RIGPA is a container designed to deepen our relationship with Life through Silence, Nature, and Dance.

There will be no teacher, but there will be teaching. That is to say, there will be no traditional class or workshop formats. Instead, we will all be students, while Silence and the Dance will be teaching.

Beyond non-talking, Silence is an act of generosity that we can give to ourselves and each other. Throughout the days, we are invited into a deeper quiet — an inner quiet — wherein the subtleties of the Body-Mind can be fully heard, and the Dance can emerge from within and in-between.

RIGPA is a word borrowed from the Tibetan language that literally means “knowing” or “awareness.” “Knowing,” in this case, is not an abstract, analytical, or conceptual experience, but a direct, unmediated, clear knowing. Knowing of what?

In the Dzogchen tradition, it refers to “Primordial Awareness” — when that which is aware knows itself. In our case — as we are inspired by, but not confined within, any religious tradition — it also refers to directly inquiring and learning through becoming intimate with the immediacy of our own experience.

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A clear daily schedule supports a sense of safety and collective rhythm. We propose three key practices that cultivate “listening states” and facilitate access to embodied insight. These practices are:

Meditation

Cultivating calm abiding (Samatha) and clear seeing (Vipassanā)

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Authentic Movement 

Rooted in dance, healing, and mysticism, AM invites awareness and revelation through movement while cultivating witnessing

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Contact Improvisation

Our relational, embodied laboratory of listening. CI is the ground of the retreat, opening a space where we can meet ourselves in physical relationship with others

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Introduction and instructions for the practices will be given before we enter the non-verbal period. Participants will also receive a PDF before arrival offering a general overview of the practices.