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Programs
RETREAT POSTPONED SMS Awakening Activism: A Dharma Response to Gaza
With Thanissara, Elaine Yeh, Djuna Devereaux and Yong Oh
May 6 - 10, 2024
Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center (RMERC)
Sacred Mountain Sangha in collaboration with Rocky Mountain Ecodharma
Amidst the stark realities of our times, the need for a more resilient, transparent, engaged, and collaborative Dharma culture has been illuminated by the destruction of Gaza. This retreat emerges as a response to this need as a contribution toward its realization. Inspired by the interventions of the Buddha to stop wars and the courageous stands of spiritual movements against political injustices throughout history, we recognize a moral imperative to act and to resist the descent into chaos and the normalization of mass atrocities and extreme violence.cultivate mindful engagement guided by the compassionate durability of the Bodhisattva vows.
Healing, Belonging and Kinning: An Ecodharma Retreat
With Kritee (Kanko), Imtiaz Rangwala and Bianca Acosta
May 14 - 19, 2024
Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center (RMERC)
Join us at the stunningly pristine and healing Rocky Mountain Ecodharma retreat center for a retreat designed for empowering anyone who cares about the healing and belonging in these wild times of polycrisis (climate, genocidal wars, xenophobia, pollution, rise of fascism and mental health crisis). You could be a community organizer, healer, educator, activist, artist, scientist, journalist, lawyer, author or storyteller working. Through silent meditation, movement/yoga, guided dialogue, a deep grief and rage ceremony, an extended “Solo” time in nature, small affinity group work, and dharma talks by the teachers we will explore how we can deepen our love for each other and develop kinship with all beings. The two key aspects of this retreat that we will build up to and descend from are: grief/rage ceremony and an extended “Solo” practice time in nature.
The Ecology of Self
With Blake Hestir, Sarah Sampson, "Choke" and Alex Julie
May 20 - 25, 2024
Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center (RMERC)
The Ecology of Self is a 6-day, 5-night adventure into deepening our relationship with Mother Earth. Our stories of separation from the Earth and each other are the seeds of the global challenges we face. Together we delve into the dynamic interdependence of self, community, and the living land, framed within a larger conversation about regenerative sustainability, equity, and well-being.
Along our journey, we build community, practice nature-centered meditation, explore embodiment practices, enjoy tea ritual and expressive arts, and engage in vibrant discussion. Creating a strong culture of belonging and inclusivity is a crucial part of promoting individual and planetary flourishing.
The Ecology of Self can help participants consider their unique gifts, backgrounds, and life situations to envision actionable steps towards promoting a more socially and ecologically harmonious world.
This program is perfect for those looking to reconnect with Mother Earth in warm and welcoming community.
Embracing Eco Dharma as A New Saint
With Lama Rod Owens, Reggie Hubbard, Rashid Hughes and Bhava Jaya
May 25 - 31, 2024
Cal-Wood Retreat Center
In this retreat we will explore themes around climate anxiety, the harm of individual and collective narcissism, connecting to the awakened consciousness of the earth as well as the sky, and developing renewed visions for climate change organizing and activism based on the recognition that all systems of violence intersect with climate change work. We will be relying on Lama Rod’s newest book, The New Saints, along with ancient Buddhist based practices, including mindfulness and tantra, and body-based practices to deepen our understanding of our body’s connection to the earth. This retreat is open to anyone regardless of practice experience.
The earth is precious. Without its health and stability our own well-being is threatened. Each day we learn more and more about the ways our earth and climate are becoming jeopardized. For most of us, this has created a deep fear and overwhelming anxiety. We are faced with the struggle of making choices to live more sustainably while systems of violence and power like capitalism, racism, patriarchy, and others continue to disrupt this work of sustainability.
Awake in the Wild – Cultivating Awareness, Wisdom and Love in Nature
With Mark Coleman
May 26 - June 1, 2024
Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center (RMERC)
Like the Buddha, people for millennia have sought refuge, clarity and wisdom in nature. In this silent, fully outdoor nature retreat, you will meditate in the serenity and beauty of mountains and meadows, while cultivating potent yet accessible sensory awareness practices that open you to insight, interconnection and well-being. This nature immersion provide the perfect antidote to our busy, digital and stressed lives.
During the retreat, you will cultivate a receptive, embodied quality of mindful attention. This awareness supports learning from nature’s wisdom teachings on change, letting go, equanimity and sensing intimately ones inter-connection with all life. You will also explore how nature evokes not only profound insight but also opens the heart to a profound love for the earth and all species. This love is the fuel for and inspired action in these ecologically challenging times.
Finding our True Nature in Nature
With Jon Aaron and Ben Connelly
June 3 - 9, 2024
Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center (RMERC)
Within the beautiful surroundings of RMERC, and with the power of meditating in nature, we may discover our true nature. Let us cultivate a joy that supports facing the uncertainties of this world and the arising of appropriate response.
