Founded by Tsultrim Allione and David Petit in 1993, Tara Mandala was created to foster spiritual and ecological awareness. It is a place for those who wish to explore and stabilize profound states of meditation in short or extended retreats in hermitage cabins that offer panoramic views as well as solitude and sanctuary. We also offer group retreats in Buddhism and other innate wisdom traditions. We have numerous retreat cabin for solo retreats, a beautiful new Tibetan style residence building with spacious comfortable rooms, deep soaking bath tubs, a community building with kitchen, dining room, bathrooms, bookstore and all our offices. Our 12,000 sq ft.  3-story mandala temple and library will be completed by the end of 2008.

In a chaotic and stressful world, Tara Mandala offers refuge and renewal. The experience of retreat in nature brings the gift of peace to the individual and ultimately those practicing deep meditation in retreat affects the fabric of the world.

Tara Mandala was inspired by the vision of a Western retreat center that Tsultrim had while living in the Himalayas as a Buddhist nun in the early 1970’s.  She felt the need to create a space for the reemergence of the sacred feminine and for people to go deeply into meditative practice through long and short term retreat. Tsultrim believes that people reaching deep levels of meditative awareness have a profound effect on humanity.

While the West developed its advanced outer technology, the Tibetans were developing inner technology. Tara Mandala was established to foster the development of this inner wisdom for the benefit of all beings, much like retreat centers in Tibet.

Tara is a female Buddha of compassion who represents both profound meditative experience and active engagement in the world. Symbolically, the mandala is a kind of architecture of the awakened psyche. To experience the phenomenal world as an integrated mandala of compassion is Tara Mandala.

"If a person goes in search of a silent and tranquil place, and applies the practice, their qualities will without doubt become infinite. Someone who directs themselves in such a direction will accumulate a benefit far superior to that of the one who makes offerings to the Buddhas as numerous as sand of the river Ganges."
-Moon Torch Sutra

Visit the Tara Mandala Website for more details, photos, and registration options.