On this day retreat we will have the opportunity to gain experience of the special breathing meditation explained by Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche in The New Meditation Handbook. In this meditation, we combine our breathing with recitation of the mantra OM AH HUM, the mantra of all Buddhas. Geshe-la describes the many good results that arise from this practice: “It calms our mind and causes our distracting conceptions to subside. It strengthens the life-supporting wind at our heart, thereby increasing our lifespan and protecting us from premature death. Because we do this meditation with the motivation to attain the good qualities of a Buddha’s body, speech and mind, we are also training in bodhichitta, accumulating merit and receiving Buddha’s blessings. It causes our Buddha seeds to ripen, and it prepares us for Highest Yoga Tantra meditation, making it easy to attain completion stage realizations in the future. Therefore, it is far more powerful than ordinary breathing meditation.”