About
Our approach
Practice here is not kept to the cushion. It shapes the whole day: meditation together, instruction one to one, study, and the shared work of the house, the dishes included.
Karmê Chöling is a household that organizes itself around meditation and its principles. Whether you come for a weekend program or a month of retreat, the day is shaped by practice.
Meditation
The community sits together each morning and evening in the shrine room. Each session begins with chanting, and you are free to join the chants or simply sit.
Instruction
Qualified meditation instructors offer instruction one to one, and meeting with your instructor regularly through your stay is strongly recommended. For a personal retreat, we arrange an instructor for you if you do not have one.
Work as practice
Everyone at Karmê Chöling offers in some way. Rota, the shared work of washing dishes, tending the common rooms and taking on roles in the community's practice sessions, is a chance to bring the awareness of sitting meditation into ordinary activity.
Study
Programs join practice with study of the Buddhadharma and the Shambhala teachings, from a first introduction to deep retreat.
Teachers and traditions
Buddhist practice is the ground of Karmê Chöling, in the Kagyu, Nyingma, Rimé and Shambhala lineages. From that ground, the Shambhala teachings offer a spacious language for sacred world, basic goodness and awakened society, and the center welcomes other contemplative traditions that point toward the nature of reality.
Karmê Chöling does not gather around a single resident teacher. Through the year it invites many teachers within authentic lineage: Tibetan lineage teachers, teachers of Shambhala practice and its forms, teachers of other wisdom traditions, and a Qigong and Taoist lineage that has taught here for many years. Practitioners are encouraged to listen with discernment and to check what they hear against their own experience. Meet the teachers.
Begin
Start with a program for newcomers, or come for a personal retreat on your own schedule. The visit pages help you plan it.