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 […]
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…
A Journey Inward – Exploring the Five Faculties
with Tuere Sala
November 7 - 10, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
This journey towards inward awakening asks more of us than force of will. It is a gradual unfolding of understanding and equanimity. The engine behind this gradual unfolding are the five faculties. The five faculties are faith (or conviction), energy, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom. Together they gradually turn the wheel of dharma […]
Master Cleanse Detox Retreat
with Heartwood Health Team
November 13 - 20, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
The Master Cleanse, also called the Lemonade Diet was first introduced by Stanley Burroughs in the 1950s. He was an early advocate of natural health, and believed in the body’s natural ability to heal itself, as presented in his book The Master Cleanser. People have reported chronic health problems they have suffered with for years vanish after using the Master Cleanse. Why Might You Want To Go On the Master Cleanse? It is well known that people today lead toxic lifestyles. Our foods are loaded with chemicals, the air is polluted, and daily lives are so busy and loaded with…
Fast Mimicking Detox Retreat
with Heartwood Health Team
November 13 - 20, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Fasting Mimicking Detox Heartwood Healing Continuum has adopted the product called Prolon as our fast mimicking detox program as there is al ot of research connected with this product and it is very convenient to use. Prolon is a program that includes soups, snack bars, crackers and drinks that can be consumed over 5 days in order to follow the Fast Mimicking Detox (FMD) as designed by the researchers. This program consists of fairly conventional food, supplements and teas. Benefits of the Fasting Mimicking Detox Enhance the body’s ability to: Enter into a protective and stress resistant mode Trigger autophagy…
Juice Detox Retreat
with Heartwood Health Team
November 13 - 20, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
The Juice Fasting Retreat is an oasis where you will be able to draw physical, mental and spiritual refreshment in a peaceful environment away from the demands of your regular daily life and sheltered from the challenges and struggles of the materialistic world. Come experience the power of this holistic rejuvenation program. This retreat is designed to create better all-round health and relaxation. It will to give you tools to take charge of your own physical and emotional health. You will leave feeling more energized, struggling less with weight problems, with new tools to help kicking bad habits, with the…
Water Fasting Retreat
with Heartwood Health Team
November 13 - 20, 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 your sickness." - Hippocrates "Instead of using medicine, rather, fast a day." - Plutarch Fasting for spiritual and health purposes is widely practiced all over the world, and is still a part of every major religion in the world. Jesus, Buddha, Muhammed and Baha’u’llah all…
Dharmacharya Retreat
with Venerable Pannavati and Venerable Pannadipa
November 17 - 23, 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[…]
Monastic Training/Jhana Meditation Retreat (Open to current monastics)
with Venerable Pannavati and Venerable Pannadipa
December 16 - 20, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
The four jhanas "Quite withdrawn from sensuality, withdrawn from unskillful mental qualities, he enters and remains in the first jhana: rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal, accompanied by directed thought and evaluation. He permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the rapture and pleasure born from withdrawal…. Furthermore, with the stilling of directed thoughts & evaluations, he enters and remains in the second jhana: rapture and pleasure born of composure, unification of awareness free from directed thought and evaluation — internal assurance. He permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the rapture and pleasure…
Entering Into the Divine Abodes with the Tamer of Men and the King of Love
with Venerable Pannavati
December 27, 2019 - January 1, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Through touching the lives and teachings of Siddhartha the Buddha and Jesus the Anointed One, we can experience a unified expression of wisdom, compassion, joy and peace not accessible by mere reasoning alone. If you have felt out of place or uncomfortable as a Buddhist who loves Jesus or as a Christian who has guilt over "leaving God" and seek a path towards reconciling what you know directly to be true, this retreat is for you![...]
Being Beloved Community
with Sister Clear Grace
January 17 - 20, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
We come together this Martin Luther King Weekend to explore “Being Beloved Community” in action. With Mindfulness Meditation practices we will look deeply at how the one is in the all, and the all is in the one. During this retreat, we will focus on reconciliation, transformation and healing and how to bring quantitative change in our lives by the mindfulness practices of walking, eating and sitting meditation, connecting with our ancestors, deep listening, loving speech and the practice of touching the earth.
Self-Directed Meditation Intensive – senior practitioners only
February 1 - March 1, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
This retreat requires you have a meditation plan and daily check-in with a resident teacher after first 3 days. May attend 1 to 4 weeks. Reference required for 2 week+ stay.
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (Course is 9 weekly classes, Tues 6-8pm & 1 Full Day retreat)
with Acharya Dr. Maureen Hall
February 18 - April 14, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is designed to help change your relationship with stress and begin to live a more conscious life in order to make choices and engage in behaviors that increase your vitality, effectiveness, and happiness. Since its inception, the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program has been used with groups around the world as diverse as corporate employees, CEOs, educators, students (grade school through college), people experiencing chronic pain, attorneys, prison inmates, health care professionals, and Olympic and professional athletes--including the world champion Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers basketball teams. In this MBSR course you will learn, or refresh,…
Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness (10 week course, meets Wednesdays 6-8pm),
with Acharya Dr. Maureen Hall
February 19 - April 22, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
This class will deepen your understanding of what it means to live your meditation practice. It will help you acquire skills and modify your lifestyle and attitudes thus developing ways of being in the world that cause no harm. Learning to be a source of joy to yourself and others. It takes time and practice to develop these skills. You wouldn’t expect to play a Beethoven symphony without first having practiced the basics like scales and simple tunes first. Developing any skill worth having requires time, patience and practice. Living a skillful life is the same in that respect. In…
Kindness-Love-Presence
with Ofosu Jones-Quartey
March 6 - 8, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
In this retreat Ofosu will guide us through Dharma concepts and practices that will shows us very clearly that we have the tools to take control of our happiness and help create happiness for others.
