The Essence of Tantra:
Awakening Through Direct Experince
Shambhala Online
Sundays: January 18, 25 / February 1, 8, 15
12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m ET/9 a.p. PT
Register Today
What if the path to spiritual fulfillment didn’t require renouncing the world,
but rather embracing it fully?
What if your body, emotions, and desires weren’t obstacles to enlightenment,
but vehicles to wake up to your life?
For over 5,000 years, Tantra, which originated in India, has offered a radical alternative to traditional spiritual paths. Rather than seeking escape from ordinary life, Tantra recognizes the sacred within everyday experience. It’s a spiritual tradition uniquely suited for those seeking awakening while fully engaged in their relationships, work, and world.
The Essence of Tantra reveals the transformative power of this ancient wisdom, showing how it cuts through the false dichotomy between spirituality and living. During this course, participants will delve into core themes – from non-conceptuality and direct experience to elemental intelligence and cosmic interconnectedness. This exploration grounds abstract spiritual concepts in practical, embodied practice.
What makes Tantra distinctive is its accessibility. Unlike lengthy Tibetan Buddhist practices that demand years of practice and study, Tantric wisdom is immediately available through direct engagement with reality. It invites you to drop below the mind’s constant chatter, awakening to the energetic dimension that pervades all existence. Through meditation, breathwork, embodied elements, sensory awareness, and movement, Tantra teaches you to access wisdom already present within your own being.
In our modern world of constant distraction and fragmentation, Tantra offers something increasingly precious: wholeness. It teaches us to slow down, to savor rather than rush, to recognize divinity in the mundane. Whether through practices that work with the body’s subtle energy channels or simply bringing awakened presence to everyday activities, Tantra illuminates how transformation happens not despite our humanity but through it.
This isn’t the sensationalized Western fantasy of Tantra reduced to sexuality. Authentic Tantra is a comprehensive path of realization, a practice of liberating the mind while fully inhabiting the body and honoring the sacred world around us. For those drawn to understand reality through direct experience rather than abstract concepts, Tantra offers a path home—to presence, connection, and the profound freedom that emerges when we stop fighting our nature and start dancing with it.
Teaching Sessions
My preferred method of teaching is interactive,
embracing the reciprocal nature of authentic communication.
Real questions from real lives allow the material to emerge organically.
The reading gives a conceptual understanding;
sessions will include practices to embody the teachings.
Course Reading
The Essence of Tantra: Awakening Through Direct Experience
This artrle is primary reading, in the Workbook provided at registration.
Unfolding the Mystery of Your Life on the Five Wisdoms Path, by Irini Rockwell
Excerpts from relevant chapters
Join Us
Sundays: January 18, 25 / February 1, 8, 15
12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m ET/9 a.p. PT
Register Today
IRINI ROCKWELL
Five Wisdoms Institute Founder, Director and Principle Trainer
Irini Rockwell, MA is a distinguished author and internationally acclaimed teacher of the Five Wisdoms. With a background in Buddhism, psychotherapy, and dance, she has dedicated over four decades to exploring the essence of who we are.
Irini's pioneering work in the field of human development deftly bridges the gap between esoteric teachings and practical application in contemporary Western contexts.
As the founder and director of the Five Wisdoms Institute, Irini has guided countless individuals through transformative workshops, retreats, and trainings around the world.
Her books, The Five Wisdom Energies, Natural Brilliance, and Unfolding the Mystery of Your Life on the Five Wisdoms Path have inspired readers to discover their inherent wisdom and live more vibrant, meaningful lives.
More About Irini
My Story
One summer day in 1976, I was sitting in a friend’s apartment in Boulder, CO, where we were both assistant teaching at Naropa Institute [now University], a school that focuses on training in the arts, Buddhism, and contemplative psychotherapy. I was reading "Cutting through Spiritual Materialism," written by Naropa’s founder, the Tibetan meditation master Chögyam Trungpa. The following passage caught my eye: “In the Tantric tradition energy is categorized in five basic qualities or Buddha Families: Vajra, Ratna, Padma, Karma and Buddha. Each Buddha family has an emotion associated with it which is transmuted into a particular ‘wisdom’ or aspect of the awakened state of mind. The Buddha families are also associated with colors, elements, landscapes, directions, seasons, with any aspect of the phenomenal world.”
Reading those words changed my life. It led me to a contemplative tradition with an understanding of energy at its core. My immediate connection came from my passion for exploring the dynamic qualities of expressive movement as a dancer and choreographer. I explored human emotions—the heat of love, the strength of anger, the stiffness of pride, the sparkle of joy. So I instinctively knew about the energies of which he wrote. My awareness of these energies began to color my perspective in many aspects of my life, particularly my relationships with people. Why was it that one man brought out my intellectual curiosity and another my physical desire? Why did I feel at ease with one person and anxious with another? Why would I feel powerful in one situation but inhibited and frustrated in another? What was the energetic relationship between myself, these people, and these situations?
Almost 50 years later, I am still at it!
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