Datun: A Month-Long Meditation Retreat
“According to the Buddha, no one can attain basic sanity and basic enlightenment without practicing meditation. … Without that, there is no way out and no way in.” (Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, The Path is the Goal)
This intensive shamatha-vipashyana meditation retreat, inspired by meditation master Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche offers the opportunity to develop a strong relationship with the practice of mindfulness-awareness meditation. The month-long datun retreat provides a space of simplicity and clarity rarely accessible in our ordinary world and is also a means to apply the teachings of the Buddha in our everyday lives.
During the time of the Buddha, practitioners gathered together seasonally to work with the meditation techniques he taught. These instructions, given 2,600 years ago, crossed the Himalayas to Tibet and are now practiced in countries around the world. We are delighted to help return this tradition to the land of its birth.
A full practice environment, the datun daily schedule typically goes from 7 AM to 8 PM. The program consists of sitting and walking meditation, regular individual meetings with meditation instructors, dharma talks, chants, silent meals, physical exercise, work time, and free time.
Most of the retreat will be in silence and restricted to functional talking, so that mindfulness of speech becomes part of the practice. The retreat will be led by students of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.
For registration, kindly fill this form-
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc3hrCmZwSjm8Y5tybrWKkjORGVAoei6PfdqkHMa6jdUrUBVw/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=116960699273138684899
Meet your instructors-
Valerie Lorig
Valerie Lorig, M.Ed., LPC, has devoted more than five decades to the study and practice of Buddhism. Since 1973, she has trained under the guidance of respected teachers including Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche. Valerie has taught and led meditation retreats throughout North America, Mexico, and India. She serves on the faculty of Naropa University where she teaches courses in Buddhism, Mindfulness, Somatic Psychology, and Trauma Studies. As a Licensed Professional Counselor in Boulder, Colorado, she integrates contemplative psychotherapy with Buddhist principles, offering a grounded and compassionate approach to healing.
Leandra Ziegler
Leandra Ziegler is the editorial director of the Chögyam Trungpa Digital Library and teaches at the annual Profound Treasury Retreat. Born to students of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, she has been practising and studying the dharma for 22 years, and has coordinated and co-directed datuns, month-long meditation retreats. Inspired by Trungpa Rinpoche’s dharma art teachings, she also leads creative movement workshops exploring dharmic themes through the body.
Tashi Colman
A student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, who sat his first datun more than forty years ago, Tashi was Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche’s secretary from 2013 to 2023. He still sees datun as one of the best and most powerful foundations of all Buddhist practice. For more than twenty years, he also worked on holistic progress measures in Nova Scotia and Bhutan and is the author of What Really Counts: The Case for a Sustainable and Equitable Economy (Columbia University Press, 2021).
Ken Einhorn
Ken Einhorn has been a student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche since the late 1970’s. He sat his first datun in 1980 and attended the three-month Vajradhatu Seminary with Trungpa Rinpoche in 1982. After retiring in 2019 from a 40-year career in live television news production, he’s been able to turn his attention towards study and practice. Ken was an instructor for Datun at Deer Park in 2024 and Buddha Pāda in 2025. His journey on the Buddhist path continues as a student of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.
Alana Ziegler
Alana Ziegler grew up in the Shambhala Buddhist community and has been practicing meditation for over fifteen years. She has a background in youth engagement and facilitation, and has helped design and run Buddhist-inspired youth programs in China, Thailand, and India. She has organized and taught community-based arts programs, working with recycled materials and stained glass. Currently she lives in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Pallavi Deshmukh
Pallavi is a dharma student in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Inspired by the teachings of her main teacher, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, she enjoys integrating the Buddhist view into everyday life through expressive arts, meditation, and daily activities. A certified dance/movement therapy practitioner and visual arts facilitator, and trained in Buddhist counseling, Pallavi conducts one-on-one online therapy and counseling sessions, as well as offline workshops.
