Kum Nye is a body-oriented movement and contemplative practice, developed by Tarthang Tulku, a contemporary Vajrayana teacher at the Nyingma Institute in Berkeley. This practice helps develop multi-level awareness skills that are rooted in embodied experience within a meditative context. It also enables us to experience at subtle and deep levels, the healing potential within the human energy system.

The practice of Kum Nye helps develop stamina and the capacity to enquire into resistance as it is held in a person’s psychophysical structure.

‘In mastering Kum Nye, we learn how to benefit from all manner of experience, we gain confidence that is grounded in self-knowledge and establish a foundation for joy that can sustain us throughout our lives. We learn what it means to be complete in ourselves. We discover what it means to be.’ (Tarthang Tulku, 2006)

During this week-long Kum Nye retreat, we explore our senses and the six sense organs - eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind - through exercises and breathing practices of Tarthang Tulku's second book, The Joy of Being. As we relax and heal the gates of the senses, they open inward, transmitting the full richness of experience and bringing more pleasure and joy into our lives. We will take full advantage of the incredible, nourishing environment of Karuna Dartmoor and the special summer season.

A new Kum Nye retreat with Matt Padwick and James Scurry.

In this retreat we will experience how through movement we can discover a greater stillness, and how in that stillness we come alive.

With mind calm, heart awakened and senses open we can take a kind look at where we are, sense our potential, and be gently moved in that direction.

Kum Nye is based on traditional Tibetan healing practices and meets you where you are, so it is suitable for people of all ages and fitness levels.

For those newer to meditation it is an accessible and grounding entry point, while for more seasoned practitioners, it can open a subtle and deepening pathway into embodied awareness.

These three retreat-workshops (which you can take individually or as a group of three) are designed to provide opportunities to walk together with others on a path that explores our own personal mortality, wherever we currently are in our lives. We can never know how or when we will die, but many who work with the dying share the view that it can potentially be a time of healing and spiritual transformation. With this possibility in mind, we will practice together, in times of silence and sharing, continuing the journey towards our death, which we started at birth. If we choose to enter the threshold of our own death now, our heart practices and enquiry in this territory may enable us to accompany others with ‘emptier’ hearts, so that more love shines through. And perhaps we ourselves can transition with less fear when it is our own time to die.

This retreat creates a heartfield for our unfolding time together as we listen to the land and the wisdom of our bodies. The Procession of the Heart, an ancient self-healing practice originating from the high Mongolian and Tibetan plains, becomes a doorway into our deeper listening and knowing. Beneath vast, rolling skies The Procession of the Heart was passed on from horse-backed travelling Shaman, to the remote communities they encountered, as a way for the people to help each other, and to keep the people united.

The mindful movement practice of Continuum naturally takes us into fluid states reminiscent of the embryo. Using the gentle breaths, sounding, and often subtle movement of Continuum, we find our tissues melting, patterns dissolving, thoughts softening. As we return to our essential fluidity, we can experience embryonic creativity, re-form and emerge renewed, refreshed, and ready for what life presents next with enhanced resilience.

This retreat is a special offering from Continuum teachers, Jane Okondo and Cherionna Menzam-Sills, to support those with experience of Continuum to deepen their practice further. The retreat format enables us to deepen further than shorter dives. We can immerse ourselves within our fluid field.

In this retreat, we will review embryological development and how it can be relevant for our health and well-being now. We will specifically explore how the heart, respiratory diaphragm, and other body systems spiral into form, contributing to sensitive presence and grounded being.

The invitation

For practitioners who recognise that the body holds the keys to transformation, this intensive CPD offers a dynamic expansion of practice—bridging the quiet depth of the 'felt sense' with the vitality of letting the body 'speak'. By integrating the subtle currents of somatic awareness with creative movement and embodied inquiry, we cultivate the agility to inhabit the full spectrum of presence—from deep stillness to dynamic expression. We learn to dynamically track and follow the therapeutic process in and through the body, reading somatic narratives in real-time to safely guide clients from habitual holding patterns into more fluid, authentic expression

We sometimes offer international retreats, through various partners. Please click the link below for more information.