The Tibetan Buddhist Center of Philadelphia and The Philadelphia Meditation Center are happy to announce a Five Day Silent Retreat with Barry Kerzin.  In Barry's words, "Five days will give us some time to 'settle in' to our hearts and deeper more peaceful minds." 

Monk, practitioner, teacher and medical doctor.   Barry Kerzin, MD (Venerable Tenzin Choerab) completed his B.A. at the University of California at Berkeley majoring in philosophy and received his medical degree at the University of Southern California.   Later, he was an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington.   He was ordained as a Bikkshu by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Bodh Gaya after nineteen years of study and meditation.  (Biography courtesy of the Philadelphia Meditation Center.)

Arrival is Wednesday evening, May 26 between 6 and 9 pm, and the retreat ends on Monday, May 31 (Memorial Day) in the late afternoon.  In order to help maintain a strong focus, we are only accepting people who are able to attend all five days.  If someone cannot attend all five days due to health problems feel free to discuss with Bill Stauffer (stauffew@yahoo.com).  Commuters will be accepted if they agree to attend the full program on all five days.

This is a Silent Retreat.  Compassion and Wisdom will be the central themes, with an emphasis on the middle way approach to reducing our grasping.  There will be an early morning Yoga class or Tai Chi offered each day followed by breakfast.  Then the formal retreat schedule will run from 09:00 AM to 09:00 PM daily.  Each day will include ample time for silent sitting.  Details and a daily schedule will be worked out gradually. 

The retreat will be held at the Blue Hill, which is adjacent to Ridley Creek Park at 2425 North Providence Rd., Media, PA 19063.  The house includes many bedrooms, lots of room to roam and a wonderful yard. 

A cost of  $275 covers expenses only, including food, and Barry's domestic airfare.  In addition there is a suggested but optional donation of $125 to help support the teacher and the sponsoring Centers, for a total suggested donation of $400.  As always, please contact Bill Stauffer (stauffew@yahoo.com) if circumstances would make such a donation difficult.  We don't want to turn away serious students because of finances. 

Barry Kerzin received his BA in philosophy at UC
Berkeley amidst an anti-war culture. He then trained
in medicine at USC and completed a residency in Family
Medicine at the Ventura County Medical Center in
California. Seven years of private medical practice in
Ojai, California deepened his experience of human
suffering.  He then pursued academic medicine as an
Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at the
University of Washington School of Medicine. He was
intellectually challenged, but spiritually bereft.

Illness and death were powerful influences early in
life. His own childhood life-threatening illness
strongly influenced a career in medicine. The death of
his mother and wife early in life prompted an intense
spiritual quest for meaning. A year long sabbatical
was spent in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Living in a
monastery receiving instruction from extraordinary
meditation masters, his life changed course.

In the Seattle area he further studied and meditated
with the yogi Gen Lam Rimpa whom he then followed back
to Dharamsala, India which became home, now for the
last 19 years.  In Dharamsala he taught research
methodology and conducted research into the efficacy
of Tibetan Medicine for high blood pressure.  A year
later he returned to studying, meditating, and
teaching Buddhism.

After fourteen years of short and long meditation
retreats, His Holiness the Dalai Lama ordained him as
a Bikkshu, a fully ordained Buddhist monk.  Over the
last nine years he has been privileged to provide
medical care to three great meditation masters during
their dying days. All three stayed in meditation
called tuk.dam, or clear light, for days to weeks
following clinical death. Their bodies remained fresh,
supple, and warm. An atmosphere of serenity and
meditation surrounded them. When their meditations
were completed and their consciousnesses departed, the
bodies rapidly decayed.  Warmth, freshness, and
flexibility quickly disappeared. Copious amounts of
watery and blood-like fluids poured from the nostrils.
Two of the yogis had their bodies dried and preserved
in salt as holy sacred objects of worship.

Barry continues meditation and teaching Buddhism and
Science in India, the United States, and Japan.  A
book on Buddhist madyamaka is in process.  In tandem
his 19 years of charitable medicine continues.

In 2005 and 2006  Barry had the privilege of
participating in the neuroscience meditation research
with Richard Davidson, and Antoine Lutz, in Madison,
Wisconsin. He participated in similar research at
Princeton with Jonathan Cohen and Brent Field.  The
two worlds of medicine and meditation continue to draw
closer.