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
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,…
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
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
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 thinking, we practice creating a whole new…
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…
Deep Belonging: Connecting with ourselves, each other, and the natural world [ONLINE]
With Christiane Wolf, Greg Serpa and Jennifer Cho
June 2 - 8, 2025
This retreat is open to both beginners and experienced practitioners. Registration for the online program closes on June 1, 2025 at 11:59pm Pacific Time. If looking to join after this date, please inquire at guestservices@bigbearretreatcenter.org. On this silent retreat, led in the Vipassana (or Insight) meditation tradition, we will explore how being still and opening our hearts in a supportive environment can connect us back to ourselves and to each other. We are doing this nestled in the beauty of the San Bernardino National Forrest with time to practice outdoors both formally (with sitting and walking meditation) and informally (with…
Deep Belonging: Connecting with ourselves, each other, and the natural world 2025 [On Land]
With Christiane Wolf, Greg Serpa and Jennifer Cho
June 2 - 8, 2025
Book early and get $100.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Feb 1, 2025.
This retreat is open to both beginners and experienced practitioners. Registration for this program closes on May 19, 2025 at 11:59pm Pacific Time. If looking to join after this date, please inquire at guestservices@bigbearretreatcenter.org. On this silent retreat, led in the Vipassana (or Insight) meditation tradition, we will explore how being still and opening our hearts in a supportive environment can connect us back to ourselves and to each other. We are doing this nestled in the beauty of the San Bernardino National Forrest with time to practice outdoors both formally (with sitting and walking meditation) and informally (with hikes…
Opening the Heart, Deepening Wisdom
With Kim Allen and Diana Clark
June 21 - 26, 2025
This retreat is open to both beginners and experienced practitioners. Registration for this program closes on June 7, 2025 at 11:59pm Pacific Time. If looking to join after this date, please inquire at guestservices@bigbearretreatcenter.org Dharma practice can unfold as a journey of both opening the heart and deepening wisdom – these two movements are intertwined, each reinforcing the other. Understanding this, we can sense that at every step of the path there is both heartfulness and freedom. In this retreat, we will explore classical insight practices, highlighting that these are also forms of opening the heart that evoke greater and…
Disentangling the Tangle: Finding Freedom in Relationship with Ourselves, Others, and the World
With Ayya Santacitta and Ayya Santussika
June 30 - July 6, 2025
This in-person retreat is open to all genders. Basic experience in meditation is required. Registration for this retreat closes on June 16, 2025 at 11:59pm Pacific Time. If looking to join after this date, please inquire at guestservices@bigbearretreatcenter.org Working with the Four Establishments of Mindfulness, we will explore how we create entanglements and therefore can free ourselves from these recurring patterns. Turning towards these tangles with kindness and understanding allows the metabolizing and releasing of old habits. As we practice in this way, based on the Buddha’s wisdom, we develop increased clarity and confidence in meeting the challenges of daily…
Shelter from the Storm: Cultivating a Steady Heart
With Beth Sternlieb and Gullu Singh
July 10 - 13, 2025
Book early and get $100.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Mar 11, 2025.
Open to both beginners and experienced practitioners. Registration for this retreat closes on June 26, 2025 at 11:59pm Pacific Time. If looking to join after this date, please inquire at guestservices@bigbearretreatcenter.org The storms affect us deeply on multiple levels of our being. In this meditation retreat we’ll practice with an attitude, approach and meditative techniques which encourage the mind, the body, the heart and the nervous system to calm down. As we calm down we can rest more deeply, resource ourselves more fully and begin to access an intrinsic well-being that is available even when conditions are difficult. This ability…
Mindful Self Compassion (MSC) Intensive
July 20 - 25, 2025
Book early and get $100.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Jan 30, 2025.
This page is for those signed up through CSMSC for the July Intensive. This page will help you in completing your registration for room and board at Big Bear Retreat Center. [link] A MINDFUL SELF COMPASSION (MSC) INTENSIVE BY THE CENTER FOR MINDFUL SELF COMPASSION More information coming soon. SIMPLE YET COMFORTABLE, NESTLED IN NATURE Simple and elegant lodgings to support rest and renewal. Our rooms are uniquely designed to offer comfort, convenience, and simplicity. All of our cabins are surrounded by nature with forest sights and sounds. Lodgings are a short walk from spaces for dining and…
When Awareness Becomes Natural: a Sayadaw U Tejaniya Practice Style Retreat
With Lienchi (LC) Tran and Stephanie Curran
August 9 - 17, 2025
Book early and get $100.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Apr 10, 2025.
