Our retreats draw on the knowledge and wisdom of ancient Tibetan Buddhist teachings and the finest knowledge of the modern world.
Buddhist Studies
"Buddhism teaches that life is precious. If we wish to use our limited time on earth to create a truly meaningful existence, there is no better foundation than the Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha." - Tarthang Tulku
Buddhist Studies introduces students to Shakyamuni Buddha, his teachings (the Dharma), and the great masters (the Sangha) who have studied and elucidated the Dharma in a living lineage so that we, too, can walk the path to enlightenment. The Buddha's teachings are for everyone and go beyond cultural boundaries to touch the root of each human being's consciousness. The teachings are basically aimed at bringing peace and happiness into our daily lives, both for ourselves and others, and at developing compassion toward all living beings. Knowing that we are traveling this road that eventually will lead to enlightenment, we can appreciate the importance of keeping the Buddhist tradition and culture alive for the benefit of all humanity.
Buddhist Studies Retreats
Essential Pracitces for Well-being
Lineage of Light
Touching Wonder Facing Fear
Opening the Field of Awareness
Joy and Spaciousness
Dream Yoga and Authentic Communication
Heart of Purity
Skillfull Means
"We have a responsibility to work, to exercise our talents and abilities, to contribute our energy to life. Our nature is creative, and by expressing it we constantly generate more enthusiasm and creativity, stimulating an ongoing process of enjoyment in the world around us. Working willingly, with our full energy and enthusiasm, is our way of contributing to life. Working in this way is working with skillful means." - Tarthang Tulku
How can you reach your highest potential, whether at work or home, in your daily life... in all that you do? Skillful Means aims at guiding us to reach our fullest capabilities in every aspect of life. Skillful Means is the art of working well.
In business, and in life, this type of focus results in efficiency, productivity and profit. For the individual who applies Skillful Means while working, joy, satisfaction, and a sense of meaning will emerge. Utilizing Skillful Means is about working in the mind, in time, in energy, in space.
The Skillful Means program at Ratna Ling offers opportunities for people in all walks of life to utilize these ancient models of working to benefit themselves, their employees and their constituents. Skillful Means does not simply teach skills but rather it offers practical applications for developing inner capacities: knowledge, communication and decision making.
Skillful Means Retreats
Mandala Module
Inner Knowing
Kum Nye - Tibetan Yoga
"When we truly use our senses, every part of the body becomes vibrantly alive and healthy – mentally and emotionally, we become fully awake. We discover we can experience ecstatic beauty at every moment as if we were always hearing beautiful music or seeing the finest works of art. We are even capable of healing ourselves, for this relaxation quickens a feeling-tone that itself becomes a self-generating massage, a system of self-nurturance that can be further expanded and developed. This is the massage of Kum Nye" - Tarthang Tulku
Based on practices of Tibetan Buddhist Monks to enhance the flow of feeling and relaxation, this session is a meditative experience within the body. Feelings and sensations are a sign of the body's natural response towards healing and wholeness. The body heals itself when the energetic pathways of the body are open and flowing. The physical and meditative discipline of Kum Nye opens blockages in the body and facilitates awareness of body, breath and mind. It establishes a healthy flow of energy though the pathways of the body and initiates a process of mind healing without psychology.
"The TSK vision insists that knowledge is our birthright. When we learn to love knowledge and to cherish the time and space that constitute our being, life becomes an adventure beyond comprehending." - Tarthang Tulku
As children of our culture, we see the world through eyes trained to notice some things and not others, value some capacities and not others. We put the self and its desires at the center of experience, separate fact and value, and secretly accept science as the highest form of knowledge. Yet these ways of seeing abandon us to a disenchanted world of endless frustrations.
The Time, Space, Knowledge vision (TSK) challenges these 'self-evident' truths. When we learn to love knowledge and to cherish the time and space that constitute our being, life becomes an adventure beyond comprehending. Developed by Tibetan lama Tarthang Tulku but not based on Buddhist teachings, the TSK vision draws on the strengths of the Western mind. It offers a path of inquiry and imagination, alive with the dynamic of time and open to the vast energies that whirl through space.