This retreat brings together different traditions of Buddhist practice, integrating Insight and early Mahayana practices by drawing deeply from Yogacara's Three Natures teachings. Held by the mountains, forest, and stream, supported by the container of noble silence, we will spend most of our time outside in the meadows and forests of the center.
Natural Awareness and Wisdom:Exploring Mindfulness in Nature
With Dave Smith
June 10 - 17, 2024
Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center (RMERC)
During this retreat we will explore the Four Foundations of Mindfulness with an emphasis on developing continuity of wise awareness as taught by Burmese master Sayadaw U Tejaniya. Instructions will emphasize the Buddha’s teachings on view, attitude and qualities of mind that support a relaxed and alert awareness throughout all activities. Through the development of a sustained and kind awareness we come to meet ourselves and the world with presence, ease and wisdom, naturally establishing the clear seeing and collectedness of mind that are the hallmarks of liberating insight. The retreat will be conducted in noble silence and will follow an open schedule that includes guided practice sessions, dharma talks and teacher meetings. Students will enjoy the opportunity to follow their own rhythm of practice, supported by the flow of nature, and learning to trust their own natural capacity for awareness and wisdom in every moment, whether in retreat or in daily life. This retreat is suitable for both beginning and experienced meditators.
Belonging to Each Other: Falling in Love with Mother Earth Together - An Ecodharma Retreat for People of Color
With Kritee (Kanko), Kaira Jewel Lingo, Imtiaz Rangwala, Ramon Gabrieloff-Parish, Bianca Acosta and Asia Whitlock
June 18 - 23, 2024
Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center (RMERC)
Join us at the stunningly pristine and healing Rocky Mountain Ecodharma retreat center for a retreat designed for empowering anyone who cares about the healing and belonging in these wild times of polycrisis (climate, genocidal wars, xenophobia, pollution, rise of fascism and mental health crisis). You could be a community organizer, healer, educator, activist, artist, scientist, journalist, lawyer, author or storyteller working on climate and social justice. Through silent meditation, movement/yoga, guided dialogue, a deep grief and rage ceremony, an extended “Solo” time in nature, small affinity group work, and dharma talks by the teachers we will explore how we can deepen our love for each other and develop kinship with all beings. The two key aspects of this retreat that we will build up to and descend from are: grief/rage ceremony and an extended “Solo” practice time in nature.
Meditation, Embodiment and Awakening in Nature
With Peter Williams and Carla Brennan
June 24 - 30, 2024
Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center (RMERC)
This retreat explores the rejuvenating power of deep connection with nature through meditation. When we connect with the simplicity of our senses in outdoor meditation, our minds get quiet and we marvel at the ordinary wonders around us – the spray of colors in a field of mountain flowers, a dewdrop on the tip of an aspen leaf, clouds scudding across the high peaks. Practicing in nature connects us with our care for the world. As a group, we will explore our gratitude for the natural world, our grief for our impact on it, and how to make engaging with our troubled world a part of our spiritual path. This retreat completes the circle of practice, joining the silence and joy of nature meditation with the bodhisattva activity of compassionate and courageous responsiveness to the world. The retreat will be held in silence, with some group interaction during its later days.
Pachamama Medicina: An Ecodharma Retreat for Indigenous-descendant Womxn
With Bianca Acosta, Andrea Valeska and Kritee (Kanko)
July 3 - 7, 2024
Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center (RMERC)
In Indigenous cosmology, womxn are at the center of the healing of people and land. By healing the womxn, we heal families, communities and our sacred lands. This four day retreat for womxn descendants of indigenous peoples will provide space for participants to gather, share and practice Earth-based ancestral ways of healing. The leaders of this retreat believe in Land rematriation as a powerful way to heal our hearts and land from centuries of colonization. They view rematriation as a return to our Mother Earth, a restoration of symbiotic balance among all living things, and a return to Indigenous ways of life. Retrieving the worldview of all beings as relatives is crucial for shaping our restorative land practices to adapt to the worsening climate crisis and bring energy and carbon back into the soils and forests.
The retreat will focus on providing safe space for healing the ancestral trauma of colonization, stealth of our languages, practices and ceremonies. We intend to provide a restorative and safe container for the healing of womxn and the land. The retreat will include sharing practices of traditional knowledge from indigenous perspectives as long-term resources to help our communities thrive after the retreat. We can have a maximum of 30 participants. The majority of the retreat will be facilitated in Spanish.
Exploring Ecodharma: Going Deeply into Nature
With Johann Robbins, David Loy, Rochelle Calvert and Cornelia Santschi
July 19 - 28, 2024
Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center (RMERC)
Book now and get $105.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until May 4, 2024.
This ten day retreat is a deep dive into being, in nature, abiding silently, joining inner nature with outer nature, and dissolving separation. Each day includes plentiful time for sitting, hiking/walking meditation, as well as meditation instruction, dharma talks, and small group ecodharma exploration. There will be a two night solo opportunity during the retreat, which is an incredible highlight.