This retreat welcomes both beginners and experienced meditators. Registration for this retreat closes on July 26th, 2025 at 11:59pm Pacific Time. If looking to join after this date, please inquire at guestservices@bigbearretreatcenter.org. In this 9-day retreat, we will explore Vipassana meditation in the practice style of Sayadaw U Tejaniya. Sayadaw’s approach is free from rigid forms, influenced by his previous life as a layperson and his interest in adaptable practices. Nonetheless, his teachings are rigorous, emphasizing Right View, Awareness, and a relaxed, gentle, continuous practice attitude throughout the day. You will explore how to create the conditions for awareness to…
BIPOC Community Retreat
With JoAnna Hardy, Devin Berry, Alli Simon and Hakim Tafari
August 27 - 31, 2025
This is a retreat for people who identify as Black, Indigenous, or as a Person-of-Color. Both beginning and experienced practitioners are welcome. Registration for this retreat closes on August 13th, 2025 at 11:59pm Pacific Time. If looking to join after this date, please inquire at guestservices@bigbearretreatcenter.org. Coming together as a BIPOC community, we create a space of ease and support to meditate and cultivate inner freedom. Held in an environment of silence, this retreat provides an in-depth experience of the Buddha’s teachings on mindful awareness, as well as the cultivation of lovingkindness meditation, illuminating a path toward healing and greater…
The Brilliant Weave of the Brahma Viharas and Emptiness
With Lisa Ernst and David Cabrera
August 31 - September 4, 2025
Book early and get $100.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Mar 3, 2025.
Open to both beginning and experienced practitioners. Registration for this retreat closes on August 17, 2025 at 11:59pm Pacific Time. If looking to join after this date, please inquire at guestservices@bigbearretreatcenter.org. Experience the power of an open heart in the expanse of awareness. The Buddha taught that we all have the capacity to abide in the four Brahma Viharas (the divine heart states). These are: Lovingkindness, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy, and Equanimity. If we look deeper, we will see the interplay of emptiness with the Brahma Viharas and how they support each other. Emptiness in Buddhism is the direct experience of…
Love and Rest
With Beth Sternlieb and Matthew Brensilver
September 16 - 21, 2025
Book early and get $100.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Mar 19, 2025.
Open to both beginning and experienced practitioners. Registration for this retreat closes on September 2nd, 2025 at 11:59pm Pacific Time. If looking to join after this date, please inquire at guestservices@bigbearretreatcenter.org We often long for love, both giving and receiving, but the busyness of life and the agitation of our minds do not create the conditions for love to arise. In dharma practice, we find love naturally arises when we rest deeply. When we let go of the dissatisfaction of endless grasping, we experience loving awareness itself. As we do this, we discover what’s been waiting there all along, a…
Cultivating Kindness: A Women’s Retreat of Mindful Self-Compassion through Practice, Writing, and Movement
With Susan Steinberg-Oren, Christine Suarez and Lesley Hyatt
September 25 - 28, 2025
Book early and get $100.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Mar 28, 2025.
A retreat for women and women-identified folks. Open to both beginning and experienced practitioners. Registration for this retreat closes on September 10, 2025 at 11:59pm Pacific Time. If looking to join after this date, please inquire at guestservices@bigbearretreatcenter.org. Through mindful self-compassion, reflective writing, and movement, we will connect with each other and ourselves, cultivating and deepening our capacity to move through our lives with loving awareness. Come together with other women and woman-identified folks to explore practices that help us find compassion and kindness when we face stressful situations, painful emotions, and challenging relationships. Our framework builds upon…
In Wisdom We Walk, In Liberation We Rise: A Women’s Retreat
With Spring Washam and Erin Selover
October 5 - 12, 2025
Book early and get $100.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Apr 7, 2025.
This retreat welcomes all who identify as women, gender expansive, and nonbinary who are nourished in women centered spaces. Open to both beginners and experienced practitioners. A Sanctuary for Women’s Wisdom, Intuition, and Collective Liberation. Join us for a transformative journey at the praxis of wisdom and liberation. We intend to offer practices to tap into the energy of the sacred mother, the deep intuitive knowing, the awakening heart, and both personal and collective liberation. Through Insight Meditation, embodied movement, and earth-based practices, we will explore what it means to walk in wisdom, allowing our intuition to guide us and our…
Sacred Refuge: An Embodied Devotional Retreat in Nature
With Djuna Devereaux and Yong Oh
October 13 - 18, 2025
Book early and get $100.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Apr 15, 2025.
