Glossary of meditation and Buddhist terms

The meditation taught at Karmê Chöling. Shamatha, Sanskrit for calm abiding, is resting the attention on the breath and coming back to it when the mind wanders; vipashyana, clear seeing, is the open awareness that grows from that steadiness. Programs for newcomers begin with this instruction.

An experienced practitioner trained to give meditation instruction one to one. Meeting with your instructor through a stay is strongly recommended, and for a personal retreat Karmê Chöling finds you one if you do not have one.

A room for meditation, with a shrine at its front. Karmê Chöling has six meditation and shrine rooms. The community sits together each morning and evening, and each session begins with chanting that you may join or simply sit through.

Tibetan for day session: a day of sitting practice from morning to evening, often with walking meditation between the sittings. The household keeps days of nyinthün through the year.

A practice text Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche received at Taktsang in Bhutan in 1968, which brings the Kagyu and Nyingma traditions together. The household practices it on the full and new moons.

Japanese archery practiced as meditation. Karmê Chöling has a kyudo range on the land.

Tibetan for month session: a month-long group retreat of shamatha-vipashyana, sitting together from early morning to evening, with talks, study and meetings with an instructor. It can be taken whole or by the week.

A week of the same practice: one week of a dathün, or a week-long group retreat of its own.

Time at Karmê Chöling on your own schedule: you live with the household, keep its rhythm of practice and meals, and follow a plan of practice and study of your own, with a meditation instructor. Personal retreats

Practice alone in one of the cabins in the woods kept for it, from at least five nights to as many as a hundred and eight. It asks for a daily practice of at least a year and group retreat behind you. Solitary cabin retreats

The shared work of the house: washing dishes, tending the common rooms and taking roles at the shrine. Everyone here takes part, as a way to carry the awareness of meditation into ordinary activity. Rota

The community of people who practice together. Karmê Chöling's household of residents, staff and volunteers is one, and members of the local sangha live in the towns around it.

The Tibetan New Year, which the household keeps in late winter, after Dön season, the last days of the old year given to practice.

A Tibetan meditation master trained in the Karma Kagyu and Nyingma schools and a member of the Rimé movement, who taught widely in the West. He founded Karmê Chöling in 1970 as Tail of the Tiger, his first land center in North America, and was cremated in its upper meadow in 1987. History and lineage

A school of Tibetan Buddhism's Kagyu lineage, which comes down from Tilopa, Naropa, Marpa and Milarepa, and which the Gyalwa Karmapas have headed since the first, Düsum Khyenpa. Karmê Chöling was the first Karma Kagyu meditation center established in the United States.

His Holiness the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, head of the Karma Kagyu, on his first visit to North America in 1974, which Karmê Chöling hosted. The name means, in Karmê Chöling's own words, the practice place of the Karma Kagyu.

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche named the center in 1970 for a line of the I Ching, "treading upon the tail of the tiger." It became Karmê Chöling in 1974.

The oldest of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism, which traces its teachings to Padmasambhava. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche was trained in it as well as in the Karma Kagyu, and Karmê Chöling offers the teachings of both.

The non-sectarian movement in Tibetan Buddhism, which honors every school of the tradition. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche belonged to it, and Karmê Chöling welcomes teachers of more than one lineage.

Teachings Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche gave on basic goodness, sacred world and awakened society: that innate goodness and wakefulness can be discovered by anyone, and lived in ordinary life. Karmê Chöling is a Shambhala center within the international Shambhala community.

The cremation structure built in the upper meadow for Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in 1987. Tradition would have taken it down; it was left standing instead, to be completed one day as a stupa, a shrine that holds the relics of a realized teacher.