visualization point toward the same profound truth: mind and reality are not separate, and imagination is the bridge that reveals their unity.

Drawing on traditional teachings and contemporary perspectives, the talk will reflect on the role of discernment, trust, inner wisdom, responsibility and agency in cultivating a relationship with a teacher or teachers. 

We will also consider the breadth of what “teacher” means in an Eastern context, as a principal that permeates our outer, inner and innermost world, how being a student is a practice of taking life itself as our teacher.

These perilous times challenge us all to source new depths of spiritual strength, wisdom, compassion, inspiration, and courage.

This special meditation session will focus on weaving together a profound blend of practices inspired by Longchenpa’s three excellences, along with other potent methods for awakening the special kind of courage, compassion, and spiritual strength needed in these challenging times.

Insight will also be drawn from the Leveys’ new book – Manual for the Awakening Warrior – which explores how these practices meet the real world of activism, social justice, and courageous earth stewarding for the benefit of all.  (See: http://WisdomAtWork.com/LeveysAwakeningWarrior/)

Beyond the embarrassment that “Enlightenment” is something we in fact can have no idea about, the terms “Awakening” and “Realization” are used in many different ways in many different paths. We will examine these notions from different angles, with examples from traditional frameworks found in the Mahayana Sutras, the Five Paths, the Four Yogas of Mahamudra, and the Three Words of Garab Dorje.

Many new and long-time meditators discover that Feldenkrais practices can help them feel greater physical ease and less pain, both in meditation and in everyday activities, by freeing up habitual patterns embedded in the neuromuscular system.

For this program, you will need a place to lie down and a chair to sit on. A resource handout will also be available for participants.

We will consider how returning to the body, the moment and all the conditions of our life begins to restore a reliable refuge that has always been here, an eternal version of time. 

Space, Alive: The amniotic fluid in which we learn to float. Our shared medium with all beings. Each aggregation always different, unique. Aggregations of aggregations, of aggregations affecting one another across “universes” “internal” and “external”…boundless. Pulsing.

Roots are the foundation that ground plants in the soil. So too, as we ground ourselves with the source of freedom that our Buddhist practice offers, we embody the underlying support that allows us to be a refuge in these turbulent times for ourselves and for each other.

Using the metaphor of a mycelial network—the "wood wide web"—the teaching suggests that spiritual awakening isn't a "vertical exit" from suffering but a process of grounded engagement with the world. True enlightenment, or Bodhi, is about recognizing our profound interconnectedness with all life. The path is not about changing who you are or escaping the present moment, but about coming home to your innate nature and embracing your place in the web of life.

Many new and long-time meditators discover that Feldenkrais practices can help them feel greater physical ease and less pain, both in meditation and in everyday activities, by freeing up habitual patterns embedded in the neuromuscular system. This can also help incorporate the body’s natural intelligence into the process of spiritual inquiry and more fully embodied presence.

By recognizing our own patterns of behavior and styles of manifesting in the world, we can use that awareness to go beyond judgment which keep us bound to cycles and limited perspective in our lives; and thus touch the insight of loving pervasive awareness.

The central teaching expands on "mycelial wisdom," drawing parallels between extensive, hidden mycelial networks (described as "the neurological network of nature") and the Buddhist principle of interdependent connection. Lama Willa explains that the Buddha's teaching of "Anatman" (no-self) challenges the deeply held belief in a solid, independent self. Instead, it posits that the self is a conceptual construction and a fluid "node in a communicative web," much like a mushroom is merely the "fruiting body" of a larger, interconnected mycelial matrix.

Just as prisons are rationalized as necessary containment for those whose criminal convictions make them untrustworthy or undeserving of freedom, we rationalize our self-created imprisonment as a necessary means of avoiding unforgivable mistakes on our spiritual journey. Buddhadasa asks us to look at the prisons we make for ourselves out of desire for purity and goodness, our instincts, and even our teachers. This is a subtle and challenging inquiry, but necessary when your discipline brings you to a frustrated and joyless state. Kyira, also known as Acharya Abhaya, will offer contemplative and meditative tools to support engaging with the text, developed with the insight of all that she has learned about prison journeys in her years as a correctional chaplain.

