Windhorse Retreat is at 773 North Bridgewater Road in Bridgewater, Vermont, in a rural Green Mountain setting just west of Woodstock.  It’s in a region of great beauty, serenity and calm.  According to Buddhist teacher Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche (a): 

 

The life force called Windhorse – Tibetan “lungta” or “Prana” in Sanskrit -- is the unlimited energy of basic goodness, inherent wakefulness, the mind of enlightenment.  Basic goodness is the most fundamental secret in any situation and it’s something we already possess.  The mind of enlightenment is the best mind we can have because it’s no longer burdened with the concept of “me.”  That frees space in our hearts from which we can naturally generate love and compassion for others.  Thus enlightenment brings benefit to others and joy to ourselves.

 
We connect with windhorse through yoga practice.  Every day we need to contemplate our own inherent wakefulness.  Then we’ll have the confidence to raise our windhorse and ride it through life with joy and delight.  From that ground we nurture our compassion, our love, our wisdom.  

 

If we feel disheartened or depressed, we can visualize a horse running through a beautiful meadow to stimulate a sense of empowerment, of lightness and levity, as though anything is possible.  That image stimulates an incredibly potent life force in us.  That is windhorse.  
  

(a)  Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche is holder of the Shambhala Buddhist lineage established by his father, the late Choegyam Trungpa Rinpoche.  The passage in quotation marks is paraphrased by others from a lengthy article he wrote, published in the July 2002 Shambhala Sun.