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Mahamudra
Cycle of Four Years of Teachings
Residential Retreats with Carlos de León
Third Year
Arachova, Greece 8-13 July 2025
Mahamudra Third Part: Tantra Mahamudra 2
Mahamudra challenges us to take a fresh view of the world. It is a meditation tradition within tantric Buddhism that points to the nature of awareness itself, elevating our ordinary perception to a level of wholeness.
In this view, all experiences arise from a mind that is naturally vast, empty, and luminous
Tantra Mahamudra, also known as Mantra Mahamudra, is one part of the three levels of Mahamudra
In the context of Tantra Mahamudra, mudra refers to union and maha refers to the nature of this union as fully pervading all phenomena.
Emphasizing the union of bliss-emptiness, Tantra Mahamudra, includes practices, with the three basic elements of the subtle vajra body—nadi, prana, and bindu.
Realization is achieved mainly through the practice of the “6 Yogas of Naropa”
This year we will work with the second half of the 6 yogas:
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Yoga of the Illusory Body: The illusory body of self-liberated attachment and aversion, to discover and experience the real nature of our body and all existence.
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Yoga of the Clear Light: To understand the true nature of our mind and awareness.
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Yoga of the Dream States (Dreaming and Deep Sleep): To realize the hidden function of our mind and energy, enabling us to be free from all types of blockages, illusions and negative emotions.
We will also study a form of Dzogchen Shitro:
Zhitro is the name referring to a cycle or mandala of 100 peaceful (zhi) and wrathful (khro) tantric deities which represent the purified elements of body and mind. These hundred peaceful and wrathful deities are believed to manifest to a deceased person following the dissolution of the body and consciousness in the intermediate state, or bardo, between death and rebirth.
This year, (as in every year of this Mahamudra teaching) the practice of Chakrasamvara will be tought
The Chakrasamvara Tantra, was composed in Northern India in the late 8th or early 9th century and is one of the most important Mother Tantras emphasizing female deities, like yoginis and dakinis. Mother Tantra practices focus more on clear light mental activity and blissful awareness of emptiness as the immediate cause for achieving liberation.
* This retreat is designed so that everyone can participate, regardless of their level in meditation and is addressed to those who want to connect more deeply with themselves and evolve consciously.
‘Is space anywhere supported? Upon what does it rest?
Like space, Mahamudra is dependent upon nothing;
Relax and settle in the continuum of unalloyed purity,
And, your bonds loosening, release is certain.
Gazing intently into the empty sky, vision ceases;
Likewise, when mind gazes into mind itself,
The train of discursive and conceptual thought ends,
And supreme enlightenment is gained’.
*Excerpt from Tilopa’s Mahamudra Song