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 […]

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…

Social and Communal Harmony (Part 1)

with Venerable Pannavati

November 16, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
This is a day long retreat for local sangha on Social and Communal Harmony covering material in chapters 1-6.

Peace, Love, and Harmony Through Music

with Galen Deery

November 17, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center - Dharma Hall
Heartwood House Concert Series has the honor of hosting Galen Deery as a solo act this fall.  Galen is a singer/songwriter hailing from Easton Pennsylvania, whose songs awaken the heart and gladden the spirit. His beautiful presence and wonderful music make you smile, laugh, and sometimes bring tears to your eyes. His enthusiasm and musical savvy bring a vibration of peace, love, and harmony to the stage. Because of his expertise with looping and other technological wonders he sounds like three or four people in his solos performances. Join us Nov 17 for an afternoon of transformative musical experience that will make…

Dharmacharya IV Retreat & Dharmacharya I & II Reunion

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 Acharya Dr. Maureen Hall

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 14 - 21, 2019
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
This retreat is open to monastics and lay people contemplating monastic life. Over 8 days, we will survey the vinaya (monastic rules), discuss aspects of different lineages, and communal life, learn and practice certain rituals and ceremonies together related to spiritual life, be introduced to prayoga and practice meditation that leads to jhana (attainment) from Theravadan, TNH, Zen, Chan and Tibetan traditions. Practitioners taking novice or bhikkhuni vows, adding additional vows (of same or other tradition) or interested in temporary vows for 8 days only, will be considered. Please complete preliminary application. You will be advised if accepted to proceed…

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…

Master Cleanse Detox Retreat

with Heartwood Health Team

March 3 - 10, 2020
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

March 3 - 10, 2020
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…

Water Fasting Retreat

with Heartwood Health Team

March 3 - 10, 2020
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…

Juice Detox 5 Day Retreat

with Dr. Maureen Hall

March 3 - 10, 2020
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 […]

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

Dismantling Race Through Mindfulness

with Sister Clear Grace

March 19 - 22, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center

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…

A Journey to Peace through Meditation and Mandala

with Cynthia Calhoun

April 10 - 12, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
You live in a world with lots of distractions, stress and anxiety. There is a way to find the calm in the chaos. Knowing how to “fill your cup” through the creative process and meditation can really help you cultivate a sense of peace. During this retreat, while practicing noble silence, you’ll learn about meditation through creating mandalas, guided meditation, silent meditation, and more. You’ll spend time crafting different types of mandalas: with objects, markers, pencils, and in other ways. Learn some lessons that the creative process and mandalas teach and walk away with the tools to find your peace…

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…

From the Heart, In the Body

with David McKay and Christa Rypins

April 21 - 26, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Join us for five days of spiritual practice in the Zen Buddhist tradition, supported by meditation and mindful embodiment practices. We will follow a daily schedule together that will include: Three or four half-hour meditation periods a day Two group discussions per day. Two movement sessions One on one guidance Three vegetarian meals Time to walk, rest, and just be The entire experience will be held in silence, apart from the discussions and guidance. There will be small opportunities for working meditation, and lots of space for reflection and being in nature.

Buddhist heART: Meditation in Motion (Mural Project & Sumi-e Painting)

May 1 - 7, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Discovering the Artistic Spiritual Experience This retreat will include chanting, meditation, survey of Buddhist iconography and technique, and hands on participation and production of a mural including design, surface prep, paint selection and bas relief. We will also spend time learning and practicing the 2000 year old technique Sumi-e. Sumi-e, aka suiboku-ga, Japanese monochrome ink painting, representing the timeless beauty and complexity of the natural world. It attempts to capture the life spirt of the subject. Balance, rhythm and harmony fuse with patience, self-discipline and concentration. It is meditation in motion.    

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.  The retreat is designed for those who are new to meditation, but meditators with experience are welcome to attend to rejuvenate their practice.  Mary will offer meditation instructions, dharma talks, and interviews.  Each day will include periods of sitting meditation, walking meditation, loving-kindness 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!

Compassion DRAFT

with John Orr

August 12 - 16, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center

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.

Re-Wiring for Joy with Deborah Eden Tull and Amma Thanasanti

October 9 - 13, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
Details for this retreat TBD

Jhana Retreat

with Mary Aubry

November 5 - 15, 2020
Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center
This retreat will emphasize the application of the Jhanas (Meditative Absorptions) as part of a regular sitting practice, in the tradition of Leigh Brasington and his teacher Ayya Khema.  The Jhanas are a method of one-pointed concentration taught in the Theravadan Buddhist tradition. The retreat will be held in Noble Silence and will focus on teaching the Jhanas for the purpose of enhancing insight practice.  Several topics for insight practice will be discussed, including Dependent Origination and Emptiness.  Mary will offer instructions, dharma talks, and interviews.  Each day will include periods of sitting meditation, walking meditation, lovingkindness meditation, and Q&A.  This retreat is for experienced…

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