/ Rigzin Drolma is visiting California this spring. Hosted by Osel Thegchog Ling, she will teach a weekend retreat at Berkeley Shambhala Center and give two evening talks (details below), and will share and sign her new book Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse: A Story of Transmission, which is not yet out in bookstores! Here is some of the advance press about the book: “The amazing verses of this most sacred meditation practice have resounded in monasteries, nunneries, and mountain caves for centuries.They are waves from the spiritual realization of great adepts on the Roof of the World. These have now here been born in English, in beautiful poetry and inspiring melodies.” --Tulku Thondup, author of The Practice of Dzogchen “A rare book, providing lucid, chantable translations of liturgies from a beautiful visionary Treasure cycle. This work is fascinating for what it reveals of the processes by which scripture unfolds, and then enters the disciple’s life of devotion. Sure to be welcomed by practitioners, the book is also of great interest to students of Buddhist ritual.” --Professor Janet Gyatso, Hershey Professor of Buddhist Studies, Harvard University, The Divinity School, author of Apparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies of a Tibetan Visionary

Being Wisdom

A Weekend Retreat with Anne Klein / Rigzin Drolma, March 26-28, 2010 "Because there is birth from the birthless
Living beings are confused."
-Jigme Lingpa Seeking wisdom sometimes masks for us the fact that we are wisdom. This is a paradox at the heart of practice, and we resolve it through combining practice with understanding. In this retreat we deepen experience through simple practices unique to a contemporary transmission of Jigme Lingpa and one that emphasizes direct access to fresh experience. We also further our understanding through select sacred writings, including some newly translated by Anne. In this way, participants are able to unify practice with understanding, gaining clear experience and cohesive meaning to take back home and to integrate into life and purpose. March 26-28, 2010 at Berkeley Shambhala Center, 2288 Fulton Street at Bancroft, Berkeley Opening Talk Friday, March 26, 7-9pm
Saturday, March 27, 10am-5pm
Sunday, March 28, 10am-1pm

$25 Opening Talk/$125 Entire Weekend

To register please contact Osel Thegchog Ling at oselthegchogling@gmail.com or call Stacey Pelinka at 415-509-5613

How Wisdom Dawns: Stories, Images, and Illumination from Tibet

Public talk at California Institute of Integral Studies, Namaste Hall, 1453 Mission Street, San Francisco Monday, March 29, 7pm, free of charge "Buddha-essence in the mindstream of living beings
Is like the sun enveloped in a cloud bank...it is naturally pure."
--Jigme Lingpa A core principle of Tibetan esoteric teachings is that wisdom is already within. What will bring it forth? In the 18th century, Jigme Lingpa opened a new stream of teaching, Heart Essence, the Vast Expanse, which continued, and inspired, centuries of reflection on this matter. This evening we hear from Jigme Lingpa's writing, some previously unavailable; see rare images of places and persons connected with his teachings, and reflect in new ways on the understandings of body, mind, and energy that are part of his perspective and central as well in the wider Tibetan tradition. Anne's new book Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse: A Story of Transmission, a chantable English translation of Jigme Lingpa's Foundational practices (not yet in bookstores), will be available, and she will sign copies at the end of each day. Anne Carolyn Klein / Rigzin Drolma Ph.D. is Professor and former Chair of Religious Studies at Rice University and since 1996 a founding director of Dawn Mountain in Houston (www.dawnmountain.org). A practitioner since 1970, she is a student of A.dzom Rinpoche, Khetsun Sangpo Rinpoche, the late Geshe Ngawang Wangyal, and other masters. Her most recent book is Heart Essence of the Vast Expanse: A Story of Transmission. Other books include Knowledge and Liberation; Path to the Middle; Meeting the Great Bliss Queen; and Unbounded Wholeness: Dzogchen and the Nonconceptual (with Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche).