Everyday Awakening

Open Essence, Unceasing Radiance

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Arrival: Feb 26th, 2:00 – 5:00 PM
Departure: Feb 28th, 12:30 PM

Tuition: $375.00 -> $750.00 + Lodging Costs

Meals & drinks included
Inc. V, VG, GF

(Add extra nights at 50% discount)

Arrival: Feb 26th, 2:00 – 5:00 PM
Departure: Feb 28th, 12:30 PM

Tuition: $375.00 -> $750.00 + Lodging Costs

About this Retreat

Many experienced practitioners already know moments of openness, clarity, intimacy, spaciousness, even experiences of nonduality. These experiences can be transformative. But under particular conditions, we become captured again. We re-contract into familiar states of struggle, habitual patterns, and the reassurance of our identity dramas. States of openness are not attainments.

Dzogchen proposes an interesting reversal: rather than accumulating more experiences of openness, we investigate our investment in ignoring what is already present. It is one experience to wake up out of our identification with personal experience. It is another, endless process to recognize openness within the full range of relative experience, inseparable in nature, yet manifesting differently.

This retreat explores that process through the practice of immediacy. Rather than treating everyday confusion, vulnerability, contraction, or the sense that something is wrong as obstacles to practice, we will explore them as expressions of the path. This is not a path of transcendence, but an invitation to consciously participate in the full range of our human experience.

What to Expect?

  • Pranayama and Tibetan yoga practices
  • Shamatha and vipashyana meditation
  • Discussions on bringing our self-care strategies up to date and therapeutic work
  • Dzogchen pathwork exploring openness within everyday experience

Why Attend?

  • Contemplative capacity, emotional capacity, and ordinary adult capacity don’t necessarily develop together. You can have thirty years of meditation experience and still become twelve years old in an argument. Rather than viewing this contradiction as a failure, it can become some of the most interesting territory we have to work with.

  • Many of our deepest strategies only become visible while we are being seen, misunderstood, challenged, or needed. Other people bring the practice out of abstraction. They show us where openness remains available and where we re-contract into familiar states of struggle.

  • We will work with everyday confusion, the sense that something is missing, and the feeling that something is wrong with us as expressions of the path. This is not a path of transcendence, but a path of irresolvable immediacy: an opportunity to bring practice into increasingly intimate contact with the full range of our human experience.

Retreat Faculty

Teacher Photo

Peter McEwen

Is the founder of The Field, where he teaches embodied contemplative practices for meeting intensity, vulnerability, and contradiction without withdrawing from ordinary life. He has practiced for more than thirty years, primarily in the Tibetan Buddhist traditions. His teachers include Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, Lama Pema Dorje Rinpoche, Tulku Orgyen P’huntsok, and Bhaka Tulku. He has also worked for years with psychotherapist Bruce Tift on the relationship between contemplative practice and Western psychology. Before founding The Field in 2024, Peter spent two decades in technology and international development. His teaching brings Vajrayana into direct conversation with the realities of modern life, emphasizing practice as direct contact with immediate experience.

Lodging

We have several accommodations to choose from during checkout. All options include meals and drinks.

Off Campus
 Participants who wish to commute from their own accommodations off-site.
Example: Own home, Air BnB, Camping nearby in Red Feather.

Car Camping
We have some primitive parking spots in our Rigden parking lot, for parking and sleeping.
Note: Your vehicle must be self contained, you cannot pitch a tent or set up other camping gear.

Single/Double Tents
(Late May – Early September)
Platform Tents located in Our Main Campus Area and in our more remote Maitri Village, each of which is near a bathhouse. Tents can be rented as a single or a double (with a roommate).
These 12′ x 14′ tents have twin beds, bookcases and a hanging clothes rack.*
Note: Bedding is NOT provided. Please bring your own twin sheets, blanket / sleeping bag, and pillow.

Dormitories
Two Rooms with beds for up to 7 people. Gender-segregated with men in their own dorm and women in another. Bathrooms just down the hall, which are also equipped with shower stalls.

Monk Rooms
A cost-effective option for participants looking for indoor, solitary lodging, but who don’t mind using a shared bathroom. In addition to a bed, bedding, a private room and closet, the monk rooms also have a large window and a desk and desk chair for added comfort.

Single and Double Rooms
The perfect choice for a retreat where you want both your own space and your own bathroom. Each room offers a little more space, a dresser and closet, and a 3/4s bathroom (toilet, sink, and shower, no bathtub) attached to each room.

Junior Suites
Our Lodge Junior Suites include a queen-size bed topped by a cozy comforter, a desk, dresser, closet and private bath with bathtub, plus a sitting area.

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