Single rooms are issued based on availability, and are on a first-come-first-serve basis.
Self-Directed and Long-Term Retreats
Open Dates
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Make time for yourself and your practice in a supportive and peaceful contemplative environment. Entering into a self-directed or long-term retreat allows you to design a program that best meets your needs and schedule. This could be an intensive silent meditation retreat, or it could be a more gentle meditation […]
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction 8 Week Course (MBSR)
with Dr. Maureen Hall
February 5 - April 2, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
This 8 week, 10 session, MBSR course is based on systematic and intensive training in mindfulness meditation and mindful Hatha yoga and their applications to everyday life. Course consists of 8 two-hour weekly classes and one full day retreat. The MBSR curriculum focuses on the experiential cultivation of both formal and informal mindfulness practices as […]
Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness
with Dr. Maureen Hall
February 6 - April 10, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
This 10 week course is an intensive mind training in the Nobel Eight-fold Path and its applications to everyday life. Course consists of 10 two-hour weekly classes and one full day retreat. […]
A Day of Mindfulness
with Dr. Maureen Hall
March 30, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Give yourself the gift of a day of silence and mindful practice. This daylong workshop is open to all beginners and advanced practitioners. It is an opportunity to gain presence, awareness, and insight with the compassionate guidance of an experienced teacher. We will walk mindfully, eat mindfully, sit mindfully and rejuvenate. […]
What is Cultivation? Training and Seminar
with Venerable Pannavati and Venerable Pannadipa
April 13, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
If you are serious about your practice, join us for a profound discourse and discussion. This Chinese Master says merely studying Buddhism is not cultivation. We must cultivate the mind and action of a Buddha to become a Buddha! […]
Blue Ridge Moon: A Mindfulness Retreat for Renewing Body, Mind, & Spirit
with Therese Fitzgerald
April 16 - 20, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Our five days together will be a time to dwell in profound awareness of what renews and rejuvenates our body, mind, and spirit. Supported by the conditions of spring beauty, teachings on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness and renewing our innermost vows, fellow practitioners, solitude and silence, we invite insights and reinvigorate ourselves. The daily program will include sitting and walking meditation, mindful meals, Dharma discussion, mindful movement, meditative work, and personal interviews with the teacher. This retreat, held mostly in silence, is recommended for both beginning and experienced meditators who feel drawn to contemplation and mindful living.
Awakening Joy
with Ronya Banks
April 26 - 28, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Sometimes in Mindfulness or Buddhist practice, one gets the impression that you shouldn't enjoy “joy” or “beauty”. There is nothing further from the truth! Insight/Vipassana meditation practice is actually a path that cultivates genuine happiness […]
Water Fasting Retreat
with Health Team
May 5 - 11, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
"Everyone has a physician inside him or her; we just have to help it in its work. The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well. Our food should be our medicine. Our medicine should be our food. But to eat when you are sick is to feed […]
Detox and Rejuvenate 5 Day Juice Fasting Retreat
with Health Team
May 7 - 11, 2019
Heartwood Refuge
The Juice Fasting Retreat is an oasis where you will be able to draw physical, mental and spiritual refreshment in a peaceful environment. Take time away from the demands of your regular daily life and remain sheltered from the challenges and struggles of the materialistic world. Come experience[…]
Dharmacharya Retreat
with Venerable Pannavati and Venerable Pannadipa
May 17 - 22, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Open only to students in ministerial program
Five Day Residential Mindful Self-Compassion Intensive
with Minded
June 2 - 7, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Dr. Karen Bluth and Laura Prochnow Phillips teach this 5 day RESIDENTIAL intensive version of the evidenced-based 8 week Mindful Self-Compassion curriculum developed by Drs. Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer. Mindful Self-Compassion combines the skills and practices of mindfulness and self-compassion to increase emotional well-being. Mindfulness is the first step—turning with loving awareness toward difficult experience (thoughts, emotions, and sensations). Self-compassion comes next—bringing loving awareness to ourselves. Together, mindfulness and self-compassion comprise a state of warm, connected, presence during difficult moments in our lives.
