2023 Rigpa U.S. Autumn Retreat - IN PERSON

Journeying into the mirror is a metaphor for recognizing our true nature. When we don't recognize our nature, we're  deceived by our own experience. We run after reflections we want and away from the ones we fear.  Recognizing the nature of these reflections liberates us from this endless compulsive cycle.

In this retreat, we'll explore a contemporary Mahayana Buddhist approach to finding freedom from the tryanny of materialism and delusion, and  learn how to practice compassion in an illusory world.

Andy will be presenting material that flows from his new book, Into the Mirror: A Buddhist Journey through Mind, Matter, and the Nature of Reality and along with Lynn Friedman, an esteemed meditation instructor in the Shambhala tradition, will lead the group in contemplation, discussion, and extended periods of sitting and walking meditation.

Together, we will engage with study and reflection on ethical conduct, and see how these can be integrated into our daily lives. Anyone interested in Buddhism, philosophy, meditation, and consciousness can appreciate this retreat.

Andy is a teacher, author and photographer, who offers profound and penetrating insights into dharma and mind. At an early age, he dreamed of becoming a Zen master—probably the result of reading Zen in the Art of Archery as a teenager, and watching too many samurai movies when he was in college. That led him to Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, and the San Francisco Zen Center, to train under Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, and subsequently to Boulder, Colorado, to train under Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

Andy attended Trungpa Rinpoche’s three-month seminary in 1976. At seminary, intense periods of meditation practice alternated with intense periods of study. The message was clear: practice and study go together like the two wings of a bird. This became the guiding principle for his own journey. After moving to Paris in 1979, Andy co-founded the first Shambhala Centre in France. He taught regularly in Paris, and other European dharma centers, for the next ten years.

After Trungpa Rinpoche passed away in Nova Scotia in 1987, Andy and his family moved to Halifax. In 1993 he began studying Mahamudra, and the progressive stages of view and meditation, with Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, and later with other masters. He became a senior teacher in Khenpo Rinpoche’s sangha. He also taught at Gampo Abbey’s monastic college, and to the monastic community as a whole, including extended courses on Chandrakirti’s Introduction to the Middle Way and Shantarakshita’s Adornment of the Middle Way.

In the late 1990s, and early aughts, Andy realized a lifelong dream: learning fine-art photography from Michael Wood, founder of the Miksang contemplative photography program. This was an opportunity to bring together the Dharma Art teachings of Trungpa Rinpoche, the Mahamudra teachings of Khenpo Rinpoche, and Michael’s insights into photography as a contemplative practice.

Nowadays, Andy mainly likes to study and teach Mahayana view and meditation, and Mahamudra.