Program Dates: August 10–18, 2026
Tuition: Free tuition
Arrival: August 10, 2:00–5:00 PM
Departure: August 18, after breakfast
Pricing: Free tuition + 8 nights lodging, with meals included (vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free options). Extra nights are available at 50% off.
About the Retreat
How do we meet the challenges of our world with wisdom, compassion, and fierce courage in a time of spiritual crisis? This weeklong retreat invites you to step into meditation, community, and honest conversation about what it means to bring practice off the cushion and into daily life.
Join Buddhist teachers Michael Carroll and Susan Piver for an immersive experience centered on the bodhisattva path. Together, you will explore how to remain present amid beauty, uncertainty, and suffering without losing your sense of clarity or heart.
What We Will Explore
- How the 6 paramitas support beneficial action in the world
- The difference between true compassion and “idiot compassion”
- Ways to avoid compassion fatigue
- How to maintain agency over attention as a basic gesture of sanity
- How to stay vital, wise, and confident while facing suffering, both personal and collective
- Sources of indestructible resilience and joy through mindfulness-awareness meditation
What to Expect
The program includes extended periods of sitting meditation, daily yoga and Qi Gong, and reflection on what it means to move through the world with an awakened heart. Refuge and bodhisattva vows will also be offered.
Why Attend
This retreat offers space to gently set aside everyday concerns, turn inward in a spacious mountain setting, and reconnect with your own inner brilliance. The intention is to return home refreshed, open, and confident.
Accommodation Options
Several lodging choices are available during checkout, all including healthy meals and drinks with vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options.
- Off-Land: Commute from home or arrange your own off-campus lodging, with tuition plus $40 per night for meals and facility use.
- Car Camping: Five primitive parking spots in the Rigden parking lot for parking and sleeping, including food and access to bathhouses in Rigden Lodge. No water or electric hookups are available for RVs.
- Tents: 12′ x 14′ tents with two twin beds, two bookcases, and a hanging clothes rack. Shared bathhouse included. Summer platform tents are available from late May through early September. Tents may be reserved as singles or doubles.
- Maitri Village Single and Double Rooms: Rustic cabins in the Maitri Village Campus, a short walk from downtown, with electricity, heat, bedding, and nearby gendered bathhouses. Guests booking a bed in a double room will be assigned a roommate if traveling alone.
- Dormitories: Rooms for up to 7–8 people, gender-segregated, with shared bathrooms down the hall and shower stalls.
- Monk Rooms: Private indoor rooms with a bed, bedding, closet, large window, desk, and desk chair, while sharing a bathroom.
- Single and Double Rooms: Private rooms with more space, a dresser, closet, and an attached 3/4 bathroom with toilet, sink, and shower.
Daily Schedule
- 7:00 a.m. Practice session
- 8:00 a.m. Breakfast
- 9:00 a.m. Yoga
- 9:45 a.m. Practice session
- 12:30 p.m. Lunch
- 2:30 p.m. Practice session
- 4:00 p.m. Tea
- 4:30 p.m. Practice session
- 6:00 p.m. Dinner
- 7:30 p.m. Practice session
- 8:30 p.m. Conclude
- 10:00 p.m. Lights out
Retreat Faculty
Michael Carroll and Susan Piver
