I was inspired to do a quick trip to upstate NY this fall to attend Nyungne retreat at the Padmasambhava Center. The center is one of the few in the Dudjom Tersar lineage and I was hoping to received teachings from the center’s founders but alas, it was mostly a practice based retreat. Definitely one of the more physically challenging retreats due to the fasting aspects and I am glad to be in a formal retreat after so many years of not doing any retreats. Since I’ve been getting more into mantra recitation as part of regular, the retreat definitely put mantra practice to an intense level of practice that I hadn’t done before. I think I need to get down my breathing technique during these extended recitations otherwise I don’t think it’s sustainable! Like most of my trips, I was able to squeeze in a few interviews from a few different lineages and do the pleasure of checking out upstate NY’s finest state park in peak fall colors. There are more landscape photos on my personal site.
