2024 AND 2025 COURSES & RETREATS

You may be curious about the origins of Tantra and the applications of it in your life. This class will elucidate what Tantra is (and isn’t), its origins, different forms of classical Tantra, and how it applies to our modern lives. The class is appropriate for all backgrounds – from the advanced practitioner to the curious beginner – though a background in Buddhist principles would be encouraged.

Bring in the New Year with a rejuvenating week filled with meditation, yoga, hot springs, and the time and space to release the old and welcome the new. We’ll slow down and experience the benefits meditation, gentle yoga, and music offer the body, mind, and soul.

Start the year with clarity and purpose by embracing a beautiful paradox: finding freedom by turning towards life’s challenges. The new year provides a potent opportunity for reflection on how we are relating and creating stories about the inevitable emotional ups and downs of the past year. Through reflection we can recognize, relate with, and find the wisdom and energy that lie within the difficulties.

Commensurate with the complete body of the Dzinpa Rangdröl cycle, many practices in this Ngöndro are considered extremely esoteric and in the past were given only as a practitioner’s second Ngöndro. The first time this Ngöndro was offered in the West was at Tara Mandala in the summer of 2008 by Tulku Sang-ngag Rinpoche. Since then, Lama Tsultrim’s students in the Gateway Program have been practicing, learning and accomplishing the Dzinpa Rangdröl cycle. Three cohorts of practitioners have not only completed the practice of Ngöndro, but also have nearly completed the entire cycle, with the precious final teachings to be given this year.

During the program, Lama Tsultrim will offer the oral transmission (Tib. lung) and teach the practices of the Dzinpa Rangdröl Ngöndro. There are no prerequisites to receive these instructions and begin the practice; however, it is a practice that requires great effort and commitment.

This year we have an ensemble of gifted orators at the 15th Auckland Buddhist Summer School. This is a precious opportunity to engage, question and contemplate the Wisdom of all traditions which can be a catalyst for transformation.

This year, courses will be run in-person and via Zoom. We look forward to bringing all zoom viewers a quality audio-visual experience of the teachings in 2025.

Online registration and booking payments are available through our website. It has never been so easy to purchase a ticket to single or multiple sessions in advance. All students joining via Zoom will need to pre-purchase their sessions. Students attending in person can pay by cash or EFTPOS on the day, but we recommend you register in advance to attend in person by emailing nyimatashi.nz@gmail.com.

This series of weekend retreats is offered in service of uplifting and celebrating the power and the glory of the divine feminine already here now, within and all around us every minute all the time hosted by Tibet House US, the cultural home of H. H. the Dalai Lama. Chandra Easton, as in her new book, Embodying Tara, will open our eyes to see how the myriad Taras as Great Mother, Loving Friend, Intuitive Guide, and even Fierce Goddess never tire of saving us from the ocean of confusion and suffering we sink into by not knowing how miraculous life here and now actually is. Nina Rao will instruct and lead us in singing our joyous grateful devotion, chanting together the ancient Indian mantras of all the many forms of Divine love and power. Bob Thurman will introduce Tibetan meditative arts that stir our confidence in our own intuitive wisdom that cuts through clouds of confusion to find the inner sense of enlightenment about what’s real and joyfully loving and compassionate about enlivening it in ourselves and our world.

Across various wisdom traditions, there is a common yet paradoxical invitation: Turn toward what is difficult to find freedom from what is difficult. However, when we find ourselves feeling anxiety, loss, judgment, irritation — the full bouquet of difficult emotions — facing these feelings is the last thing we want to do. Fortunately, there are trainable, evidenced-informed practices to help us transmute adversities into joy and insight. By turning toward our challenges, we uncover the wisdom within them, and they transform into our allies.

Open to EVERYONE. This 4-week online series will expand upon the topics shared in the Embodying Tara: The Divine Feminine to Power Your Compassion, Intuition, and Joy course, however, it can also be taken on it’s own. All are welcome. No prior meditation or knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism is required Scholarships and financial assistance are available, please email Maggie@thus.org with a request.