{"id":76526,"date":"2025-07-20T21:44:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T05:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cabuddhists.org\/en\/?p=76526"},"modified":"2025-11-22T09:38:04","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T17:38:04","slug":"personal-retreat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cabuddhists.org\/en\/personal-retreat\/thus-have-i-seen\/","title":{"rendered":"Personal Retreat"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Personal Retreat<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Reposted from\u00a0Thus Have I Seen<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>by Zhaxi Zhuoma Rinpoche p.195-198<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 We had been offering up to 30-day private retreats at the temple and in March 2018 I decided I needed to take one myself. It had taken me over a month to recover from my last Asian trip and I wanted to reflect on what I was doing wrong. I had just received preliminary translations of both the Supreme and Unsurpassable Mahamudra of Liberation<\/em><\/strong> and Imparting the Absolute Truth Through the Heart Sutra<\/em><\/strong>. I had perfect and trustworthy students who came to the temple to feed me and take care of anything that would come up. I had three goals: strengthen my personal practice, which I never seemed to find enough time for, contemplate how I could better promote the correct Buddha Dharma to non-Chinese speakers, and to study those two preliminary translations. My intention was to cut all internet-phone contact and personal contact with the outside world.<\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I can only report, I was only partially successful. I was very grateful to all who worked to give me this time. I know how difficult that can be for most of us to have thirty-days to just focus on practice and learning the correct Buddha Dharma and to not worry about worldly matters. I was very grateful. I was also very grateful to my two vajra brothers who enabled me to have the preliminary translations to study and all the other translators who helped make that possible. I hope that they will be available soon, but you can read them, too, if you do a retreat at the temple.<\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 There are a few recommendations I made to myself and anyone else wanting to do a private retreat:<\/p>

  1. Have a plan before you start your retreat. I wasn\u2019t ready even though I deferred starting for a week. There were still things I needed (or thought I needed) to do that carried into the retreat and caused me to keep my computer and phone. And, I did not have a plan of what to do on the retreat itself.

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  2. Don\u2019t allow yourself access to the outside world. Even though I greatly reduced my phone-internet contacts, I still kept some channels open. Everyone else cooperated beautifully and tried to support me, but I still persisted. DON\u2019T DO IT! I came out a couple of times and had a hard time regaining the practice. Absolutely no phones, internet, or computers should be allowed. There is a reason you do these retreats with no possible outside contacts and not in your usual living space with all its comforts and distractions. We do have a Dharma Protector chapel and a special Dharma that the Buddha Master gave me to practice there (FIGURE 82). You cannot have any forms of electricity there\u2014not even a match, candle or flashlight! Sonya, a nun who stays here at the temple, did a retreat and stayed there last month during the Covid-19 quarantine. The other nuns took her food. But I thought I could do it in my quarters. My support crew did leave food for me. I was wrong. DON\u2019T DO IT. Find a way to be and stay isolated from distractions. The next time I try this I will use the chapel.

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  3. I reviewed and read (and posted) the translations that Benxin Chiren quickly provided on answers to critical questions from the virtuous ones at the World Buddhism Association Headquarters. There is a lot to be learned from these, especially on inner-tantric initiations. I wanted the other English-speaking disciples to have these teachings. Although I rationalized that I was doing \u201cDharma Work\u201d, I should have completed that work before I started my retreat.

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  4. I also reread Jamgon Kongtrul\u2019s Retreat Manual, written in the mid-nineteenth century on the Tibetan approach to their traditional three-year, three-month retreat with guidelines on how to prepare, life within, and life afterwards.

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  5. With all of the above, I was able to establish a daily schedule based on an increased understanding of what my practice should be and how all the pieces fit together. I have been most fortunate to receive many Dharma practices and initiations over the 18 years I have followed His Holiness, but I was not sure how to practice them in an integrated manner. Now, I feel I can.

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  6. Thirty-days is not enough time. I only really got started the last week.<\/li><\/ol>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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    \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I learned more how not to do a retreat, but it was still constructive. The integrated practice plan was helpful. I did come up with ideas on how to better propagate the Dharma. The most important outcome was my resolve to be more aggressive in taking the Dharma to the English-speaking world. I already had a mailing list of over 2,000, but many were primarily Chinese-speakers. I would continue sending a monthly newsletter to them, with mostly photos of what was happening at the temple and some Chinese translation, but I would create a database of non-Chinese speakers, focusing on the people who only understood English and post a weekly blog. It would be more informal than the newsletter and I would try to tell my stories. I called this blog \u201cThus Have I Seen (or Heard)\u201d. It was actually the precursor to this book. I took the \u201c128 Evil and Erroneous Views\u201d from the Supreme and Unsurpassable Mahamudra of Liberation<\/em><\/strong> and talked about them and whatever else was current.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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    FIGURE 82: Dharma Protector Chapel at the Holy Vajrasana Temple.<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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    \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I think the blog was successful. I could tell how many were at least opening the blog and also clicking links to other articles. I do not know how many read any of it, but some did and were quite supportive. I wish I could say the retreat got me back to where I wanted to be in doing my daily practice. I became progressively more discouraged and frustrated that we could not get the discourses and writings by the Buddha Master released in English. I was allowed to read them at the temple, but that did not reach many people. My health was deteriorating so that it was very difficult for me to travel. I did not think I was long for this world, and I was not making good use of my remaining time. My world seemed to be falling apart and I seemed unable or unwilling to help myself or to seek help.<\/p>

    \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I did go to my Buddha Master and received the \u201cPhoenix and Chicken<\/strong><\/em>\u201d discourse I mentioned in the Preface<\/a>. What was I to do?<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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    \n\t\t\t\t<\/i>Prev<\/span><\/span>Previous<\/span>Kuan Yin Bodhisattva\u2019s Great Compassion Dharma Assemblies<\/span><\/span><\/a>\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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    \n\t\t\t\tNext<\/span>Holy Fire Ceremony<\/span><\/span><\/i>Next<\/span><\/span><\/a>\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    We had been offering up to 30-day private retreats at the temple and in March 2018 I decided I needed to take one myself. It had taken me over a month to recover from my last Asian trip and I wanted to reflect on what I was doing wrong…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":76532,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[590],"tags":[641],"class_list":["post-76526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thus-have-i-seen","tag-zhaxi-zhuoma-rinpoche"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cabuddhists.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cabuddhists.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cabuddhists.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cabuddhists.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cabuddhists.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76526"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/cabuddhists.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78219,"href":"https:\/\/cabuddhists.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76526\/revisions\/78219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cabuddhists.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cabuddhists.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cabuddhists.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cabuddhists.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}