Everyday Awakening: Open Essence, Unceasing Radiance

Everyday Awakening: Open Essence, Unceasing Radiance is a two-night Dzogchen meditation retreat at Drala Mountain Center in Red Feather Lakes, Colorado, led by Peter McEwen. It is written for experienced practitioners who already know moments of openness, clarity or nonduality, and who have noticed how easily they contract again into familiar struggles and identity dramas. The retreat draws on Tibetan Buddhism and Vajrayana, with pranayama, Tibetan yoga, shamatha and vipashyana.

What to Expect

The central question is not how to gather more experiences of openness, but how to look at our investment in ignoring what is already present. Dzogchen offers this reversal, and the retreat explores it through the practice of immediacy. Confusion, vulnerability, contraction and the feeling that something is wrong are treated as expressions of the path rather than obstacles to it. This is not a path of transcendence. It is an invitation to take part consciously in the full range of human experience.

The retreat begins with check-in at the Guest Services Cabin between 2:00 and 5:00 PM, followed by an opening session, orientation, and an evening sitting with an introduction to the teaching. The second day opens with pranayama and Tibetan yoga, then a shamatha session, a teaching on openness within relative experience, afternoon vipashyana practice, and a discussion on emotional and contemplative development. The final morning starts with early meditation, moves into Dzogchen pathwork and closing teachings with an integration discussion, and ends with departure by 12:30 PM.

Discussions also cover bringing self-care strategies up to date and the relationship between contemplative and therapeutic work. The retreat takes up the observation that contemplative, emotional and ordinary adult capacities do not always develop together. Someone with thirty years of meditation can still feel twelve years old in an argument, and that gap becomes material to work with. Much of the work happens in relationship, since our deepest strategies tend to show up when we are seen, misunderstood, challenged or needed.

About Peter McEwen

Peter McEwen is the founder of The Field, where he teaches embodied contemplative practices for meeting intensity, vulnerability and contradiction without withdrawing from ordinary life. He has practiced for more than thirty years, mainly in the Tibetan Buddhist traditions. His teachers include Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, Lama Pema Dorje Rinpoche, Tulku Orgyen P'huntsok and Bhaka Tulku. He has also worked for years with psychotherapist Bruce Tift on the relationship between contemplative practice and Western psychology. Before founding The Field in 2024, he spent two decades in technology and international development. His teaching brings Vajrayana into direct conversation with modern life.

The Setting

Drala Mountain Center sits in Red Feather Lakes, Colorado. Guests choose from several kinds of lodging, and all options include meals and drinks. Meals can be vegetarian, vegan or gluten-free.

- Off campus: commute from your own home, an Airbnb or nearby camping.
- Car camping: primitive spots in the Rigden parking lot. The vehicle must be self-contained, and tents or other camping gear cannot be set up.
- Platform tents: single or double, 12 by 14 feet, with twin beds, bookcases and a clothes rack, near a bathhouse. Available late May to early September, so not during this retreat.
- Dormitories: two gender-segregated rooms for up to seven people each, with bathrooms and showers down the hall.
- Monk rooms: private indoor rooms with bed, bedding, closet, large window and desk, using a shared bathroom.
- Single and double rooms: more space, a dresser and closet, and an attached bathroom with toilet, sink and shower.
- Lodge junior suites: queen bed, desk, dresser, closet, sitting area and a private bath with tub.

Extra nights can be added at a 50 percent discount.

Before You Go

This retreat is designed for people with substantial contemplative practice and some familiarity with states of openness or nonduality. It is taught in English. Tuition covers teaching sessions, guided meditation, all meals and drinks, and access to the retreat grounds, with lodging charged in addition. Transportation to and from the center is not included.