View from Land of Calm Abiding, Big Sur, CA, USA.

“Retreat” literally means to retreat from one’s ordinary day-to-day concerns and view, and to give oneself the opportunity to focus on reality. Away from ordinary distractions, we can train our mind in the path to enlightenment.

FPMT retreat centers span the globe in a variety of beautiful locations and several centers also offer the opportunity to do Buddhist retreats in the heart of the city. Retreat centers offer everything from intensive meditation on Tibetan Buddhist practices to a relaxing environment for reflection and discovery. We are delighted to share an insightful call to retreat by Kolby Graham, director of Land of Calm Abiding in Big Sur, California, USA:

When we check up with our minds, we often become aware how easily we still reify existence around us. So after many years of Dharma study and practice at the feet of our most incredibly kind Vajra Teachers, how is it that we have not yet been able to fully embody the teachings? It seems we might already know the answer: Our minds are not yet serviceable to sustain and cultivate the truth we may only be able to perceive more clearly on occasion.

The Enlightenment Stupa at Land of Calm Abiding, CA, USA.

There is, however, a very pragmatic solution that has been hiding from us in plain sight within our own Mandala – sacred hermitages, known to us us as retreat centers. The biographies of nearly all past great yogis reveal the bodhichitta dedication to realizations that come in solitary retreat.
Fortunately, the FPMT organization has many amazing retreat centers that are available to us. Many practitioners may think they can simply insert their Dharma practice into their worldly lives, but this will never be fully possible without first giving up the worldly minds embedded within our worldly lives.

When we fully extricate ourselves to remote and blessed wilderness hermitages for our Dharma practice, we give our minds the opportunity to not distract themselves with the onslaught of endless worldly activities that so easily activate our worldly concerns and steal our chances of maintaining our naturally clear and bright awareness. It is only with this clear and bright awareness that we are able to cultivate genuine lasting realizations.

One of the retreat cabins at Milarepa Center, Vermont, USA.

In this global FPMT Mandala, we have the most amazing conducive conditions for extended or short solitary retreat. There are many centers with solitary retreat facilities including, for example, Land of Calm Abiding in Big Sur California, USA; Vajrapani Institute, CA, USA; Milarepa Center in Northeast Vermont, USA; De-Tong Ling on Kangaroo Island, Australia; Mahamudra Centre in New Zealand; Thakpa Kachoe Retreat Land in the French Alps; Kalachakra Retreat Center, France; Lawudo Retreat Center, Nepal; Rinchen Jangsem Ling Retreat Centre, Malaysia; Land of Joy in Northern England; and Oseling in the Sierra Nevadas of Spain. 

Thakpa Kachoe Retreat Land, France.

All sacred hermitages present the opportunity to abide in retreat from our samsaric modern world and our samsaric minds, within the enchanting soothing quality of vast natural landscapes.  It is so rare and so special in these current times to be able to offer Dharma students the unique potential to fully embrace the Path single-pointedly in such a majestically beautiful and supportive environment.  

At Land of Calm Abiding, our 525 acres are completely surrounded by National Forest with no human neighbors, and all living needs are taken care of by fellow practitioners honored to bring fresh groceries to the very comfortable private cabins. When one checks up the qualities for conducive retreat in Lama Tsongkapa’s Lamrim Chenmo, one finds them here. Our precious Lama Zopa Rinpoche even made it clear that this is a place to cultivate shinay. On Ribur Rinpoche’s visit, Ribur Rinpoche claimed one day this Land of Calm Abiding would be one of the most important places for Dharma. Presumably this means practitioners will cultivate genuine realizations here. What if by abiding in retreat we finally learn to truly rest beneath the surface of experience without being tossed around by waves of our own illusions.  Perhaps then the Principal Aspects of the Path and the Tantric Stages could be synthesized into a moment to moment experience.

As we know realizations won’t come with our ordinary monkey mind. Indeed, without cultivating the clear and luminously knowing awareness of our minds, we will always be susceptible to a “distracted mind resting in the fangs of mental afflictions.” Shantideva made this point quite clear in The Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. 

Mountain view from Oseling Retreat Center. October 2017. Photo courtesy of Oseling Retreat Center.

So for those who already have had many years of Dharma study and meditation with guidance from truly remarkable gurus—how do we pragmatically make more effort to abide in these sacred hermitages that are available to us? While the trials of living in the modern world can sometimes make the act of going on retreat seem insurmountable, we only need to look to the biographies and successes of the many yogis of the past for inspiration.

