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)

This course is a path we can choose to walk together now, whatever stage we are at 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.

We are offering an assortment of one day retreats throughout 2025.

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