Virtual Retreats-in-a-Box, Multi-media Programs, Year-Long Mentoring Program, Year-Long Self-Study Program

This year-long mentoring program includes all of the multi-media materials you need for the program (audios and videos), plus one-on-one mentoring sessions with Tina.

The Individual Mentoring Program is for people who have a deep interest and commitment to their own unfoldment as they experience it in their worldly lives. It is a version of the year-long Group Mentoring Program, which Tina offered three times previously, and is now customized for interested practitioners to complete on a 1:1 basis. It is helpful for people who are sincerely interested in the deeper questions of life in engaging “the mystery” as householders.

The Mentoring Program has an emphasis on the broader Buddhist / spiritual path including a full spectrum of spiritual practices, modern personality work, and integration and embodiment of awakening in our worldly life as we live it. Engaging in mentoring for a full year provides an understanding and experience of practices that are important to consider for a well-rounded spiritual unfoldment of one’s deepest nature. Monthly topics/practices include:

• Month 1–General Program Overview
• Month 2–The Enneagram, and Personality:  Working with Ourselves Skillfully
• Month 3–Inquiry (Curious Presence in Daily Life), and the Judge / SuperEgo
• Month 4–Sila and Wholesome Living
• Month 5–Awakening and the 4 Centers and Instinctual Drives
• Month 6–Heart-Based:  The BramaViharas & Bodhicitta / Purification of Heart
• Month 7–Focused Attention: Samatha / Purification of Mind
• Month 8–Open Monitoring:  Vipassana / Purification of View
• Month 8–Self-Transcending:  Dzogchen and Non-duality / Purification of Identity
• Month 10–Embodiment and Body-based Practices
• Month 11–Worldly Practice and Socially Engaged Buddhism
• Month 12–Integration, and Your Vision and Intention

The program includes twelve 55-minute 1:1 mentoring sessions with Tina via zoom; video and audio recordings of Tina’s teaching on each monthly practice; a reading and links list for each month;  PDF reading downloads and links; and homework/reflection questions for each month. In cases where more than one person is starting the program at around the same time, and individuals want contact with other like-minded people, access to “dharma buddies” from around the world may also be available. Or, you could choose to do the program with a friend that you already know, and do the program together. The cost for this is $2295. You can start any time, with the program lasting a year. Please email us first, using the Contact Us page, to see when there is an opening in the program, as there is often a wait list. You can also email using the Contact Us page if you have any questions you’d like to ask about the program. If you would like to apply, please complete this application and send it to the email address provided.

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This “Retreat in a Box” includes everything you need for your own retreat and is available in four different packages.

The Luminous Mind retreat is set in the larger context of awakening. The first few days include the overall “view” of enlightenment, and the basis of Bodhicitta (a wish for awakening for oneself and all beings) in the heart for a full practice and larger intention for practice. The next several days of the retreat focus on the Samatha practice, developing laser-like awareness that has the potential to lead to the meditative absorptions known as jhanas. For the last several days of the retreat, participants will have the option to continue to deepen on the Samatha track, or move to the Dzogchen track. (Talks for both tracks are included.) The Dzogchen track provides the possibility of non-dual awareness without the level of concentration required for jhana. In the Dzogchen track, we build upon the foundation of Samatha with its powerful and stabilizing concentration, to include the open awareness of Vipassana, and then explore the non-dual practice of Rigpa, which enables the possibility for one to be present with a deeper reality with eyes open, awake to the world. Participants have the option to either go deeper with the Samatha practice, or to branch into the Tibetan Dzogchen practice and the possibility of realizing Rigpa. Both paths provide the possibility of cutting through conventional reality to realize the deeper truth of non-duality. For a 9-minute video describing the retreat, please click here. Click here to watch a 9-minute video of Tina providing an overview of the Luminous Mind retreat. This retreat can be done as a retreat of between 5-14 days in length (or even longer.)

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This “Retreat in a Box” includes everything you need for your own retreat, or to listen to for educational purposes, and is available in three different packages.

In this 10-part program, Tina explores with us the question: “What is awakening?” Awakening is the inspiration for many on the spiritual journey, but we may be unclear about what it is, how it happens, and what we can commonly encounter. An overview of how awakening is understood across wisdom traditions is provided, misconceptions are clarified (as well as why scandals happen), and we learn more about how to integrate spiritual experience into everyday life. Participants are also guided in tuning in to their own “flame for awakening.”

