Takla Mebar Winter Retreat
December 1st -31st, 2023
With Chaphur Rinpoche
In Person Retreat: at Lake Arenal, Costa Rica and on Zoom
Zoom sessions will be on Saturday, December 2nd, 9th, 16th, and 23rd
8am to 9am (Pacific Time)
December 1st 8am to 9am PT, Rinpoche will give instructions regarding the preparations for the retreat as well as beginning the actual retreat in your home. This will include how to make the offering tormas, the initial Takla Mebar mantra to recite, and the beginning visualization practice.
Chaphur Rinpoche will be in personal retreat for the month of December. During that time, his practice will be focused on his personal Yidam, Takla Mebar. Rinpoche has been deepening his connection with his family lineage Yidam each December for many years. This year all sangha members are warmly invited to join Rinpoche in doing these powerful, healing practices from home or a chosen personal retreat location.
Every Saturday Rinpoche will give teachings via Zoom on the generation and completion stages of the Takla Mebar practice and their relation to tantric practice in the larger Bön Buddhist context. Students will be encouraged to practice their own retreat focusing on the Deity, accumulating mantras, and engaging in other Takla Mebar practices.
Here is a short description of Takla Mebar and the benefits of his healing practice:
In order to overcome negative forces as well as the negative emotions and obstacles they create, Tonpa Shenrab Miwo manifested as Takla Mebar ( the Flaming Tiger Deity.) Through the power of his compassionate wisdom, evil forces were transformed into compassionate and peaceful beings.
As we look at the many negative forces operating in our world today as well as our own internal negativities, we realize that there is a great need for them to be transformed into positive aspects that can bring much needed blessings to relieve sufferings experienced worldwide. The same Takla Mebar healing practice taught and embodied by the Flaming Tiger Deity thousands of years ago, can be of great benefit to human beings today. Expressions of outer poisons such as murder, theft and bullying can be transformed into many positive aspects including love, compassion, generosity, and kindness. . Also, our inner negative emotions can be transformed into the clarity of the Five Wisdoms: the wisdom of emptiness, mirror-like wisdom, the wisdom of equality, discriminating wisdom, and all-accomplishing wisdom.
The Chaphur family members have been the primary lineage holders of Takla Mebar since the very beginning of their recorded family history. Annual Takla Mebar retreats have been their practice for many centuries. Today, during the month of December, we are invited and welcomed to join them in this powerful and much needed healing. As we connect in a spiritual field of oneness, Chaphur Rinpoche becomes a conduit for us of many auspicious blessings from centuries of powerful Takla Mebar practices as well as their healing transformations. Please join with the intention of first healing ourselves and then effortlessly sharing our kindness, compassion, and love with all those whose lives we touch.
December 31st: On New Year’s Eve, the conclusion of the Takla Mebar retreat, we will join together as we perform the ritual of “Dokpa.” Literally “Dokpa” means turning back obstacles. In preparation for the 2024 New Year, we will combine the fire energy of Takla Mebar with the Dokpa ritual to clear all negative obstacles. This clearing sets the stage for the manifestation of the much needed positive blessings of peace, wisdom, compassion, love and prosperity to manifest fully in all aspects of our lives and in the world in the New Year of 2024.
Our Retreat will be conducted according to the Bön tradition. Daily retreat practice will include the 4 Generosities (offerings): Sang (purification offering), Chutör ( water offering), Sur (burnt food offering) and Chöd (offering of the body).
Please use this link to register for the retreat:
Recordings will be made available shortly afterwards. Please register by Saturday, November 25th and you will receive the materials to print in advance of the teaching. The Zoom link will be sent out 30 minutes before each teaching.
The Gyalshen Store has ordered several beautifully rendered Takla Mebar thangkas from Tibet. If you would like to order one as a support for your practice, please click on the following link:
