The View from the Dark

​David Germano addresses dark retreat as it sits within the larger world of Dzogchen scholarship and practice. Drawing on decades of work on the Nyingma and Bön lineages, he brings the historical, textual, and philosophical context that makes darkness practice intelligible to a contemporary audience without flattening its complexity.

​David Germano is Professor of Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the University of Virginia and executive director of the Generative Contemplative Initiative. In the past, he was founding director of the Tibet Center and Contemplative Sciences Center at UVA, and remains the director of the Tibetan and Himalayan Library, one of the largest international digital initiatives in Tibetan studies.