Major Highlights of 2018

Major Highlights of 2018

Here are some major highlights from this past year:

In 2018, Vajrapani Institute hosted a total of 31 group retreats.18 of these retreats were hosted by us with teachers within the FPMT.13 retreats were from groups of different spiritual traditions who rented our facilities and held their own deeply transformative meditation-based retreats.  This number is slightly higher than average, even though the center was shut down for a total of 5 weeks due to continued infrastructure upgrades.

Of the FPMT retreats, the 18 retreats’ themes covered:

  • Mindfulness
  • Mind training
  • Compassion cultivation
  • Concentration
  • Stages of the path to enlightenment
  • Nature of mind
  • Cultivating emotional balance
  • Buddhist tantra
  • Mahamudra

 

We also held Youth programs for families and young adults as well as our annual free community celebration day known as Big Love Day.

Of the 13 retreats from groups of different traditions, we hosted: 

  • Multiple mindfulness-based meditation groups
  • Meditation retreats in the non-dual tradition
  • An Indo-Tibetan meditation retreat on Compassion
  • A Zen group
  • A Buddhist 12-Step group
  • A training series with Plant Spirit Medicine
  • A teacher training series in Cultivating Emotional Balance.

 

We also hosted 882 retreat nights for individuals in our seven private retreat cabins (the equivalent of 126 individuals doing a week-long private retreat). While this number is lower than our average due to the shut down mentioned above and more cabins being utilized for our group retreats, it was still a success!

Vajrapani Institute also hosts annual retreats known as Pay-It-Forward retreats. These are offered to anyone who participates. It’s an experiment we started at 2012’s Kopan West- Lam Rim retreat in the spirit of making the Dharma (Buddha’s teachings) freely available to all. In 2018, we hosted 118 people on these retreats and raised $23,750 in donations to keep this program alive and thriving!

We were also blessed with 300 days of volunteer time offered through our work-study program. 

With all of this combined, our occupancy rate in 2018 totaled up to 3,893 people nights! We are filled with deep gratitude for the immense impact 2018 brought.