This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:


social justice white aware retreat mindfulness meditation ancestral healing

Ancestors Welcome Here

With Ream, Kimber Simpkins and Em Morrison

December 3 - 8, 2024
*For self-identified white people. If you identify as white and are committed to racial justice, land and liberation, this retreat is for you. Healing Practices For White Practitioners Committed to Racial Justice In a container of silent and non-silent practice we will explore healing, and the action we can take to end injustice in the world, with the support of our wise and loving ancestors, the Earth and all our relationships. We all come from people who lived in interdependence with each other and connection with the Earth.  Welcoming and honoring ancestors is an ancient spiritual practice found in many…

Saturday Sangha at Big Bear Retreat Center (December 2024)

December 12 - 15, 2024
Big Bear Retreat Center
Please plan to attend the entire time. Join us for a invite-only gathering of the Saturday Sangha (and friends) meditation group. A chance to gather in community in the beautiful SoCal mountains of Big Bear. We'll come together for a light retreat schedule, with partial moments of silence throughout the day (typically mornings), and a chance to practice deeper together in nature. This is accessible to all levels of practice, and a great fit if it's your first retreat. Your Stay with us Includes: A private bedroom in a shared retreat cabin (up to 3-4 rooms), with wifi, a kitchen,…
deborah eden tull enrique collazo meditation retreat vipassana new years 2024 dharma zen dance

Awake in the New Year

With Deborah Eden Tull and Enrique Collazo

December 30, 2024 - January 4, 2025
A Dharma & Dance Retreat The New Year is a powerful threshold. Buddhist traditions have long emphasized the importance of setting clear and conscious intentions in our spiritual life and engagement in the world. In this New Year’s retreat you will be invited to listen deeply, reflect, restore, and create new possibilities. You will be guided through a unique journey of embodiment – bridging dharma and dance, stillness and motion, personal and collective awakening. Registration closes December 23rd at 11:59pm Pacific Time   Grounded in Buddhism and acknowledging the gravity of the times we face, we will seek to cultivate compassion, clear-seeing,…

The Sacred Path of Connection & Belonging: A Women’s Springtime Nature Retreat

With Heidi Bourne and Laurie Cousins

March 5 - 9, 2025
Book early and get $100.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Nov 30, 2024.
Early bird discounts extended to November 30th! The in-person Women's Springtime Nature Retreat is open to both beginning and seasoned practitioners, to all female-identified persons over the age of 18, including LGBTQIA+. Gather with a group of women for a restorative, spacious and nourishing retreat as winter turns to spring. Over five days and four nights we'll connect with ourselves, each other, and the natural world as we renew and reclaim our innate strength to inhabit our lives with creativity, trust, compassion and wisdom. Drawing on the perspectives of Buddhist practice, everyday mindfulness, and the wisdom of the natural world, our silent retreat includes meditation throughout the day,…
monthlong meditation retreat kittisaro thanissara

Being Dharma: SMS and BBRC Month-long Residential Retreat 2025

March 13 - April 12, 2025
This in-person retreat is open to experienced practitioners by application only. This page is for all those that have been accepted into the program to register and submit a deposit.  Being Dharma, the monthlong residential retreat, is presented by Sacred Mountain Sangha and Big Bear Retreat Center. If you have any questions regarding the application process, please email info@sacredmountainsangha.org. For more about the retreat, visit the full description here. ACCESSIBILITY We are committed to accessibility. Big Bear Retreat Center has faith in the power of belonging and generosity. Please review our FAQs for more detailed information on accessibility to our campus…

Ethics and Love in Interpersonal Life [Online]

With Matthew Brensilver

April 16 - 20, 2025
A dharma program with Matthew Brensilver, open to both beginners and experienced practitioners. *5-day Retreat (in-person & online) + 6 week course* We live in a web of mutuality; the interpersonal realm is where the rubber meets the road in our spiritual practice. Our relationships – personal and professional – act like a magnet, pulling both our goodness and our pain to the surface. How can we draw on dharma principles and practices to enrich our interpersonal lives? How can others serve as mirror for our inquiry into ourselves? The Buddhist tradition provides ethical guidance: lives founded on goodness, sensitivity…

Ethics and Love in Interpersonal Life [On Land]

