This retreat welcomes both beginners and experienced meditators. Registration for this retreat closes on December 21st, 2025 at 11:59pm Pacific Time. If looking to join after this date, please inquire at guestservices@bigbearretreatcenter.org. During this retreat we will come together in community to support each other in consciously letting go of the past and opening to the New Year from a place of stability, ease and the inner freedom we find in deepening our practice. In these uncertain times, old cultural narratives are dissolving and we are called to navigate the world differently. The Four Protective Meditations offer us protection from…

Open to experienced and new practitioners Registration closes on March 3, 2026. If joining after this date, please contact us. In the beautiful landscape of San Bernadino mountains, our 5-day retreat will blend inner and outer nature with the big California open sky. Letting go of needing to do and opening to just be, we’ll deeply explore the physical/somatic and subtle/energetic body. We’ll discover how consciousness expresses itself in physical and subtle forms alongside of more well-known mental consciousness. We’ll experience that our bodies aren’t just transportation for our minds but capable of understanding the wisdom in wordless sensing. Sensing…

Open to experienced and new practitioners Registration closes on March 11, 2026. If joining after this date, please contact us. Buddhist practice offers a path to connect with ourselves and a way to live in harmony with others. This retreat will remind us of the simplicity of the teachings that offer freedom from greed, aversion and ignorance and a path to liberation. An in-person, multi-day retreat is a rare and invaluable opportunity to practice. Coming together, we will cultivate the energy and support that allows the body-mind to find refuge in the kind embrace of Buddhist teachings. It is suitable…

Open to experienced and new practitioners Registration closes on March 17, 2026. If joining after this date, please contact us. For generations, practitioners have stepped away from the intensity of daily life to sit in the quiet of their own hearts. A silent retreat offers us a chance to slow down, listen deeply, and remember what’s always been here. To be mindful of goodness brings love; to be mindful of pain also brings love. This asymmetry is the miracle of mindfulness. As the attention stabilizes, we begin to sense the poignancy of our wish to be happy. In turn, this…

Open to experienced and new practitioners Registration closes on April 8, 2026. If joining after this date, please contact us. Along the path of Dharma practice, we cultivate the habit to connect with the truth of each moment — as it’s felt in the body, seen through the eyes, and heard through the ears of the heart. By doing so, we begin to transform our relationship with experience itself. Instead of resisting, fixing, or fleeing what arises, we learn to meet each moment with curiosity and care. From this intimacy with life as it is, peace and joy naturally emerge.…

Open to experienced and new practitioners Registration closes on June 8, 2026. If joining after this date, please contact us. In this retreat, we will work primarily with the first of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness – mindfulness of the body. The “32 Parts of the Body” meditation, which is part of the first foundation of mindfulness, has rarely been taught in the West; you will be introduced to it from an Insight perspective of the true nature and wonders of the body. This practice has also been used for healing illness and most importantly to help eradicate the erroneous…

Open to experienced and new practitioners Registration closes on July 17, 2026. If joining after this date, please contact us. Beyond the dualities that falsely divide life into two, what awakens within and through us in the fertile space between? How are both meditation and movement/dance devotional practices that liberate us from the realm of concepts and ideas into direct transmission? Through Buddhist meditation, conscious movement and dance, relational practice, and deep time in nature, we will explore the living dharma of The Middle Way. We will journey beyond duality and bring curiosity to the empty space between stillness and…

Open to experienced and new practitioners Registration closes on September 13, 2026. If joining after this date, please contact us. In a culture of pressure and hurry, stillness is radical. On this four-night silent Insight and Lovingkindness retreat, we step out of habit and into presence—learning to stabilize attention and soften the heart. Through mindfulness of the body and the grounding support of mettā, we meet life with less judgment and more compassion. The retreat includes daily meditation instruction, dharma talks, practice meetings, sitting and walking periods, and optional Qi Gong. No prior meditation experience is needed—just a willingness to…

Open to experienced and new practitioners Registration closes on September 27, 2026. If joining after this date, please contact us. This retreat and collective inquiry––a living Dharma laboratory in motion––is the culmination of a year-long Rhizome Fellowship Culture Hack training (toward post-capitalist futures), which is an evolving experiment in weaving Dharma, inquiry, and systemic visioning into a collective field of practice. Rooted in the Sacred Mountain Sangha approach, our days will flow with a rhythm of inner practices in the mornings, like Kuan Yin bowing, insight meditation, chanting, ritual, and Dharma sessions to ground us in silence, awareness, and compassion.…

Open to experienced and new practitioners Registration closes on October 19, 2026. If joining after this date, please contact us. How do we cultivate resilience and connect with inner and outer refuge, especially in times of personal and global challenges? In this silent retreat, we’ll offer Buddhist Dharma and Yoga teachings and practices for settling your nervous system, grounding your energy, and cultivating the capacity to meet life's challenges with grace and wisdom. You’ll replenish your body, heart, and mind with a seamless flow of meditation in movement and in stillness, within a spacious schedule that offers ample time to…