Upcoming course · Mar – May 2026
Through breathwork, gentle yoga, and interoceptive attention, this session introduces the inner body as a felt space of knowing. Darkness practice using sleep masks or light isolation provides the incubating ground for this work.
This course examines the relationship between embodied experience and dark retreat — the practice of prolonged immersion in total darkness.
In the tantric view, the inner body is a space of wisdom that offers direct access to primordial knowing, or gnosis. From the perspective of somatic meditation, the body is also the space where our felt experience of self-grasping, suffering, and release takes place. As the great Indian yogi Tilopa sang, “Here in this body are the sacred rivers: here are the sun and moon as well as all the pilgrimage places. I have not encountered another temple as blissful as my own body.”
Dark Retreat deals with darkness as a space of the body. In the dark, there are no objects of sight, and ideally sound is also greatly diminished. One of the most palpable results of this sensory deprivation is the highlighting of the soma, the sense of the body. A natural churning and unfolding takes place in the dark, and the strata that compose our sense of self and world are peeled away. This discloses a rawness of identity and sensing that can be unsettling, healing, and insightful. Once the more substantial layers of habit fall away, the boundaries between the inner and outer — between the physical body, the subtle body, and primordial space itself — become more transparent, and at times absent.
Curriculum
We start with the historical and doctrinal context of dark retreat across the Bön, Nyingma, and broader Tibetan traditions, then look at how Western contemplative and somatic frameworks read the same material. The aim is to give you a vocabulary precise enough to describe what you encounter in your own practice.
Topics include the role of imagery and visualization, the relationship between sensory withdrawal and clarity, and how the lineages treat darkness not as absence but as a positive condition of mind.
Each week we focus on one principle drawn from Tummo and Dzogchen practice and apply it to the conditions of darkness. We treat the body as a primary site of knowing, the breath as a regulator of attention, and visualization as a way of working with the symbolic codes that shape experience.
You will receive guided sequences for breathwork, gentle yoga, and interoceptive attention; instructions for using a sleep mask or light isolation; and a structure for short, repeatable darkness sessions you can fit around daily life.
Course details
Runs March 25 – May 27, 2026 on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Guided meditation and instruction Tuesdays, 5:00–6:30 PM MST. Individual practice and Q&A Saturdays, 10:00–11:00 AM MST.
All sessions are recorded and available on the course platform, plus pre-recorded tutorials and print resources.
A sleep mask for darkness practice. Affordable options work well; you don't need anything specialized.
Connect with fellow participants in our online community spaces. We learn by teaching one another.
Anyone with curiosity and grit. No cultural or religious affiliation with Tibetan traditions is needed.
A teacher in the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition who has spent years in formal retreat and training under lineage masters. He guides the core arc of the course, holding the doctrinal context of dark retreat alongside the practical work of staying steady in the dark.
His teaching is unhurried and precise, with a gift for translating classical instruction into terms a contemporary practitioner can actually use.
An author and scholar-practitioner whose work bridges dream yoga, dark retreat, and the art of dying with contemporary neuroscience. He is Resident Contemplative Scholar at the Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies and the author of nine books.
In this course he joins for guest teachings on the nighttime practices — what the lineages ask of us when the lights go out.
A scholar of Tibetan Buddhist literature and contemplative traditions whose research spans Dzogchen, tantra, and the history of the Nyingma school. He brings the textual and historical depth that grounds the practices we work with.
His guest sessions situate dark retreat within the broader sweep of the tradition — where it came from, and why it was held as it was.
Lectures and interviews from our instructors.
Andrew Holecek speaks at TEDx Boulder on the healing and restorative power of darkness as a total reset for the nervous system.
Watch →
David Germano and Michael Sheehy join Andrew Holecek to discuss the history, diversity, and modern relevance of dark retreats.
Watch →When you join the Dark Retreat course, you will be with people who aren't just seeking tools; they are testing their lives as vessels for clarity, embodiment, and freedom. We will meet the common challenges that arise for serious practitioners.
The work isn't maintaining states. It's noticing that we keep mistaking the self for something to manage, idealize, improve, or accept. This course invites a slower move: learning to stop treating the self as an object at all.
As long as we treat identity as something to manage or repair, we reinforce the split we're trying to heal. This course offers a way to stay with contradiction without collapsing it into a story or fixed self.
Breath and visualization help expand your capacity to stay with what is hard to hold. These methods train a nervous system that can hold charge, clarity, and contact without defaulting to collapse or dissociation.
When insight feels distant or stale, this course reawakens imaginal practice. Not as fantasy, but as a precise way to engage the architecture of self: breath, form, sensation, and the symbolic codes that shape experience.
We don't override or analyze. We enter into relationship with embodied immediacy — imaginal strategies for meeting difficult states with radical kindness, turning anxious feelings into doorways instead of threats.
If your practice feels fragmented or stale, this course helps you root it in a coherent, sustainable rhythm through breath, image, and awareness. Not just impactful, but alive — methods you can inhabit.
Yes. Every Tuesday session is recorded and uploaded to the course platform within 24 hours. Saturday Q&A is recorded as well, with timestamps so you can find the moments most relevant to you.
The Tuesday session at 5:00 PM MST lands at midnight in most of Western Europe. The Saturday session at 10:00 AM MST is 6:00 PM CET, which works for most participants. Recordings are available for anyone who prefers asynchronous practice.
Tuesdays 5:00–6:30 PM MST for guided meditation and instruction. Saturdays 10:00–11:00 AM MST for individual practice and Q&A.
No specific background is required. The course assumes ongoing personal practice in some form, and a willingness to work with breath, imagery, and sustained attention. The Sanskrit and Tibetan terms are introduced as we use them.
Sessions build on each other, but the structure is forgiving. Recordings, notes, and the community space are designed so you can catch up after a missed week without losing the thread.
Honest answer: it can stir things. Darkness practice tends to highlight what was already there. The course is paced so that disclosures happen with support, and there is room each week for individual questions. If you have an active mental health condition, we ask that you check in with your clinician before enrolling.
An entry into the vivid grammar of dark retreat. Cultivate somatic immediacy and nervous system stability while investigating the historical dramas that shape identity. These patterns are not bypassed; they are made workable.
Key features
For practitioners ready for close guidance and tailored refinement. A high-contact container for those who wish to stabilize visualization practice, fine-tune energetic posture, or garner personal feedback. Four seats are available.
All of Practitioner, plus:
For students with genuine financial need. Includes full access to the course, all recordings, and community support via The Field Discord and Circle. Private sessions and direct messaging are not included. Designed to offer dignity, not discount.
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