With Matthew Brensilver

April 16 - 20, 2025
A dharma program with Matthew Brensilver, open to both beginners and experienced practitioners. *5-day Retreat (in-person & online) + 6 week course* We live in a web of mutuality; the interpersonal realm is where the rubber meets the road in our spiritual practice. Our relationships – personal and professional – act like a magnet, pulling both our goodness and our pain to the surface. How can we draw on dharma principles and practices to enrich our interpersonal lives? How can others serve as mirror for our inquiry into ourselves? The Buddhist tradition provides ethical guidance: lives founded on goodness, sensitivity…

Six Week Program: Ethics and Love in Interpersonal Life [Online]

With Matthew Brensilver

April 24 - May 29, 2025
Zoom (details shared over email)
A Six Week Integration dharma program with Matthew Brensilver *available for all those that attend the in person and online April retreat* Please ensure you are registered for the April 16-20, 2025 retreat first, this program is only available for those attending the retreat. In-person and Online options available. Dates for the program are as follows: In-person and Online Retreat: (must attend all dates) April 16th –  20th, 2025 Online Integration Sessions via Zoom: (please plan to attend all sessions) April 24th: 7pm – 8pm PT May 1st: 7pm – 8pm PT May 8th: 7pm – 8pm PT May 15th:…

Simplicity and Stillness: Cultivating the 5 Spiritual Strengths [Online]

With Celeste Young and Devon Hase

April 24 - 30, 2025
This online retreat is open to both beginners and experienced practitioners. During this weeklong spring insight meditation retreat, we will learn to slow down and attune to the fresh simplicity of our present moment experience, rest in stillness, and connect with the heart's inner capacity for healing and freedom. We will be exploring the cultivation of the 5 spiritual strengths or the 5 spiritual faculties that the Buddha taught: cultivating mindfulness, confidence and trust, persistence, concentration, and wisdom to support the development of our meditation practice. We’ll tend to the heart and mind with compassionate mindfulness and strengthen our connection…

Simplicity and Stillness: Cultivating the 5 Spiritual Strengths [On Land]

With Celeste Young and Devon Hase

April 24 - 30, 2025
Book early and get $100.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Nov 30, 2024.
Early bird discounts extended to November 30th! This in-person retreat is open to both beginners and experienced practitioners. During this weeklong spring insight meditation retreat, we will learn to slow down and attune to the fresh simplicity of our present moment experience, rest in stillness, and connect with the heart's inner capacity for healing and freedom. We will be exploring the cultivation of the 5 spiritual strengths or the 5 spiritual faculties that the Buddha taught: cultivating mindfulness, confidence and trust, persistence, concentration, and wisdom to support the development of our meditation practice. We’ll tend to the heart and mind…

Coming Home to Our Senses [Online]

With Trudy Goodman, Gullu Singh and Gabrielle Hammond (Qi Gong)

May 15 - 20, 2025
This online retreat is open to both beginners and experienced practitioners. Along the path of dharma practice we make it a habit to connect to the truth of each moment as experienced in the body and through all the senses. By doing so, we can effectively reduce anxiety and confusion, making room for peace and joy.  Meditation can also help balance our nervous system, moving us from fight, flight or freeze to rest and digest. This is profoundly healing. Not only do we learn to notice the habit of getting lost in troubled thinking, we practice creating a whole new…

Coming Home to Our Senses [On Land]

With Trudy Goodman, Gullu Singh and Gabrielle Hammond (Qi Gong)

May 15 - 20, 2025
Book early and get $100.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Nov 30, 2024.
Early bird discounts extended to November 30th! This in-person retreat is open to both beginners and experienced practitioners. Along the path of dharma practice we make it a habit to connect to the truth of each moment as experienced in the body and through all the senses. By doing so, we can effectively reduce anxiety and confusion, making room for peace and joy.  Meditation can also help balance our nervous system, moving us from fight, flight or freeze to rest and digest. This is profoundly healing. Not only do we learn to notice the habit of getting lost in troubled…

Entering the Silence of Recovery

With Vimalasara Mason-John and Kevin Griffin

May 22 - 25, 2025
This in-person retreat is open to both beginners and experienced practitioners. All recovery paths are welcome, whether Twelve Step, Recovery Dharma, Eight Step Recovery, substance, process, or relationship-oriented. Join us for this unique meditation retreat combining traditional Buddhist practices with recovery and healing.  Primarily conducted in silence, the retreat focuses on insight/mindfulness meditation, with additional interactive exercises, lectures, and meetings exploring ways that Buddhism and a recovery program can complement each other. The emphasis will be on bringing mindfulness to all our activities, whether in formal meditation, movement, speaking, listening, or eating. Participants will practice Noble Silence outside of the…
Contact Us

Connect with us at Big Bear Retreat Center.