“Considering impermanence, it is never a mistake to renounce outer things in order to give ourselves completely and profoundly to Dharma practice.(…) The three-year retreat is the best way to practice Dharma intensively for three years, without worldly cares or distractions.”
Kyabje Kalu Rinpoche, Luminous Mind (Wisdom Publications)

Rinpoche also states in the same book :
“In Tibet, there were many hermits like Milarepa who gave up all ordinary activity and meditated in caves. This kind of practice is wonderful, but the hermetic tradition has waned as the times have generated. This is why some great lamas such as Jamgön Kongtrül Lodrö Thaye instituted the three-year retreat as a good context for practice. This tradition has arisen out of their efforts.

In the West, the Dharma has just begun to spread. It has been only a few years since I was introduced here, and the door is just beginning to open. Looking at the Western lifestyle, I have noticed hat Westerners are very busy people, extremely involved in the world through their work and very engrossed in their daily activities. It seems to me that practicing in a retreat center would be good for Westerners, since it would enable them to devote themselves completely to practice for three years. They would derive incredible benefits from this. I myself have done this retreat, and I have also served as a retreat master (drüpon in Tibetan), so I am very familiar with its potential ; I think it can be very productive. I started one of the first three year retreat centers in France, ad since then, several other parts of France. Kagyu and Nyingma retreat centers have been founded by other lamas as well.

In Tibet, many people devoted themselves to monastic life, but very few did retreats. Those who undertook three-year retreats did so on their own initiative, out of their own personal motivations. If ordination was a way to get out of the cycle rut of worldly life and to rise above it to some extent, doing a retreat was like taking a further step, making a deep commitment to putting the teachings into practice. Becoming a lama was held in high esteem.
Westerners who chose to undertake a three-year retreat do it out of their own motivation even more so : nobody makes them do it – neither king, president, nor parents. It truly comes from their own aspiration, from their own wonderful inner motivation. Considering impermanence, it is never a mistake to renounce outer things in order to give ourselves completely and profoundly to Dharma practice.

This kind of retreat is the best way to practice Dharma intensively for three year, without worldly cares or distractions. This period offers the most favorable conditions for devoting all the energies of body, seechn and mind to the most important tantric practices : sadhana of the yidams, yogas of Niguma, the Five Golden Teachings, Mahamudra, and so forth. If your are considering doing a three-year retreat in the future, you must prepare yourself well for it. If you can actually follow through on it, it will give extraordinary meaning to your human life.(…)

Even if you do not continue in total commitment to the Dharma once the retreat is over you will still have used all your energy in a very positive pursuit during that time, and that alone is an extraordinary achievement.

A three-year retreat offers the opportunity to get well acquainted with Dharma and with tantric practices. Afterward, we can follow up by doing lengthy solitary retreats and eventually attain buddhahood in this very life.”

Why three years ? Jamgön Rinpoche states :
“All the wisdom energy which circulates during one hundred years equals three years and three fortnights. When all karmic energy is transformed into wisdom energy, enlightenment is attained. This is the reason why it is said that the state of the Buddha Vajradhara is achieved [by meditation practice during a period of] three year and three fortnights” (ibid, Vol. 2, p.640)

The history of the three-year retreat in the form we know today goes back to Jamgön Kongtrul. It is based on the yogic tradition of retreat of the Nyingma and Kagyu lineages. There were four retreat centers at Palpung monastery (Derge, Kham, Eastern Tibet), seat of the Situpas :
- a center for monks doing short retreats (from six months to one year)
- Lhadu which was also the residence of Khyentse Rinpoche
- Drubling, also called Naro Drubkhang, which was devoted to Karma Kagyu practices such as the Six Yogas of Naropa
- Nigu Drubkhang where Shangpa teachings were practiced, including the Six Yogas of Niguma. The latter was located at Tsadra Rinchen Drak, ’the Jewel Cliff which resembles Tsari’ — the sacred site above Palpung Monastery. The site also became Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Thaye’s main residence, where he would write most of The Five Great Treasures, as well as the new seat of the Shangpa Kagyü tradition. It is considered to be one of the twenty-five holy places of east Tibet (Do-Kham), representing ‘the mind aspect of enlightened qualities’. Chokgyur Dechen Lingpa revealed the sacred site in 1859 and both him and Tertön Sogyal later revealed termas from its hillsides. Situ Panchen Chökyi Jungné had founded a retreat centre and monastic residence there in the eighteenth century but, when Jamgön Kongtrul first visited the site in 1842, it was completely abandoned and in ruins. Jamgön Kongtrul restored a small hermitage for himself there and started a personal three-year retreat. He later built a small temple dedicated to Yangdak Heruka, following Chokling Rinpoche’s revealed prophecy and advice, as well as a retreat centre, with the intention of leading three-year retreats in the spirit of the Rimé tradition. The first three-year retreat designed and led by Jamgön Kongtrul started in 1860 with five retreatants. Its three-year retreat cycles continued uninterruptedly until Kalu Rinpoche—the retreat master there since 1941—fled to India before the Chinese invasion in the mid 1950s. The centre was completely destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. It was later rebuilt in the 1980s, according to the guidance of Kalu Rinpoche and Jamgön Kongtrul Rinpoche. 1988 marked the new start of continuous three-year retreat cycles.

In the short life story of Jamgön Kongtrul in Timeless Rapture, Ngawang Zangpo tells us: “In a land where monastic communities could number in the thousands – how large was the retreat center that Kongtrul built, how many Shangpa lamas would he train in each (3-year) retreat? The answer: four. Not four thousand, four hundred, forty, or fourteen. Four. In all, eight persons lived in this small community: a vajra master, five retreatants, a cook, and a woodsman. This, then, was Kongtrul’s vision for the continuation of the Shangpa lineage: four lamas every three and a half years, at most.”

Later, thanks to the great activity of Kyabje Kalu Rinpoche, many three-retreat centers were founded in India and around the world which makes today this tradition very alive.

From the time of Jamgön Kongtrul, the Shangpa lineage has been mainly taught and practiced in the three-year retreat centers. Nowadays, here are a list of the three-year retreat centers dedicated to the Shangpa lineage :

 ARGENTINA : Kagyu Tekchen Choling (Lama Sangye Dorje)

 BRAZIL : Kagyu Pende Gyamtso – under construction (Lama Trinley)

 CANADA : Kunzang Dechen Osel Ling (Salt Spring Island, Lama Tsultrim/Lama Tara)

 ESPAGNE : Dashang Kagyu (Lama Drubyu Tenpa)

 FRANCE :

• Kagyu Ling (Ven Lama Sönam, Ven Lama Sherab)
• Rimay Karma Ling (Lama Denys Rinpoché, French Alps near Geneva)

NEPAL :
 Naro and Nigu Drubkhang (Tenga Rinpoché, Pharping near Kathmandu)

 INDIA :

• Sonada (HE Kalu Rinpoche)
• Mirik (West Bengal, near Siliguri)
• Lava

 TIBET : Tsadra Rinchen Drak

 USA :

• Kagyu Droden Kunchab (West Coast, Lama Lodru Rinpoche)
• Kagyu Thubten Chöling Monastery (East Coast, Lama Norlha Rinpoché)
• Ser Chö Ösel Ling – under construction (Goldendale WA, Lama Michael Conklin)

Total number : 14 with 3 under construction