About Dekeling

Dekeling (day-kay-ling) means “a place of happiness”

 

 

Ease and joy is our natural state. Practice helps us reclaim it, by peeling away layers of confusion and habit.

 

A place of ease and joy is our natural home. But over time, we forget how to reconnect to that way of being and to live from that potential. The daily stress of life impacts our well-being, and we, in turn, impact others, often unintentionally spreading confusion and suffering. We disconnect from our direct experience—our bodies, our feelings, and the people we want to love. Trying to accomplish our own happiness, we often increase the suffering of ourselves and others.

 

At Dekeling, by attending community meditations, classes, and (if you wish) one-on-one meetings with a teacher, you’ll learn to expand your capacity for love and fearlessness. Together, we’ll cultivate basic sanity, kindness, and compassion. Using age-old Tibetan practices, your meditation, combined with your everyday life, will become a path to awakening. 

 

Practicing together in this way, we aim to be relaxed, welcoming, and realistic about the challenges of being a spiritual seeker in the modern world. Together, we’ll leverage the power of clarity and compassion to create radical acts of change, starting with our own hearts and minds.

 

Dekeling’s History

 

In 2018, Lama Lekshe had just finished a three-year retreat, and a group of long-time students expressed interest in forming a new practice community. In telling the story, she said, “The idea was delightfully ‘old school,’ and not far off from how many practice groups formed in centuries past. The students that year ranged in age from those in their early twenties to folks in their eighties. Many of them had practiced or worked together before. We sat in a tiny house in Portland, Oregon, sitting elbow to elbow.” 

 

The year before the pandemic, Lekshe moved to Great Vow Monastery, where she took up residency for a year. In October, she was called away suddenly to do home hospice care for her mother in Eugene, Oregon. During that time, Dekeling’s meditation services were streamed from her mother’s home to a group of about 30 students from Ireland to Atlanta, Georgia. After her mother passed away, Lekshe returned to Portland, and Dekeling found a new practice space in a lively neighborhood in NE Portland. Dekeling continues to stream mediation sessions, classes, and retreats from there.

 

Friends in Nepal hand-painted this little “lamas of color” sign
to welcome our guests.

 

Event List

March 2024

The Way of the Bodhisattva (4 of 12)

  • Practice & Study Group

February 8, 2024 - July 25, 2024
DATE: March 21, 2024
TIME: 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm

Ngondro: Vajrasattva

  • Class
  • Ritual & Ceremony

DATE: March 27, 2024
TIME: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

April 2024

Lhatong: Seeing Clearly (1 of 4)

Four Wednesday evenings
  • Practice & Study Group

April 3, 2024 - April 24, 2024
DATE: April 3, 2024
TIME: 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm

The Way of the Bodhisattva (5 of 12)

  • Practice & Study Group

February 8, 2024 - July 25, 2024
DATE: April 4, 2024
TIME: 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm

Lhatong: Seeing Clearly (2 of 4)

Four Wednesday Evenings
  • Class

April 3, 2024 - April 24, 2024
DATE: April 10, 2024

MORE EVENTS >>