He Spent Six Years in Retreat. He Says Start With a Weekend - Lama Gerry Prindiville

Lama Gerry Prindiville is a teacher in the Chokling Tersar tradition of Tibetan Buddhism with nearly two decades of experience leading retreats. He studied Buddhist philosophy and Tibetan language for five years at Rangjung Yeshe Institute before completing two traditional three-year meditation retreats under the guidance of Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche. At Rinpoche's request, much of his time since the first long retreat has been spent teaching — including more than fifteen Vajrasattva retreats across the United States and Mexico. His approach is grounded and experiential, less concerned with the exotic than with how practice meets an ordinary day. He's also a longtime backpacker with over two thousand miles on the trail, and that connection to the natural world runs through the way he teaches. In this conversation we get into war stories from long retreat, the practical work of learning to be with our own minds, and Gerry's conviction that retreat isn't reserved for people who can disappear for years — that anyone can learn to make one, even if it's only for a weekend.