Practice of 5 Elements

The teachings of the Five Elements help us to feel vitally connected with the world in which we live, and can help purify and balance our emotions and views of ourselves. We will work from the ancient Tibetan teachings on the Elements, as described in the book of Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche Healing with Form, Energy and Light.

Study of and practice with the elements is meant to positively affect our well-being by giving us the tools to bring the elements into balance that underlines health and wholeness in any dimension of experience. It does not take great intuition to know when we are in or out of balance. We all know these experiences. They fall along a continuum from the most disturbed imbalance – psychosis or serious illness – to perfect balance, which occurs only when we can abide in the nature of mind, the Buddha-nature. (…) The idea of balancing elemental energies can be usefully applied to any human function, quality, or activity: health, relationship, spiritual practice, psychological make-up, emotional state, psychical environmental, and so on. Using imbalance of the elements as a primary metaphor, we can understand illness and unhappiness as well as obstructions on all levels of spiritual practice. Balancing the elements then becomes a metaphor for healing, for the development of positive qualities and capacities, and for the elimination of negative qualities.

John Jackson began his training in meditation when he was 19, practicing a variety of methods from pranayama to Tibetan dzogchen. During his studies and explorations he has traveled on pilgrimages around the world  and spent lengthy periods of time in retreat in Triten Norbutse and Menri monasteries in Nepal and India.  Over the past 20 years John has developed close relationships with and received private instruction from His Holiness Lungtog Tenpai Nyima and Yongdzin Tenzin Namdak, the two most senior teachers of the Bön lineage, and Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, the most senior Bön master in the West. He has been teaching meditation courses at Ligmincha Institute and related centers across the United States  and Europe since 2001, including Tibetan Dream Yoga, the Nine Ways of Bön, Integrating Meditation with Daily Life, Healing the Earth – Healing Yourself, Tsa Lung, Tibetan Sound Healing, Awakening the Luminous Mind, and Red Garuda. He is co-leader for the 3 Doors Academy of Europe, an intensive three year program for gaining deep experience in the Tibetan practices of body, speech and mind.

John was a professor at the University of Virginia for 23 years and regularly taught medical student classes and faculty development workshops. His interests include effective teaching methods, curriculum design, and online learning. He received the Dean’s Teaching Award, was a member of the Academy of Distinguished Educators, and regularly presented the results of his team’s educational research in professional journals and at conferences throughout the United States and Europe.

John helped establish Ligmincha Institute  beginning in 1992, organizing most retreats, editing practice materials, and serving on its board of directors until 1997. At the request of Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche in 2001, he helped establish the Chamma Ling Retreat Center of Colorado, a place of solitary retreat in the remote Sangre de Christo mountains of Colorado, and currently serves as a director of that center. John is also active in the planning and initial setup of Lishu Institute, near Dheradun, India. John lives with his wife Cindy and son Barun near Charlottesville, Virginia, where he enjoys gardening, being a father, and spending time in solitude in the mountains.