Sample Wedding Ritual

It was 1990 and as I lay on my massage therapists table grilling her about her being a Buddhist it was then that my inquiry about the brain and the mind had spoken itself into a series of questions. She lent me a cassette tape of her teacher, which I returned two weeks later to find that this same teacher would be leading retreat in Vancouver the following weekend. I had never done a retreat. I didn’t know how to meditate, although I had heard about it, and I knew absolutely nothing about Buddhism except it had something to do with being more peaceful. At that particular time in my life, things were anything but peaceful. I had just published my first book which caused quite an uproar in my family and I was feeling particularly dislodged and disowned. Within the first minutes of that retreat, almost 19 years ago, as I sat listening to this man named Zasep Rinpoche I began to cry for no reason and I felt relief. I was in the presence of a person who had the keys to all the doors I needed to walk through to learn what it means to be a spiritual being living in a human body, in a human context, in this degenerate time.

Over the past two decades I have sat doing group retreats and taken teachings from various schools and lineages of Buddhism in Canada, the U.S. and India with famous and not so famous Tibetan, Burmese and North American teachers. Most notably His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, His Holiness Jetsun Dampa (Spiritual head of Mongolia), Zasep Rinpoche, Lati Rinpoche, and Sayadaw U Lakanaw. I have sat a number of solo retreats from a day to over 30 days in various contexts around the world. I continue to attend teachings and meditate daily. I have taken five precepts of no lying, no killing, no taking objects I am no offered, no sexual misconduct and no alcohol or mood altering substances for my lifetime.  That may not sound like I have a lot of fun, but let me tell you, the experiences I have had both while on retreat and in my life to date are better than the best drugs could ever offer. And all for free!