Ancestors Welcome Here [Online]
With Ream, Kimber Simpkins and Em Morrison
November 14 - 16, 2025
*For self-identified white people. If you identify as white and are committed to racial justice, land and liberation, this retreat is for you. Registration for this program closes on November 14, 2025 at 5pm Pacific Time. To inquire about joining after registration closes, please contact guestservices@bigbearretreatcenter.org. An Ancestral Healing Retreat for White Practitioners Committed to Racial Justice White people: We need all the help we can get. Who can we be today to change the conditions of our world for the better, to right the wrongs of the past in the present, and to find the way to the future,…
Taking a Larger Perspective in these Transition Times [Online]
With Ayya Santacitta and Kate Davies
November 21 - 23, 2025
This online retreat is open to both new and experienced practitioners. Registration for this program closes on November 21, 2025 at 5pm Pacific Time. To inquire about joining after registration closes, please contact guestservices@bigbearretreatcenter.org. Slowing down - Listening - Re-membering - Engaging In this retreat we will look at what’s happening in our world through the lens of the end of modernity – that time in history characterized by beliefs in limitless growth, colonialism, science & technology, human supremacy and individualism. If we can see what’s happening as necessary and unavoidable, we can begin to let something new be born,…
Belonging and Thriving, Being Your Own Good Friend: LGBTQIA+ Retreat
With Lev Michael Moses and Eve Decker
December 2 - 7, 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 November 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…
Winter Community Builders: Creative Renewal
December 13 - 15, 2025
Rebuilding from Within Voluntary contribution-based pricing, pay at any amount We ask that everyone attend the entire retreat. Please register by November 29th. A retreat designed for connection, relaxation, and creative exploration. Join us this December for our Winter Invitational as we gather at Big Bear Retreat Center to connect with our local SOCAL community, embody rejuvenation through rest and wellbeing activities, and practice resiliency and creativity. This invitational is offered to guests free of charge with the option to offer a contribution to the center at registration. Experience the joy and connection that emerges from a “social emotional…
New Year’s Retreat: Weaving Ancient and New Ways of Being
With Ayya Santacitta and Celeste Young
December 28, 2025 - January 3, 2026
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…
The Sacred Path of Connection, Belonging & Love: A Women’s Springtime Nature Retreat
With Heidi Bourne and Laurie Cousins
March 7 - 11, 2026
Book early and get $100.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Jan 5, 2026.
This retreat is open to both beginning and seasoned practitioners, to all female-identified persons over the age of 18, including LGBTQIA+. Registration closes on February 21, 2026. If joining after this date, please contact us. Together we can bring change to the world, gradually replacing fear and hatred with compassion and love. Love for all living beings. - Jane Goodall We warmly invite you to join us for a spacious silent retreat dedicated to nourishing the connections with ourselves, each other, and the beauty of the natural world. We’ll slow down, soften into stillness, fill our compassionate hearts, and reconnect…
The Embodied Mind: Experiencing the Somatic and Subtle Body
With Jill Satterfield
March 17 - 22, 2026
Book early and get $100.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Jan 5, 2026.
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…
Grounding in the Dharma
With Mary Stancavage, Ian Challis, Valerie Cusson and Jokai Blackwell
March 25 - 29, 2026
Book early and get $100.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Jan 5, 2026.
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…
The Convergence of Wisdom and Love
With Matthew Brensilver
March 31 - April 4, 2026
Book early and get $100.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Jan 5, 2026.
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…
Coming Home to Our Senses
With Gullu Singh, Trudy Goodman, Lienchi (LC) Tran and Gabrielle Hammond (Qi Gong)
April 22 - 26, 2026
Book early and get $100.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Jan 5, 2026.
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.…