It also seems part of the facilitation of inspiration to shake us from the confusion of our minds needs to come from these great sacred hermitages themselves.  Here at Land of Calm Abiding, the only mandatory entrance requirements to our beautiful cabins and land are bodhichitta motivation and guidance from a trusted teacher. Monastics without sponsors are often easiest to raise retreat funds for, but even for our dedicated lay community there are ways to get “noodles rolling up the hill” as mentioned in Pabongka’s Liberation in the Palm of the Hand.

Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Lawudo, Nepal, 1969. Photo courtesy of the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

On a recent podcast of Skeptic’s Guide to Enlightenment, Scott Snibbe interviewed Paula “Nyingje” Chichester who has abided in long retreats at Milarepa Center, Land of Calm Abiding, a cabin adjacent to Vajrapani Institute, as well as Oseling in Spain. Paula has dedicated her life to the path of a yogi well before, during, and well after her many years of ordination. In the following excerpt from the interview, she very succinctly recalls the advice from a great yogi, Geshe Yeshe Tobden, to her and Roger “Samten” Munro in response to their abiding in retreat with reliance on sponsorship from others:

“He was overjoyed! He even hugged Roger and he said, ‘You must continue to live this way for the rest of your life to prove to Western people that it’s possible, that it can be done, because the biggest obstacle to people gaining realizations is thinking they have to have a job and they have to support themselves. In the West you have places, you have books, and you have teachers, but you don’t have yogis—and you won’t have Dharma until you have yogis!  Because Dharma is not in the books.'”

If there is a genuine interest from our side for Dharma to survive in the West and the modern world, then we must hear this call to actually take steps to subdue our minds in retreat. This is a fantastic way to fully repay the kindness of all mother sentient beings and thus the great kindness of our Vajra Teachers. 

The dedicated yogi monk Lhundrup Samten (Roger Munro) still abides in retreat. He resides continually at Land of Calm Abiding following the advice of Ribur Rinpoche and Lama Zopa Rinpoche to complete a third Great Retreat as presented in Lama Tsongkapa’s profound ear-whispered lineage teachings.  In a recent written correspondence, Ven. Samten elucidated the motivation it takes to leave behind the samsaric mind:

“From the very beginning of my Dharma efforts in this life, the Ten Innermost Jewels of the Kadampa Geshes have been my foundation! I would rather die alone in a cave than follow the limited works for this life only.”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche consecrating stupa at Mahamudra Centre, New Zealand, May 2015. Photo by Ven. Thubten Kunsang.

It is perhaps only this magnitude of dedication that gives enough bodhichitta rocket fuel for our minds to have enough lift off for  realizations, thereby allowing us to fully reach the path in this life. At such a point when the samsaric mind has no control over us, we can focus anywhere because we won’t be distracting ourselves anymore! How wonderful to bring such a serviceable mind back into the fabric of our ridiculously entangled and misguided materialistic modern world. 

I rejoice that currently I am hearing wonderful echoes in our global FPMT Mandala as well as other Dharma communities, that now is the time to encourage retreat and realizations!  Anyone filled with enthusiasm to abide in retreat or support others to do so through much needed financial aid or physical service, please reach out to your nearest Retreat Center.

May we all fully reach the path in this life by following the precious teachings and personal advice of our most kind holy gurus, and thereby bring ourselves and countless mother sentient beings to the peerless state of enlightenment.  Sarva Mangalam!

Please explore the many retreat facilities and opportunities available to at FPMT centers worldwide. 

Since moving to Vajrapani Institute and meeting Lama Zopa in the summer of 2006, Kolby Graham’s life has been dedicated to cultivating the Dharma. In the Fall of 2007, he left Vajrapani for a tour in India which included two months at Sera Je Monastery for Choden Rinpoche’s transmissions and teachings, followed by a couple weeks at Root Institute with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and then a couple weeks at Drepung Monastery with His Holiness Dalai Lama’s teachings. From 2009 to 2010 and 2011 to 2012 he served as caretaker at Land of Calm Abiding, and all years following he would come back for periodic weeks and months of helping out on the land or abiding in retreat himself.  During the covid pandemic he felt the call to help out at Land of Medicine Buddha in Soquel California as they were very short staffed at the time. His service at LMB in 2022 came to a close when he was asked to serve as Director at Land of Calm Abiding, where he serves and resides today.

Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), is a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.