Awakening Presence
with Emily Horn and Vincent Horn
June 9 - 16, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
On this week-long Awakening Presence Meditation Retreat*, led by Emily Horn and Vincent Horn, you'll have the rare opportunity to dedicate yourself to uninterrupted practice in a community of peers. Over the course of the retreat we’ll work on incorporating all aspects of our being, including […]
Emptiness, Dependent Co-arising, and The Middle Way
with Santikaro
June 26 - 30, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
The Middle Way is the Buddhist approach to spiritual practice. It also describes core Buddhist teachings about dependent co-arising and emptiness. All phenomena occur in dependence on causes and conditions.
Dharma Path of Love
with John Orr
July 18 - 21, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
All of us want to live with ease and we long to be free from suffering. The first teaching that the Buddha offered to us after his awakening describes a path that, when practiced skillfully, liberates humans from suffering. It is called the Eightfold Path and it is beautiful in the beginning, the middle and the end. This is a gradual path of spiritual evolution and progression known as dharma or “the way.” It is a gentle and compassionate way to the release of suffering and to facilitate ones’ ability to live with increasing love and compassion. This is a…
Finding Peace Where You Are: Befriending Your Mind, Accepting Your Emotions
with Lisa Ernst
August 7 - 11, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Difficult, anxious thoughts and emotions are often considered obstacles to meditation and peace of mind. A wiser view is available! Buddha’s path to liberation is designed to help us face the full experience of embodied[...]
The Four Infinite and Divine Dwellings (Appamaññā Brahma-vihāra)
with Bhikkhu Samāhita
August 21 - 25, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Systematic meditation and thus gradual development of Friendliness (Mettā), Compassion (Karunā), Rejoicing Joy (Muditā), and Equanimity (Upekkhā) are 4 of the 40 classic meditation objects taught by the last Buddha Gotama.[..].
Awareness in Sitting Meditation, Movement, and Yoga
with Jeff Collins and Gisela Konrad
September 4 - 8, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
This silent retreat will flow from periods of sitting meditation (on cushions or chairs) to walking meditation to several periods of yoga practice each day. The yoga is grounded in the tradition of viniyoga, a style that is in turn grounded in awareness of breath and the physical movement that flows out of that breath […]
Rebel Saints Meditation Society Retreat
with Rebel Saints Meditation Society
September 12 - 15, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Private Retreat
Insight Meditation Community of Charlotte Retreat
with IMCC
September 20 - 22, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Private Retreat.
Concentration, Jhana, and Breath – 9 Night Retreat
with Shaila Catherine
October 4 - 13, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
This retreat will utilize the breath as the primary meditation object and will encourage the development of meditative skills that lead to deep concentration (samadhi) and insight (vipassana). Daily group instructions will focus on [...]
Cultivating Equanimity & Peace
with Ronya Banks
October 20 - 27, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Considered the “Highest Happiness & Peace” in Buddhism, Equanimity is a liberating quality that can be developed as part of your spiritual practice. During this retreat, we will systematically explore the Seven Factors of Enlightenment and related mindfulness practices[…]
Finding Our Balance Amidst the 8 Worldly Winds
with John Orr
October 31 - November 3, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
During the course of our lives we all experience many ups and downs. The Buddha named eight experiences that we may be familiar with called “The Worldly Winds.” They are: Pleasure and Pain, Gain and Loss, Praise and Blame, Fame and Disrepute. These 8 winds and experiences blow within and all around each of us. No one experiences only pleasure without experiencing some form of physical or emotional pain. Sometimes we experience gain in our lives and at other times we experience loss. People may praise and then on the other hand they may blame us. In our popular culture…
Retreat with Tuere Sala
with Tuere Sala
November 7 - 10, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
SAVE THE DATE! DESCRIPTION COMING SOON!
Dharmacharya Retreat
with Venerable Pannavati and Venerable Pannadipa
November 24 - December 1, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Open only to students in ministerial program
Training the Heart, Lifting Your Voice: From Self-Doubt to Service
with Acharya Christie Bates and Erin Rae
December 5 - 8, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Creative practice is spiritual practice, and because there is a need for light in the world, creativity is generosity. Creatives of all types – artists, writers, singers, speakers – grapple at times with the human experience of fear, self-doubt and toxic levels of self-criticism[…]