Mudra Training
is a method of mind/body training that draws inspiration from meditation master Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche's early education in Tibetan monastic dance. The exercises combine intense physical training with focused sensory awareness to unlock our inherent freedom and create a radical shift in our understanding of the mind/body relationship. Mudra Institute is exploring applications of this work in performing arts, and other fields such as health care and media. For more information on Mudra Training, click here.

To read the 12/14/05 article in the Bellingham Herald, click here.

NOTE: The 10 Day Deep Training (below) has been cancelled due to lack of enrollment. We will try to run the program next year, with better promotion. Please contact us if you're interested in attending.

10 Day Deep Training
with Craig Smith
Bellingham, Washington
July 23rd-Aug 1st 2009

Introduced originally as theater exercises, Mudra Space Awareness is a yogic mind/body meditation practice developed and introduced by the Vidyadhara Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in the early 1970s. Inspired by his education in Tibetan Monastic dance, the exercises combine intense physical training with focused sensory awareness to unlock fixed mind, and reveal inherent space in the relationship between mind and body.

The Vidyadhara introduced Mudra practice before he formally conferred vajrayana/tantric teachings to his American students. This practice accessed the qualities of Dzogchen and Mahamudra that dissolve distinctions between the sacred and profane aspects of experience. Also, the body is one of ego’s main “nesting grounds.” If we can relate directly with the body, the mind naturally opens.

Mudra has been applied both as an adjunct to formal sitting meditation, and increasingly as a means for developing meditation in action. Craig Smith’s approach to Mudra points towards how to make life in complex modern situations into meditation practice, allowing stress itself to be transmuted into compassion, awareness and fearlessness.

The 10-day Deep Training is open to all students. Upon successful completion of the program, students will receive certification from Mudra Institute, and be available for more advanced programs. Approved experienced students will be allowed to enter a teacher’s training track and receive certification. Please ask if you’re interested in this track.

Craig Smith is now living and teaching in Asia full time. This will be his only program in North America. In order to keep Mudra Space Awareness alive, he has devised this special program in which he can convey his core understanding of this unique and potent practice.

Price: $950
Note: this does not include food or accommodations. We will arrange billeting if possible with local sangha members for those that desire that. If there is enough interest in the program, we can rent rooms at Western Washington University for approximately $30/day.

Director and founder of Mudra Institute, Craig Smith was one of Trungpa Rinpoche's early students. He first taught Mudra at Naropa Institute in 1974, has taught many mudra retreats over the decades since, and has contemplated its applications to meditation in action as a professor at the Kennedy School of Government, and most recently as an advisor on the impacts of technology upon spirituality to King Rama IX of Thailand.

To register, or for further questions, please contact Greg Heffron: programs@mudrainstitute.net