Ken McLeod offers a rare, in-depth exploration of chö, the Tibetan practice of “cutting through” fear, fixation, and identity. This retreat focuses on working directly with the emotional and energetic patterns that drive reactivity—what the tradition calls “demonic obsessions.” “Whatever you protect from the practice, you will become. It will take you over.” In chö, nothing is left out.

In this retreat, Ken McLeod and Gail Gustafson guide participants through a series of direct, embodied inquiries into presence, perception, and personal truth. Rather than offering answers, each session invites you to explore the questions that animate your practice—and to discover the treasure of experience itself. With equal parts clarity, humor, and depth, Ken and Gail illuminate how real change begins in the space before action.

Ken McLeod examines the subtle ways ideology creeps into spiritual practice and obscures direct experience. Through stories, meditations, and lively exchanges with students, he explores how wisdom arises—not from fixed views—but from resting in experience and responding with awareness and compassion. The result is a penetrating look at what it means to live and practice with integrity in a complex world.

In this retreat, Ken McLeod guides participants through the full arc of Chenrezi practice, from foundational principles to the subtle refinements of visualization and mantra. Combining ritual, story, and direct instruction, he brings Vajrayana to life as a path for uncovering the lived experience of awakened compassion in every aspect of being.

Ken McLeod presents a comprehensive and experiential journey into the heart of mahamudra, one of the most direct and profound approaches to meditation in the Tibetan tradition. Ken draws from texts such as Clarifying the Natural State and Lamp of Mahamudra,  reframing this classic material in plain, contemporary language, free of jargon and cultural overlay. Each session builds on the last, exploring themes such as the nature of mind, the dynamics of attention, the role of boredom and resistance, and the unfolding stages of practice—from stability and simplicity to one taste and non-meditation. With humor, clarity, and deep personal insight, Ken guides listeners toward an embodied, moment-to-moment experience of what we are and how life actually unfolds.

In this mahamudra retreat Ken weaves together traditional texts such as Aspirations for Mahamudra and Milarepa’s Song to Lady Paldarboom with practical guidance. He explores struggle as resistance to experience, encourages reflection on essential questions about life, and introduces deep listening as a way of engaging fully with experience. He demystifies Milarepa’s advice on practicing without limits, distortion, or hesitation, emphasizes the importance of openness, clarity, and stability in cultivating awareness, and explores ground, path, and result as a framework for the unfolding of mahamudra practice as it transforms how we experience life.

Ken McLeod presents a practical and experiential approach to the four immeasurables—equanimity, loving-kindness, compassion, and joy—drawing from multiple Buddhist traditions. Through guided meditations, deep inquiry, and lively exchanges with students, each session explores how these qualities emerge when we turn toward experience instead of away from it. These teachings invite a shift in how we meet ourselves and others, revealing the transformative power of an open and present heart.

In this retreat, Ken McLeod and Jeff Bickford offer a deep, embodied exploration of how power functions in our lives and practices, especially in relation to presence, intention, and internal conditioning. Through guided exercises, evocative storytelling, and group dialogue, participants learn to recognize power not as dominance, but as the ability to stay present and act clearly in the midst of complexity and challenge.

In this retreat Ken McLeod guides participants into a direct and often unsettling encounter with the reality of death. Drawing on stories, meditation practices, and subtle shifts in perception, he shows how opening to the inevitability and unpredictability of death becomes a path to clarity, compassion, and freedom.

In this retreat, Ken McLeod explores what it means to live with an unfettered mind—one that is open, responsive, and able to meet experience directly. Through clear, practical instruction and vivid examples, he shows how attention, understanding, and technique come together in everyday life. The teachings invite a deep kind of courage: to rest fully and to let no part of your life remain untouched by practice.

In this class, Ken McLeod invites students into a direct and sometimes disorienting encounter with the Diamond Sutra, using daily aloud recitation and in-person dialogue to shift attention from conceptual understanding to lived experience. Rather than explaining the sutra, Ken helps participants feel how its repetitive contradictions interrupt habitual mind and open a different kind of knowing. Over time, students discover the sutra isn’t something to figure out—it’s something that works on you.

Ken McLeod guides students into a profoundly personal approach to spiritual practice, emphasizing clarity, honesty, and direct experience over fixed methods or beliefs. Drawing from classical texts and contemporary insight, he presents tools and inquiries—like the Five Whys and “How can I experience this and be at peace at the same time?”—to help students stay present with whatever arisesA Trackless Path 16 – A…. “Don’t try to figure anything out. Don’t try to make anything happen. Relax, right now, and rest,” Ken says, echoing Tilopa’s six words and the heart of this pathless way.

In this unstructured retreat, Ken guides experienced meditators through the subtleties of practice and awakening. Exploring themes such as energy transformation, mahamudra, and the clarity of direct experience, it provides practical tools and profound insights to deepen meditation and navigate the complexities of life with presence and equanimity.

In this retreat, Ken McLeod explores how reactive patterns—rigid, repetitive, mechanical processes—distort perception and reinforce the illusion of a separate self. “Once a pattern starts to run, you have no awareness,” he says. Beliefs, he adds, keep these patterns in place: “One of the effects of beliefs is they prevent you from seeing what actually is.”

In this retreat, Ken McLeod presents chö as a practice that cuts through the conceptual overlays we impose on experience—what he calls “the thickets of thinking.” Through visualization, ritual, and raw attention, he shows how to meet suffering and disturbance without relying on beliefs or emotional strategies. “I know from my own practice,” says Ken, “when you actually encounter your anger or your desire head on, that’s actually pretty frightening, and many of you have expressed the same thing.”