I’ve been studying the Therevada for a while and getting a bit interested in the Vajra side of things now, in particular the Six Yogas of Naropa.
I’ve been on a little more than three months of retreat total, and am looking to do maybe a month (up to six weeks) this year, hopefully focusing on the energy body, visualization, etc. Anybody know of good places or teachers for this?
My background is fairly secular and technical (think Kenneth Folk, Michael Taft, Shinzen Young, etc.) and I greatly prefer practice to theory.
In Vajrayana, traditionally one completes the preliminary practices, or ngondro, before moving onto the more advanced sadhanas such as the Six Yogas. The preliminary practices are completed under the guidance of an authorised Vajrayana teacher and may take from 3 months in retreat to a year or more in daily life.
Therefore, it may be difficult to find an open retreat for these practices. There are lots of kundalini and breathwork workshops that focus on the energy body, however these are usually not Buddhist groups as such.
I’m not an expert on these matters though and there may be others that are better able to help.
I should have mentioned in my original post that I’m familiar with a lot of the traditional restrictions. That said, I do believe that these days some teachers (e.g. Allan Wallace) can be a bit more relaxed about them. So specifically looking for those people.