2025 Summer Retreat (Week 2): Strengthening, Balancing and Healing our Life Force with Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and honored guest, His Holiness, the 34th Menri Trizin, Lungtok Dawa Dhargyal Rinpoche, spiritual head of the Bön tradition of Tibet

Life Force and Soul Retrieval are ancient and powerful practices from the Yungdrung Bön tradition of Tibet that restore and replenish our positive qualities and energies.

Throughout our lives, challenging or traumatic experiences can diminish our life force, or vitality, and joy for living each moment as it comes. We may only lose a small piece of our life force, but the loss of energy can endure the way a few poor night’s sleep weakens our energy and focus for several days after. With deep trauma, we can experience a loss of soul, where we lose the ability to see a purpose to our life, become anxious or depressed, or even become ill.  

The rituals of Life Force and Soul Retrieval can help:

Heal Past Trauma: Soul and life force retrieval can assist us to recover parts of the soul that have dissociated or become lost due to traumatic events. By reintegrating these lost parts, it heals emotional and spiritual wounds.
Restore Our Wholeness: The process is seen as a way to restore a person's sense of completeness and wholeness, which enhances our overall well-being and balance in life.
Increase Vitality and Energy: Bringing back lost soul parts, or life force, revitalizes us, increases energy levels, and improves our enthusiasm for life.

Participating in life force and soul retrieval rituals can bring many  benefits to one’s quality of life. They can help us feel more grounded and emotionally stable, as it can resolve our feelings and provide emotional clarity. By reclaiming lost aspects of our life force, we experience a stronger sense of personal empowerment and self-awareness, leading to improved decision-making and confidence. Life force and soul retrieval can be a profound spiritual experience, enhancing an individual's spiritual connection and understanding, and opening pathways to deeper personal insight.  

This very special summer retreat includes practices from the Bön tradition that can call back the lost, stolen or dissociated aspects of ourselves back for greater wholeness and for self-transformation. We will also practice simple, powerful techniques to cultivate and sustain one’s daily life-force energy The focus will be on ways that we can personally connect to and restore our life force-energy. 

In the mornings, His Holiness, the 34th Menri Trizin, Lungtok Dawa Dhargyal Rinpoche will teach on soul retrieval visualization, theory and practice (from the Longevity Practice of Lama Tsewang Rikdzin). In the afternoons, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche will draw on a variety of texts and practices to help us cultivate greater vitality, energy and joy in daily life. While Rinpoche will select specific practices based on what he sees being most beneficial for attendees, he is likely to include further teachings on Soul Retrieval, breathwork, movement, and guidance for our overall wellbeing, such as on sleep, exercise, and our relationships to food. 

On Saturday morning, July 19, His Holiness the 34th Menri Trizin Rinpoche will conduct a full Soul Retrieval ritual for all present, in-person and online. Participants in life force and soul retrieval practice often report many benefits in their quality of life. They may feel more grounded and emotionally stable after the ritual, as it can resolve unresolved feelings and provide emotional clarity.
 

We invite those who are registering for only the second week of the summer retreat to attend the Soul Retrieval ritual on July 19.  (Your accommodations at Serenity Ridge will begin the night of July 19, so if you are traveling from a distance and need accommodations for the night of July 18, you’ll need to make those separately. We will supply a list of nearby accommodations for you to consider.) 

The first full retreat day will begin on July 20th