Asha Pillai Balsara
Asha started her career as a management consultant and facilitator in the corporate and Non-Profits. Her work involved training in areas such as management effectiveness, leadership, team building and personal effectiveness. She also worked with students as a career counsellor.
She has a Post-Graduate in personnel management and is a certified MBTI Practitioner. She is currently the Executive Director of WCCL Foundation. In the foundation, her major area of work and interest has been integrating and highlighting the Indian Mind Traditions in the various courses of the foundation and bring it back to the daily life of people in simple and practical ways.
She met Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche in 2006 and, under His guidance and along with her team, has engaged in various dharma activities in Pune. She is a visiting faculty at the University of Pune for the “Applied Mahayana Buddhist Psychology & Ethics Course”. She lives in Pune, India, with her husband Zubin and son Amay.
Suruchi Choksi
Suruchi is a Mumbai-based artist and transformational coach. She grew up and studied Business in Kolkata. She looks after the programming, communication design and administration of the Buddha Pada Institute in Kalimpong. Suruchi serves as a Trustee on the Board of Siddhartha’s Intent, under Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche and Nalanda Foundation, under the aegis of Mingyur Rinpoche (Tergar India). She also co-runs Mesh Foundation, an NGO in Mumbai that works in the fields of cancer treatment, education and helping those in distress. Suruchi constantly endeavours to integrate the timeless essence of the dharma into daily life. And she loves to have fun.
Bruce
Bruce began his studies of Buddhism in the mid-seventies under the Tibetan North American Master Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Under his guidance, Bruce was trained as an instructor in both shamatha/vipassana and ngöndro practice. He also completed training as a Buddhist and Shambhala educator.
In the early nineties, he began acting as a student of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche. In 2010, Bruce was named an instructor within Siddhartha’s Intent under the direction of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.
Barbara Stewart
Barbara Stewart has been studying Buddhism since 1976, when she enrolled in the poetry classes at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and began meditating. She became a student of Chogyam Trungpa, and later, of Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse. She has been a meditation instructor for at least five datuns and taught Buddhist classes at the New York Shambhala Centre. She taught essay writing in New York and Sharjah in the UAE, media studies at Sherubtse College in east Bhutan, and ESL at Chokyi Lodro Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Chauntra, HP. She now lives in Halifax and is studying for an MA degree in Women and Gender Studies at St. Mary’s University there.
Deepa Thakur
Deepa Thakur is an Indian Student of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.
Health and Wellbeing Team:
Cydney Kawamura
Cydney discovered Dharma after a life crisis at the age of 38 in 1998. Her journey included a year of Zen meditation, then taking refuge in 2000 with HH Jigdal Dagchen Rinpoche and practicing Chenrezi meditation (Buddha of Compassion) at the Sakya Monastery of Tibetan Buddhism in Seattle for 7 years. She met Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche in 2006 and completed a 3 year Vajrayana group retreat in Australia under his direction. She has been a Siddhartha’s Intent instructor since 2017. Her focus is helping fellow seekers of truth with the foundational practices of Buddhism. She completed a full Datun in Nova Scotia in August of 2025 and the experience filled her with gratitude. She spent 36 years as a nurse in various areas in the hospital & clinic settings before retiring in 2022. She is delighted to serve as the health and wellness resource coordinator in the upcoming datun at Deer Park.
Lori
Lori met Trungpa Rinpoche in 1978. She sat two datuns before attending a three-month seminary in 1982 with Trungpa Rinpoche. Lori has worked as a nurse and a teacher while raising three children with her husband, Ken. Lori has been a student of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche since 2017. She recently staffed two datuns in India and is looking forward to returning once again this year.
Participation Requirements
Participants may attend either the entire four-week retreat or attend the first two weeks. Preference will be given to participants who commit to the full datun. In order to create a supportive practice environment, participants will not be admitted after the datun begins.
There is no fee for the program itself, but you will need to make a 30% deposit of the cost of your accommodation and meals at Deer Park. Donations to support Datun and help cover expenses are greatly appreciated.