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Our Mission Print E-mail

What is your Mission?
What are your values?
How do you protect the environment?


Benefiting Others

  • Vision:To offer people the meditative tools to recognize the nature of their minds and achieve their highest potential for the benefit of all.
     

  • MissionVajrapani Institute supports the transformation of spiritual teachings into experience through contemplative retreat. As a spiritual community serving the needs of retreaters in all traditions, we are nurtured by the energy of our Tibetan Buddhist founder Lama Thubten Yeshe and our spiritual director Lama Zopa Rinpoche, by our teachers and holy objects, and by the stillness of the California redwood forest.

    Vajrapani Institute is affiliated with the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition and is dedicated to preserving Lama Tsong Khapa’s rich living tradition of wisdom and compassion.

Embodying the Path

Shared values are the bedrock of our spiritual community, holding us accountable to ourselves and to others. Our staff and community aspire to embody:

  • WISDOM: Where mind awakens. Developing awareness of impermanence and interdependence.

  • HARMONY: Where joy flows. Honest, open communication and mindful actions where the sense of ‘we’ is stronger than the ‘I’.

  • LOVING-HEARTEDNESS: Where kindness lies. Warmth and kindness towards self and others through sincerity, openness and generosity in time, headspace and heart.

  • SPACIOUSNESS: Where all expands. Going beyond one’s personal agenda through cultivating a flexibility and expansiveness of mind.

  • CLARITY: Where vision is present. Focused, centered and aware in all actions of body, speech and mind.

  • TRUST: Where friends share. Being honest with oneself and others while holding patience and faith in the unfolding; inspiring trust in others by being dependably real.

Simple Living

The combination of our isolation and commitment to service means that Vajrapani operates in a low-impact, eco-friendly way.

Our community:

  • Generates its own electricity through solar and hydro systems

  • Conserves and processes its own water from a natural spring

  • Cares for the forest and all of its inhabitants

  • Limits the use of fossil fuels

  • Buys local, organic produce

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