The retreat will start on the afternoon of January 11, 2026. Prior to that, there will be three days of preparation with ample time to do personal shopping in town.

During the retreat, there will be four sessions of Vajrasattva meditation and recitation a day. For the first ten days of the retreat, the four sessions will gradually be extended from an initial 90 to 105 minutes. For the rest of the retreat, each session will last for two hours. The first session usually starts at 5:30 AM and the last session usually ends about 8:00 PM. There will be a group meeting with the retreat leader once a week throughout the first and third months of the retreat where you can get your questions answered and get help to resolve any problems that may arise during the retreat.

The Eight Mahayana Precepts will be taken for three one-month periods for the duration of the retreat. These eight precepts are taken with a bodhicitta motivation to support your purification practice. Please note that one of these precepts involves refraining from eating after noon, due to which participants will only be served breakfast and lunch for the duration of the retreat. The precepts also involve refraining from eating certain foods, such as meat, eggs, onions, and garlic, and refraining from smoking. If you think that the eating restrictions will be a problem for you (e.g., due to a medical condition), please mention this on the application form as any exceptions will need to be discussed with the retreat leader prior to acceptance into the retreat.

For more information on the benefits of the Eight Mahayana Precepts, please read The Unmistaken Method by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, published by Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive (LYWA) and available on lamayeshe.com.

For the entire 1st and 3rd months, participants are asked to keep silence from the end of the last session of the day until the beginning of lunch the next day. Communication is restricted to other members of the retreat, the retreat leaders, and the Kopan office staff. Participants keep strict silence for the whole of the second month of the retreat, refraining even from talking to each other. To support the practice of keeping silence, you must leave your mobile phone with reception from the first day of the retreat until the last.

It is necessary to familiarize yourself with the long hundred-syllable Vajrasattva mantra prior to the retreat in order to be able to comfortably complete the retreat in three months, free of stress. Doing so will make it possible to easily and quickly recite the mantra right from the very beginning of the retreat. Otherwise, the experience of most people is that during the first weeks, the mantra count is very slow, making it difficult to imagine that you will be able to complete the required number of mantras in the time allotted.

Please note that the mantra that is to be recited is the usual long Vajrasattva mantra (i.e., not that of Heruka Vajrasattva). This is the Vajrasattva mantra that corresponds with the jenang that was most often conferred by Lama Zopa Rinpoche and the one that is currently conferred by Khen Rinpoche Chonyi at Kopan Monastery, Yangten Rinpoche at Tushita Meditation Centre, and many other Gelug lamas:

Even having familiarized yourself with the mantra, you will still find that as the retreat progresses your mantra recitation will become even quicker. For this reason, it is rather unusual for someone to not be able to complete 100,000 mantras in the three months.

So please be prepared to not be able to recite the necessary number of mantras in the first weeks of retreat, and do not become concerned or anxious about this. Lama Zopa Rinpoche often stressed that the other parts of the session—the motivation, the lamrim meditation, the prostrations to the Thirty-Five Buddhas, the visualizations, and the accompanying prayers—are just as important and should not be forgotten in the rush to finish the mantras.

We ask people doing this retreat to remember that you have chosen to participate in a group retreat. It is expected that there will be some inevitable personality clashes when living and practicing so closely with others. A big part of this retreat is learning to be relaxed and to give yourself and others the space and support to do the practice at a comfortable level for each person. There are many advantages to doing this retreat as a group, including the support received through sharing the experience with others.

However, if you have considerable experience doing individual tantric retreats and feel confident that you have the necessary self-discipline to do a three-month solitary Vajrasattva retreat, you may want to consider doing that instead of the group retreat, either during the same or a different time period at Kopan or at another suitable location.

Please note that the retreat leader, as well as an experienced former Vajrasattva retreat leader and the Kopan SPC, are available during the retreat if you need to discuss anything. Although much of the retreat will be in silence, please be aware that this does not mean you cannot seek help if and when you need it.