Hill for Long-Term Retreats
Long-Term Meditation Retreats
“By considering impermanence, it is never a mistake to renounce to external things, so that one embraces the practice of the Dharma in a complete and profound way (…) The three-year retreat is the best way to practise the Dharma in an intense way for three years without worldly worries or distractions.” Kyabje Kalu Rinpoche”
Kyabje Kalu Rinpoche
Through the Thubten Phuntsog Gephel Ling Retreat Center, the Guhya Mantrika Community will also provide, in parallel, room and housing for traditional retreats in the Nyngma and Kagyu traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. This retreat centre will provide the perfect medium for practitioners in our country to have the glorious opportunity - like Eastern practitioners and wealthy Western practitioners — of practising in reclusion, thus embodying the living traditions of Dzogchen and Mahamudra in Portugal.
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We have a hill in Gephel Ling Retreat Centre, whose use will be restricted to long-term meditation retreats. At this site, we aspire to build ten retreat huts, being that we already have the first finalized. Anyone can contribute to the construction of the remaining huts, regardless of the amount of the donation. Any help is welcome!
There were many hermits in Tibet who abandoned all wordly activities and would meditate in caves after Milarepa’s example. This kind of practice is wonderful, but the hermits’ tradition has dwindled as times went by. For such reason, great lamas like Jamgon Lodrö Thaye have instituted the three-year retreat as a good medium for practice. This tradition has thus arisen from these masters’ efforts.
In the West, and specially in Portugal, the Dharma is still beginning to spread and taking its first steps. As we consider our lifestyles, we observe that people become busier, extremely wrapped in work and drawn in their daily activities. We think that the practice at a retreat centre will thus be very beneficial to many people, as it allows them to devote themselves completely to the practice for three years. Incredible benefits for the Dharma and for our people would derive from this.
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“A three-year retreat offers the opportunity to get well acquainted with the Dharma. We can give continuity to it later by doing long solitary retreats and effectively attaining Buddhahood in this life.”
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The retreat centre will also allow study and meditation in reclusion for lesser periods of time. It will be possible to do week- or month-long retreats, not only yearly retreats. The final result will be different, but surely useful and accommodating to modern life.