Liberation Spirituality: A Dharma Gathering for Our Times
With Thanissara, Andrés González, Yong Oh, Djuna Devereaux, Kareem Ghandour and emiko yoshikami
October 11 - 17, 2026
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. Afternoons will open into interactive inquiry, healing modalities, and creative processes exploring how contemplative practice can inform strategies for engagement and cultural transformation in this time.
Through this gathering we will integrate the learnings of our 2025/26 Culture Hack training and implementation through the unfolding work of Liberation Spirituality, a shared inquiry into how the Dharma responds to the converging crises of genocide, fascism, and climate collapse, while envisioning pathways of justice and regeneration––ways of being that re/member our belonging to one another and to the living world.
Our intention is to help shift the window of discourse: from paralysis and despair toward embodied, emergent participation. Together, we’ll articulate the narratives, frameworks, and curricula that can guide us, as Dharma and spiritual practitioners, sanghas, and movements, through this time of profound transition; bridging a multiplicity of perspectives and practices into a greater coherence that honors difference while cultivating collective strength.
By the time we meet at Big Bear Retreat Center, many of us will have been working together within the Rhizomic field through a year-long 2026 initiative at SMS cultivating new ways of collaborative practice, learning, and informing our engagement and activism. This retreat offers a space to harvest those insights and anchor them in real-time Dharma embodiment.
We warmly invite you to join us for this week of deep practice, reflection, and co-creation through listening, healing, imagining, and relational participation from the heart of Liberation Spirituality.
GENEROSITY: Retreat Costs and Fees
Registration fees for this retreat support the cost of developing and offering BBRC programs, which include lodging, meals, and staff compensation. Teacher compensation is not included in your registration fees. We price fees to make programs as financially accessible as possible.
As part of this tradition, many meditation teachers (including the teachers of this retreat) offer their teachings without set fees or compensation. As a practice of generosity from the heart, participants are invited to offer “teacher dana” (donations-generosity) to the teachers at the end of the retreat. It is encouraged but not required. Learn more about dana here.
Is cost a barrier? Nobody is turned away at Big Bear Retreat Center due to finances. We ask that financial assistance be prioritized for those who self-identify as BIPOC, hold marginalized identities, or are in financial need. For more information, please contact us at guestservices@bigbearretreatcenter.org.
SIMPLE YET COMFORTABLE, NESTLED IN NATURE
Accommodations
We offer several lodging choices nestled in nature for each retreat.
Meals
Our meals are freshly prepared to support your retreat experience.
Preparing for your retreat
We offer several resources and information to best help you plan your time on retreat with us.
Getting to BBRC
We have several resources to support your travel. Visit Getting to BBRC & Rideshares and Shuttles for more.
FEEL WELCOME AND INCLUDED: A PLACE TO BELONG
Our intention is to be as accessible as we can, even in ways that we may not be aware of yet. We hope this is a space of inclusivity where people feel welcome and held. For us, it is a practice of consistent attunement, presence and care to our community. However you identify – race, gender, sexuality, disability, mental health, and so on – it is our wish to meet your needs for belonging.
Please consider this about our environment:
– The center is on a hill with outdoor walkways between dining, gathering, and residential spaces.
– We are located at an elevation of 6,500 feet altitude in a ski town in the mountains of Southern California.
– We experience weather of all four seasons.
– We are located about 2 hours from Los Angeles and near 3 major airports. Learn more about getting here.
– We have a commitment to everyone’s mobility needs. Please contact us about ADA accessibility.
Visit our Planning Your Retreat page to learn more about accessibility and other resources. Contact us if we can support ahead of time.
HEAR MORE ABOUT BIG BEAR RETREAT CENTER
Big Bear Retreat Center is exceptional in every way. The accommodations are outstanding, food exceptional, staff very responsive and helpful and the teachers are always so loving and knowledgeable. Just a top notch retreat experience!! – Sheila
I love Big Bear Retreat Center. It’s my dharma home away from home. Everything about it – staff, teachers, food, accommodations, setting – is exceptional. A true gift to the community!!