Open to both beginning and experienced practitioners. Registration for this retreat closes on September 29, 2025 at 11:59pm Pacific Time. If looking to join after this date, please inquire at guestservices@bigbearretreatcenter.org Devotion is the expression of our most intimate longing to awaken. Our retreat will tend to this longing through Insight Meditation, mindful movement, and devotional practice. Our days will include intentional time and practice in nature. Devotion begins as attention and deepens through love. Devotion is expressed in the body, heart, and mind as our most intimate longing to awaken. Within the refuge of an integrated experience of Dharma,…
Loving Nature and Finding Joy
With JD Doyle and Andrés González
October 18 - 22, 2025
Book early and get $100.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Apr 20, 2025.
Open to both beginning and experienced practitioners. Registration for this retreat closes on October 4, 2025 at 11:59pm Pacific Time. If looking to join after this date, please inquire at guestservices@bigbearretreatcenter.org This four night retreat will deepen our connection to loving awareness for ourselves and for the earth. Each day will include time to meditate in nature, immersing ourselves in the natural beauty of the mountains and cultivating embodied mindfulness which engages all of our senses. Whether during meditations, listening to the wind in the trees, or gazing at the night sky, we will open to all the joy the…
Embodying The Heart of Listening: A Relational Leadership Retreat for Facilitators, Guides, SpaceHolders, and Therapists
With Deborah Eden Tull
October 26 - 31, 2025
Book early and get $100.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Apr 28, 2025.
Open to both beginning and experienced practitioners. Registration for this retreat closes on October 12, 2025 at 11:59pm Pacific Time. If looking to join after this date, please inquire at guestservices@bigbearretreatcenter.org Listening to Life as it unfolds moment by moment is the essence of meditation. This is a restorative retreat based in deep embodied listening - to ourselves, the earth, one another, and the invisible realm. You will be among not only mindfulness and meditation facilitators, but all who work as changemakers with people in groups or one on one, and are ready for a deeper dive into relational and…
Luminous Darkness: The Power of Embracing the Unknown
With Deborah Eden Tull
October 31 - November 2, 2025
Book early and get $100.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until May 3, 2025.
Open to both beginning and experienced practitioners. Registration for this retreat closes on October 17, 2025 at 11:59pm Pacific Time. If looking to join after this date, please inquire at guestservices@bigbearretreatcenter.org We often think of the darkness as an absence of light, but the darkness–we discover through meditation practice–has its own enlightening power. Darkness reveals the unknown and embodies depth, making space for new discoveries, insight and transformation. This autumn, join Deborah Eden Tull as we take a walk on the dark side, exploring the power of our shadow, our challenges and our adversities to awaken us to new levels…
Befriending Mortality: Living An Awakened Life Through Mindfulness of Death (Maranasati)
With Nikki Mirghafori
November 2 - 6, 2025
Book early and get $100.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until May 5, 2025.
Open to beginner and experienced practitioners. Previous silent meditation retreat experience strongly recommended. This retreat invites you to stop running from mortality and instead harness its wisdom to align more fully with your deepest values. In Western culture, death is often an avoided topic, despite being an inevitable part of life. Through the ancient Buddhist practice of mindfulness of death (maranasati), we can become more present for the fleeting, miraculous nature of our lives, cultivating compassion, wisdom, and gratitude. Reflecting on our impermanence frees us from clinging and fosters deep peace. By embracing our finitude, we can embody kindness for…
Resting in Metta: Cultivating an Awakened Heart
With Celeste Young and Dawn Scott
November 11 - 18, 2025
Book early and get $100.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until May 14, 2025.
Open to both beginners and experienced practitioners. Registration for this retreat closes on October 28, 2025 at 11:59pm Pacific Time. If looking to join after this date, please inquire at guestservices@bigbearretreatcenter.org Join us in the beauty of the San Bernardino mountains as we relax into the four qualities of an awakened heart: Lovingkindness (Metta), Compassion (Karuna), Appreciative Joy (Mudita) and Equanimity (Upekkha). Allowing ourselves to be held in this beautiful and secluded retreat setting, we will learn to slow down and attune to the fresh simplicity of our present moment experience. Combining the heart qualities with mindfulness, we will ease…
Belonging and Thriving, Being Your Own Good Friend: LGBTQIA+ Retreat
With Fresh "Lev" White and Eve Decker
December 2 - 7, 2025
Book early and get $100.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Jun 4, 2025.
This in-person retreat is open to both beginning and experienced practitioners who self-identify as LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex, asexual, and beyond). Registration for this retreat closes on October 19, 2025 at 11:59pm Pacific Time. If looking to join after this date, please inquire at guestservices@bigbearretreatcenter.org Please join us for a place of refuge, with a focus on belonging, self-compassion and mindfulness. We will cultivate our capacity to be our own good friends. We’ll experience meditation, music, movement, silence, community discussions and more. We will bring together periods of silence and inner practice with teachings on cultivating mindfulness…