This retreat features the extraordinary partnership of two renowned leaders in contemporary spirituality.

Shiva Rea and Lama Tsultrim will teach sacred sensuality through Tantric Yoga and meditation. This retreat explores the union of skillful means, the masculine, and wisdom, the feminine, as the heart of the mandala, inspiring bliss and emptiness, through moving deeper into intimacy by connecting with the subtle body.

Centuries of disconnected sensuality has resulted in sexual experience dominated by habit, desire and fear of deep intimacy. Tantra is continuity of awareness, and works with all the senses to wake up and create a non-dual relationship with the phenomenal world. Whether one is solo or with a partner, Lama Tsultrim will initiate us into the exquisite Yab-Yum mandala through inner consort practice within the matrix of the five Buddha families. Shiva Rea and Demetri Velisakis will offer ways of embodying the primordial union of Yab-Yum in natural and sublime forms of yoga sadhana. Participants will experience an embodied connection to their sexual energy as the creative force of union within themselves, their partner, and the world.

Day two will include the Global Mala Ritual from 10-1 and will be open to the public. This celebration unites the global yoga community in a collaborative practice for peace based on the confluence of the fall equinox and UN International Peace Day.

Fees: Sliding scale fees allow participants to pay according to individual means. Your payment above the low end directly benefits our scholarship fund.
Double: $1,175 - $850
Queen Double: $1,445 - $965
Queen Single: $1,560 - $1,075
Camping: $650 - $425
Suggested Dana: $100 - $200

Accommodation descriptions can be found here.

Sustaining Sangha discounts range from 10%-20% based on your membership level and are calculated at registration.

Detailed information about retreats at Tara Mandala
Travel Information (booking flights, shuttles, hotels)
Download registration form (PDF)
Register securely online: 100% of course cost due at registration

Shiva Rea, M.A. is a yogini firekeeper, sacred activist, and leading innovator in the evolution of vinyasa flow yoga integrating the tantric bhakti roots of yoga, Krishnamacharya’s teachings and a universal, quantum approach to the body since she began teaching twenty years ago. She leads retreats and pilgrimages worldwide and has served as a creative catalyst to bring community together including Yoga Trance Dance for Life, Moving Activism for 1,008,000 Trees, Yogini Conferences and the worldwide Global Mala Project.

Lama Tsultrim Allione, author and international teacher, founded Tara Mandala in 1994. Inspired by the vision of a Western retreat center while living in the Himalayas in the 1970s, Lama Tsultrim founded Tara Mandala with her husband David Petit, where she is now the spiritual director and resident teacher.

Lama Tsultrim was one of the first American women to be ordained as a Tibetan nun in 1970 by the 16th Karmapa. At the age of 26, after four years as a nun, she returned her monastic vows, married, and raised a family of three. Lama Tsultrim earned a Master’s degree in Buddhist Studies and Women’s Studies from Antioch University. She is the author of Women of Wisdom, a groundbreaking book on the lives of great female Tibetan practitioners.

Lama Tsultrim also authored the recently published Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict, which connects the knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism with the modern psyche, addressing major cultural issues and the roots of our suffering. This National Bestseller is based on Lama Tsultrim’s pioneering technique using five steps to nurture the parts of ourselves we usually fight.

Lama Tsultrim has for many years focused her teachings on the lineage of Machig Labdrön, the 11th century Tibetan yogini who founded the Chöd lineage. In 2007, while leading a pilgrimage to Tibet, she was recognized as an emanation of Machig Labdrön by the resident Lama of Zangri Khangmar (Machig’s monastery in Tibet). In 2009 she was selected by an esteemed committee of scholars and practitioners to receive the international Outstanding Woman in Buddhism Award given in Bangkok, Thailand.

Lama Tsultrim’s teachings arise from the blessings of her many wonderful Tibetan Buddhist teachers, her 40-year dedication to the Buddhist teachings, and her experience as a Western woman.