Big Bear Retreat Center is indeed a refuge. A safe space to open your heart. – Laura
Teachers & Facilitators
Thanissara (she/her) is Anglo-Irish from London. She started Buddhist practice in the Burmese school of U Ba Khin. She was then inspired to ordain after meeting Ajahn Chah. She spent 12 years as a Buddhist monastic, serving as a cofounding member of Chithurst Monastery and Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in the UK. She has facilitated meditation retreats internationally for the last 30+ years and has an MA in Mindfulness-Based Psychotherapy Practice from Middlesex University & the Karuna Institute in the UK. With Kittisaro, she co-founded Dharmagiri Sacred Mountain Retreat in KwaZulu-Natal and helped initiate and support several community development projects in…
Learn more about Thanissara
Andrés González (he/they) relates to himself firstly as a spiritual being embodying, Earth-side, the multiplicity of gender, sexuality, race, & culture as a two-spirit Mestizo with primarily Yaqui, Mexican, Spanish, & Scottish ancestries. He’s also a transracial adoptee, connected to a lineage of Indigenous adoptees separated from family, land, & culture by way of the U.S. child welfare system. Andrés’s lived experience integrating these many worlds has informed his path as a practitioner of curanderismo, community dharma leader, and mental health clinician. Trained in harm reduction, healing justice, and Indigenous psychology as a psychotherapist, he holds a master’s degree in…
Learn more about Andrés González
Yong is a Dharma Council teacher at the Durango Dharma Center and a core teacher for Sacred Mountain Sangha. He is also a visiting teacher for other community centers across North America. He teaches retreats at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, the Insight Meditation Society, Big Bear Retreat Center, and Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center. He is a graduate of the 4-year Insight Meditation Society Retreat Teacher Training program, Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s 2-year Community Dharma Leaders program, the 2-year Nature Dharma Teacher Training and the Sacred Mountain Sangha 2-year Dharmapala training, taught by his primary teachers Kittisaro and Thanissara. Yong is…
Learn more about Yong Oh
Djuna Devereaux has more than two decades of experience teaching the integration of yoga and Buddhist Dharma. At Spirit Rock, she teaches on retreat and leads the Dharma and Yoga Teacher Trainings. She supports her primary Dharma teachers, Thanissara and Kittisaro, as a core teacher and Board Chair for Sacred Mountain Sangha. Djuna is also faculty for Prajna Yoga, offering events internationally, and is a certified yoga therapist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner in private practice. Djuna weaves asana training, with somatic movement, biomechanics, and the wisdom of the Buddha Dharma, into her offerings. Her sessions are intelligently crafted to cultivate…
Learn more about Djuna Devereaux
Kareem Ghandour (he/him) is a Lebanese/Palestinian teacher, facilitator, and artist based in the UK. His teaching is inspired by contemplative creativity, ritual, and devotional practice. He has worked with youth and in mindfulness based education projects for the last decade, including serving as managing director for iBme UK. He is a member of the collaborative staff team at Sacred Mountain Sangha and a graduate of the 2 year Dharmapala training. He is a co-founder of the Sacred Justice Coalition and the SWANA+ Sangha, co-creating new dharma cultures to meet times of genocide and collapse.
Learn more about Kareem Ghandour
emiko yoshikami (she/they/ki/kin) is blessed to have many Dharma streams flow through their life. Ki was raised in the Western Insight tradition and ancestrally comes from a long lineage of Jodo Shinshu priests. She is a strong devotee of Kuan Yin and a graduate of East Bay Meditation Center’s Spiritual Teacher and Leadership program, and Sacred Mountain Sangha’s Dharmapala Training. Ki currently resides in a Dharma home lovingly called the Weirdo Queerdo Monastery and aspires to co-create a place of refuge and engaged practice.
Learn more about emiko yoshikami