Tushita offers four group retreats for Buddhist practitioners every year.

These retreats are intended for dedicated practioners with a commitment to the Buddhist path who desire to deepen their experience with an extended period of practice focusing on a particular diety. 

Here is some general information that applies to each retreat. Read more about each specific retreat by following the links on the menu.

About the Tantric Retreats held at Tushita

Most of these are practices belonging to Kriya Tantra (except Vajrasattva retreat), the first of the four classes of tantra. During the retreat, we generally do four sessions each day, starting with taking the Eight Mahayana Precepts in the morning, followed by Combined Jorcho/Lama Chopa in the first session, and three sessions of the pearticular sadhana.

The sadhana (or method of accomplishment) consists of taking refuge, generating bodhicitta, and making requests to the appropriate lineage lamas to receive inspiration. Although accumulating mantras is not the main focus of most retreats, for those who are able, we will try to accumulate 10,000 mantras (100,000 mantras for the 3-month Vajrasattva retreat).

According to the advice of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, we will also do prostrations to the Thirty Five Buddhas before each session. To make the practice more experiential and meaningful, lam rim meditations will be incorporated, as a motivation for the practice and to leave strong imprints of both sutra and tantra in our mindstreams.

Requirements to join the Retreat

The retreat requirements change every year according to the retreat structure, but in general, the basic requirements for every Tantric Retreat at Tushita are:

• You should be a Buddhist, having formally taken refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Those who have not formally taken refuge or who have not participated in a tantric retreat before, will need to have an interview with Tushita's Spiritual Programme Coordinator and/or the retreat leader.
• You should have taken the appropriate Initiation, which will require taking the Bodhisattva Vow. Tushita tries to arrange for the appropriate initiation to be given by a qualified tantric master before each retreat starts.
• You must be familiar with the Lam Rim (the Graduated Path to Enlightenment) and have attended at least one introductory course in Tibetan Buddhism.

Students on all our our Tantric Retreats are also required to follow our general discipline guidelines: