Spring Newsletter - Invest in Your Life

Greetings Trinkar,

The Abbey community has recently emerged from another Yarne retreat. This monastic retreat, which dates back to the time of the Buddha, is one of the essential elements of a monastic community. "Yarne" means the rains retreat...generally observed in the summer months in Asia. In the early days of Gampo Abbey the new community tried this...but summer is the time when visitors often come wandering down the driveway and it just wasn't practical. So with the blessing of our Abbot, V. Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, the timing was switched to the winter.

It is a special time in this part of the world. The storms can be fierce and the buildings shake, but then there is the amazing sight of the ice on the ocean that generally appears in February. Sadly in recent years, the warming trends have significantly reduced the amount of sea ice.

As the weather improves we'll be starting to tackle more renovation jobs at Shedra House, the workshop/storage barn and the Sopa Chöling building to prepare it for the upcoming cycle of the three-year retreat.

Trinkar Ötso, Director, and the team at Gampo Abbey

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Three-Year Retreat

A life investment

Committing the time and effort to go deeply into retreat practice is not a frivolous decision.

Sally Walker, who completed the retreat in 2017, talked to us about the experience and even some of the "returns" on that investment.

You can't really just live off the principle, you do have to keep putting in. That's the thing that Thrangu Rinpoche said to us, the most important thing is that you just keep practicing.

Read the Interview

Three-Year Retreat

Applications Now Open

Ready to make a life investment?

Applications are now being accepted for a new cycle of three-year retreat starting in Fall 2024.

This is the only traditional three-year retreat in the world offered in English.

Information and Online Application

Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better

When her granddaughter was accepted to Naropa University, Pema Chödrön promised that she’d speak at the commencement ceremony.

Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better contains the wisdom shared on that day.

What do we do when life doesn’t go the way we hoped?” begins Ani Pema. We say ‘I’m a failure.'

But what if failing wasn’t just “okay” . . . but the most direct way to becoming a more complete, loving, and fulfilled human being?

In her talk Pema Chödrön offers us her heartfelt advice on facing the unknown—in ourselves and in the world— and how our missteps can open our eyes to see new possibilities and purpose.

The Practice of Failing

Artist in Residence, Trinkar Ötso, opens the cupboard door to the messiness of mistakes in the creative process.

For several years now Trinkar has been producing the Abbey's Losar cards (lunar new year) and while the finished product may look smooth, the process is never without many months of "failure".

Have you ever wondered what an artist's process goes through to get to the finished product? In this Year of the Water Rabbit, that meant a LOT of bad bunnies.

Gampo Abbey training ripples out into the world

Meet former temporary monastic Alexis LaBarge (Kunga Yudron) who was an Abbey resident from 2018 to 2020.

For part of her tenure, Yudron was Kitchen Manager, a maestra indeed.

She's returned to her profession of nursing in Boulder, Colorado and offers stories about how the Abbey has impacted her work and her life.

Read the Interview

We make a point of having unexpected messages around the house - visual reminders for our practice.

This poem has been stuck to a mirror in a small shower room for years.

Looks like a sales receipt doesn't it!

Surprise

Mindful

Every day

I see or hear

something

that more or less

kills me

with delight,

that leaves me

like a needle

in the haystack

of light.

It was what I was born for -

to look, to listen,

to lose myself

inside this soft world -

to instruct myself

over and over

in joy,

and acclamation.

Nor am I talking

about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,

the very extravagant -

but of the ordinary,

the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.

Oh, good scholar,

I say to myself,

how can you help

but grow wise

with such teachings

as these -

the untrimmable light

of the world,

the ocean's shine,

the prayers that are made

out of grass?

Mary Oliver, from the collection Why I Rise Early, 2004.

Maitri Bhavana and Sukhavati Practice

We are always happy to receive requests to include your loved ones in our Maitri Bhavana or Sukhavati (Buddhist funeral) practices at the Abbey.

You can click here for information about this and to submit names.

Generosity

Since the time of the Buddha's first monastic sangha, there has been a potent karmic connection between monastics and supporters in the lay community.

Likewise, here at Gampo Abbey, our monastic community and the programs we offer are only supported by your generous donation.

Support Gampo Abbey

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