You will also learn the 4 meditation practices rooted in tradition and confirmed by neuroscience. One session is spent on each practice. This allows you to experience the meditation’s purpose, what it does to your consciousness, and how it supports awakening in unique and important ways. This helps you to make wise use of precious time spent in daily practice and retreat, and to better understand  the overall trajectory of your spiritual unfoldment.  This program is suitable for beginners as well as experienced meditators. For a free 7-minute video of Tina describing the program, click here.

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This “Retreat-in-a-Box” includes recordings of a 1-week retreat that Tina  taught on the Bramaviharas/ Heart-based Meditation Practices.

In this retreat, Tina teaches the “Heart Practices” category of meditation. The Bramaviharas are the “divine abodes of the heart,” found in both Theravadan and Tibetan Buddhism. These include: metta (loving kindness), karuna (compassion), mudita (empathetic joy), and upekkha (equanimity). She also includes the gratitude and forgiveness practices, as well as the “Divine Love” dimension of non-duality that these practices point to.

Tina teaches the four Bramaviharas as a set of practices. Often they are taught individually, but when they are taught together, they are much more powerful and make more sense. Between the four of them, they provide a way of orienting to the human conditition, and give us a way to respond to just about any situation that arises with an open and unhindered heart. Tina also teaches the Forgiveness practice, which she considers to be the “fifth Bramavihara,” the Gratitude practice, as well as the “Divine Love” dimension–an experience of non-duality that the Bramaviharas are pointing to.

These practices are often overlooked, marginalized, or taught in a superficial way as “mantras” or as something we do for others. But they are actually crucial for our own unfoldment, and are as serious and robust of practices as the other categories. These “Purification of the Heart” practices work our consciousness in a way that none of the other categories do, helping us to digest personality material that is universal, and is an obstacle to our spiritual unfoldment. They are also a balm in difficult times, like the ones we are facing these days individually and collectively.

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In this daylong retreat, Tina gives an overview of the “Open Monitoring” category of meditation, in particular the Vipassana practice as it is taught in Theravadan and Tibetan Buddhism. Vipassana is also known as Insight Meditation, and utilizes our capacity to investigate, to more deeply understand phenomena so that we can develop equanimity in being with things as they are. Investigating our experience can also potentially lead to perceiving phenomena at their ultimate level.

Vipassana is one of the most widely practiced types of meditation, but many people don’t know it’s full scope, or over-focus only on the breath—which is only one small aspect of the full Vipassana practice. In this workshop, Tina describes how Vipassana fits into the four categories of practices, she outlines the different lineages and styles of Vipassana and how they are different, and she progressively describes the different categories of objects one can focus on in Vipassana. She provides a progressive series of meditation Practice Sessions that include the different styles of Vipassana as well as objects, culminating in “choiceless awareness” that includes the many styles and objects of Vipassana, as well as Tina’s addition of the “non-doing” practice that provides a bridge to Dzogchen. She talks about how mindfulness relates to Vipassana, and culminates the workshop discussing ultimate insight into the three fundamental characteristics of existence that can lead to awakening, as well as cessation.

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This “Retreat-in-a-Box” includes three shorter offerings on the Samatha Meditation Practice.

You can use these to do your own at-home daylong or weekend retreat, following along with the audience as the event progresses. The Dharma Talk and Daylong were recorded at an event by Stillpoint PDX in Portland, Oregon, and the Weekend Retreat was recorded at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. Click here for a free 4-minute video of Tina talking about the four benefits of the Samatha practice.

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In this 41-minute talk, Tina shares her experience and understanding of the “Dimensions of Non-duality” as found in the “Immaterial Realms” of Buddhism as compared with the “Boundless Dimensions” of the Diamond Approach. This talk was given to a group of spiritual teachers from all traditions. Tina’s unique background, that includes deep spiritual practice and experiences in several traditions, gives her a very rare perspective on how one can understand the different “flavors” of non-duality. These distinct ways of experiencing non-duality also account for the very different (yet similar) accounts of non-duality and awakening, from the perspectives of diverse traditions such as Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and others.

This is a great introductory offering, allowing you to experience a shorter “Retreat-in-a-Box” as well as Tina’s teaching.

• Dimensions of Non-Duality Audio Dharma Talk
• Dimensions of Non-Duality Chart

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