Just as prisons are rationalized as necessary containment for those whose criminal convictions make them untrustworthy or undeserving of freedom, we rationalize our self-created imprisonment as a necessary means of avoiding unforgivable mistakes on our spiritual journey. Buddhadasa asks us to look at the prisons we make for ourselves out of desire for purity and goodness, our instincts, and even our teachers. This is a subtle and challenging inquiry, but necessary when your discipline brings you to a frustrated and joyless state. Kyira, also known as Acharya Abhaya, will offer contemplative and meditative tools to support engaging with the text, developed with the insight of all that she has learned about prison journeys in her years as a correctional chaplain.

Lama Willa discusses her multi-year exploration of the plant world as a source of wisdom, highlighting how mycelial networks serve as a powerful metaphor for interconnectedness. The teaching emphasizes that the idea of a separate, individual self is an illusion, and that true understanding arises from recognizing our non-separation from the world.

The profound practices of Refuge, Bodhichitta, and Tonglen open our hearts and expand our view to glimpse and access boundless resourcefulness, fearlessness, and selfless wisdom and responsive compassion. Exploring the synergy and skillful interfusion of Refuge, Bodhichitta, and Tonglen, we’ll reflect upon profound teachings from Shabkar, a wise yogi who lived in the 18th and 19th centuries, who drew deep inspiration from the holy book of nature.

The emphasis of our time today will be on finding inspiration for our practice and cultivating the resilience that leads to a fearless heart. We live in challenging times, yet we’re given the opportunity to use these challenges to inspire us along the path to awakening.

This morning we’ll begin to explore experientially the timeless wisdom, compassion, beauty, and unconditional love to be found in Nyoshul Khenpo’s pithy spontaneous song of realization, Natural Great Peace.  

This session will explore the profound interfusion of refuge and mentor practice with the radical transformational practice of Tonglen. We’ll experience how each breath can become a vehicle for receiving and radiating spiritual strength and compassionate blessings. Such awareness and engagement can strengthen our courage and confidence, inspiring us to deepen the clear presence and great compassion we bring to every precious moment and encounter of our lives.

The purpose of this practice is two-fold. It gives us practical means to take on our experiences on the path so our suffering can become a source of compassion, wisdom, patience, and understanding for ourselves and others. This is relative bodhicitta. And In doing so, we can recognize the nature of our minds, or ultimate bodhicitta.

Relative bodhicitta is how we learn to love ourselves and each other. Ultimate bodhicitta is the fundamental pristine awareness, or non judgmental, naturally open, loving spaciousness undivided by self and other.

Through the practice of tonglen, we are cultivating relative bodhicitta, and in doing so, we cultivate the ability to recognize the very awareness that allows us to love and hold space infinitely—which is Ultimate Bodhicitta.

The emphasis of our time today will be on finding inspiration for our practice and cultivating the resilience that leads to a fearless heart. We live in challenging times, yet we’re given the opportunity to use these challenges to inspire us along the path to awakening.

We practice calm abiding on a daily basis to connect more deeply with ourselves and reduce our experience of stress and disturbing emotions. Calm abiding practice increases our experiences of bliss, clarity, and non-thought, thereby promoting freedom from restlessness in our mind. In this session, we will study and practice calm abiding, and participants will have the opportunity to ask questions to clarify their practice.

Blending mindfulness, bodhichitta, refuge, dedication, and the three bodies of enlightened body, speech, and mind, the practices of radiant receptivity can inspire our journey of awakening to our True Nature and Highest Potentials. Please join us to explore these profound themes together.

Meditation teaches us that presence is not automatic, but a cultivated skill. Returning to our senses, embracing the present, and attuning to ourselves and others are key aspects of this practice.

Cultivating presence connects us to the vibrant possibilities of the present and grounds us in the powerful humility of reality.

“Great doubt, great enlightenment. Small doubt, small enlightenment. No doubt, no enlightenment.” this Zen quote, usually attributed to master Hakuin Ekaku, highlights the importance of not knowing as a transformative force on the path to enlightenment. Through this force we can break free from the subtle prisons of our thinking minds and realize the timeless/boundless nature of our True Self.

This workshop will be a co-creation – featuring an innovative form of collective interactive meditation, designed to bring a direct glimpse of our timeless/boundless nature.