Dharmacharya IV Retreat
with Venerable Pannavati, Venerable Pannadipa and Associate Teachers
March 13 - 18, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Open only to students in ministerial program
A Day of Mindfulness: How to care about things without identifying or clinging
with Acharya Dr. Maureen Hall
March 28, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Mindfulness practice, along with kindness, compassion, apathetic joy and equanimity, over time take the suffering (which is always optional) out of the pain, that comes standard with life, so we are then able to experience the richness of life with all its pleasant and unpleasant, and not turn away or wish it other than it is in this moment. Recognizing the intensity of the drama in life and taking it lightly allows us to experience life as a game of chess rather than a football game. Life is not an emergency, it only seems that way. This retreat will show…
Spiritual Practice for a Chaotic World
with Ronya Banks
April 2 - 5, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
“Everybody wants a happy life. This goal is entirely dependent on our inner peace… We are trying to seek a joyful, happy life from the outside — that is a mistake.” - His Holiness the Dalai Lama As spiritual practitioners, we understand that although it is impossible to fully control our outer world, we can cultivate a deep spiritual practice that invites “peace and grace” independent of external conditions. During this retreat, you will be engaging in the ancient Buddhist Vipassana/Insight meditation practices that have brought profound “peace and grace” to multitudes of people. Profound respite and can also be…
The Dharma of Everyday Living: Exploring the Relational and Emotional aspects of Mindfulness
with Deborah Eden Tull and Dave Smith
April 15 - 19, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
The Dharma allows us to open to the truth of our shared and embodied humanity. It provides guidance towards a happiness of being that doesn’t depend on external conditions. Many practitioners find it challenging to bring their Mindfulness practice off the cushion and into the beautiful and messy world of human relationships. Our connection with others can lead to our greatest joy and sense of meaning and purpose. It can also be the source of our greatest suffering and can have tremendous consequences on our emotional life. Our emotions can become destructive if we are lost in the grips of…
Zen Meditation Retreat
with David McKay
April 21 - 26, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Details for this retreat TBD
Awakening the Wild Heart – Memorial Day Weekend Insight Meditation Retreat
with Andrew Chapman, LMSW and Mikey Noechel, MS
May 22 - 25, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
The Buddha taught that the seeds of awakening are deeply rooted in the hearts and minds of every human being. However, it is only through the intentional cultivation of these seeds—generosity, ethical living, and mindfulness—and the uprooting of greed, hatred, and delusion that we can begin to harvest the fruits of our awakened heart. […]
The Center for Koru Mindfulness Train the Trainer Program
with Jennie Dickson-Mills
May 31 - June 4, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
The Koru Mindfulness® program was developed over the course of a decade by psychiatrists Holly Rogers, MD & Margaret Maytan, MD to bring the benefits of mindfulness to the college students they worked with at Duke University’s student counseling center. Koru is a mindfulness curriculum designed specifically to target the developmental needs and interests of young adults. Koru has been empirically tested in a randomized, controlled trial and found to have significant benefits on sleep, perceived stress, mindfulness, and self-compassion. The Center for Koru Mindfulness exists to provide life-changing mindfulness training for young adults, everywhere. Our vision is that young…
Entering Jhana and Perceiving Emptiness
with Bhante Sudhasso
June 11 - 17, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
The Buddha spoke frequently about Jhāna and its importance as a foundation for the development of insight. However, often descriptions of Jhāna make it seem mysterious or unreachable. During this retreat, Bhante Suddhāso will guide us through an understanding of what Jhāna is and practical methods for reaching it; and how to use Jhāna as a basis for developing a direct experience of the impermanent, insubstantial nature of all phenomena
The Power of a Tender Heart: Awakening with Presence, Love and Insight
with Lisa Ernst
June 26 - 30, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
We live in a time when divisiveness and intolerance seem to rule the day. More than ever, we need to find a way to live from our hearts - for ourselves and for the world. Fortunately, even a moment of kindness and compassion can begin to open the door to the healing power of loving presence. [...]
Retreat with Bhikkhu Bodhi
July 16 - 19, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Bhikkhu Bodhi will be leading a retreat here at Heartwood. Details TBD
Mindfulness Retreat for Beginners
with Mary Aubry
July 23 - 26, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
This three-night retreat will be held in Noble Silence. Although there will be periods of discussion and Q&A, for the majority of the retreat students will be in silence. The retreat is designed for those who are new to meditation, but meditators with experience are welcome attend to rejuvenate their practice. Mary will offer meditation instructions, dharma talks, and interviews. Each day will include periods of sitting meditation, walking meditation, lovingkindness meditation, and Q&A sessions.
Teacher in Residence – John Orr
August 7 - 23, 2020
We are happy to host John Orr again as an in-residence guest teacher. He is always a great addition to the Heartwood Refuge family. Welcome John!
Unknow Yourself Through Mindfulness
with Vimilasara Mason John
September 4 - 7, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
We are not fixed! This is the teaching of the Buddha. Everything changes, and that includes all the addictions, compulsive and obsessive behaviours. Together we will explore what the Buddha taught to help free us from our addictive mental states, and how to cultivate freedom from the prison of our minds. This retreat is for anybody who identifies as human. This precious birth has given us the gift of transformation and emancipation of the human condition.
Amma Thanasanti
October 9 - 13, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Details for this retreat TBD
Dharmacharya Retreat IV
with Venerable Pannavati and Venerable Pannadipa
December 4 - 10, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Open only to students in ministerial program