The overall intention is for deep silence, practice, and the joy and healing that comes with a profound connection with nature. This will be supported by instruction in a variety of nature meditation practices. There will be nightly campfire dharma talks, exploring how being-in-nature can be an important part of our spiritual path by helping to ground us in personal experience of non-separation from the natural world. The emphasis is not on meditative technique so much as developing direct awareness that can lead to a new integration of the internal (spiritual) and external (activity).
Supported by the connection and joy that comes from being in nature, we will also begin to work with the emotions, anxieties and traumas we are all experiencing around the ecological and climate crises. As these are immense, planet wide problems, created by and affecting everyone, dealing with emotions like fear, anger, sadness, grief and guilt on our own is impossible. Within a safe and supportive sangha, in small teacher led groups, we will be able to delve into Ecodharma together, with openness, sincerity, shared pain, and courage. This leads to deep healing, which makes possible more powerful and creative responses to our collective situation.
NEW!! Transformation in Nature: a Supported Solo Retreat
With Johann Robbins and Cornelia Santschi
July 30 - August 3, 2024
Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center (RMERC)
Book now and get $45.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until May 8, 2024.
If you have been wanting to do a longer solo retreat in nature, but were daunted by the logistics, or uncertain about how to spend your time or what to bring, this retreat makes all of that simple.
Solo nature practice is an incredibly powerful way to realize who we truly are, to touch into being, and the reality of non-separation that brings. When we hang out in a beautiful spot for days, being aware, peaceful, and still, this calms and reassures the wildlife that usually try and avoid humans, and they come and visit, sometimes for hours. This opens our hearts to love and appreciation, to the beauty and power of nature, and we begin to feel completely and utterly at home; effortlessly peaceful, present, and awake. This is deeply healing and transformative, a missing piece in lives of doing and busyness in a hi-tech dehumanized society.
Nonduality in Nature: The Direct Path of Beauty and Love
With Johann Robbins and Caverly Morgan
August 4 - 10, 2024
Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center (RMERC)
Book now and get $70.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until May 20, 2024.
Our true being is awareness and love. This peace and happiness, which we all long for, underlies the ceaseless striving of the limited sense of self, or ego.
Being in nature allows us to easily relax, and come into presence with the beauty around us, and the appreciation, gratitude and love that arises in response. Being in the mountains in the soft gentle time of high summer, with green meadows, alive forests, abundant wildflowers, high peaks adorned with snowy caps, the running creek, and all the birds, moose, deer, elk, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, and others, is an ideal place and time to realize this.
As we sit and walk, a natural sense of ease and belonging starts to quiet the wanting and aversion of the mind, and without effort or struggle, we drop out of separation into love and connection. This is the Direct Path, not an effort, learning, or set of practices, but a natural and effortless connection to our true nature, which has and will always be there. Our innate appreciation, love and connection with being in nature allows this process to be more accessible and enjoyable.
This retreat will be informal and relaxed, with ample time for teaching, guiding, support and discussion, as well as free time to explore what is being offered in your own way. The schedule will at times be silent and at times be more open and relational, so that the love that naturally arises can flow between and among the participants in our human, social way.
Touching the Earth
With Susie Harrington and Denise Ackert
August 12 - 19, 2024
Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center (RMERC)
Do you long to embody the ease, freedom, and aliveness that is your true home? To do so, the Buddha implored us to “go to the forest, to the foot of a tree” as an onward leading condition for awakening to our true nature. In this home of spruce forests, alpine meadows, birdsong, and wandering moose, we practice immersed in the natural world. And we explore opening ourselves to the beauty, inter-connectedness, and preciousness of our true nature. During this retreat, we'll be encouraged to look out and around, as well as inward, and to delight in what we see.
This retreat is held in noble silence with periods of group and solo sitting and walking meditation, dharma talks, and inquiry practice.
Deepen Your Connection to the Web of Life
With Rochelle Calvert and Piero Falci
August 20 - 25, 2024
Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center (RMERC)
Book now and get $50.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Jun 5, 2024.
Gain a profound understanding of your inner connection to the natural world through insightful dharma teachings, immersive nature experiences and heartfelt reflective inquiry. This is an opportunity to explore the understanding of deep ecology, foster a sense of reverence for the Earth and empower yourself to become an active participant in its healing and preservation. Through the profound power of nature-centered mindfulness and somatic healing this retreat is designed to awaken vitality with life and rekindle your connection to the world around you. Through a harmonious blend of guided practices, mindful explorations of nature, and gentle somatic healing techniques, you will embark on a journey of self-discovery, unlocking new pathways to personal transformation and resilience.
Gratitude, Joy and Deep Belonging
With Peter Williams and Dave Smith
August 26 - September 1, 2024
Book now and get $65.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Jun 11, 2024.
This retreat emphasizes the ability of meditation in nature to ease the mind into silence, happiness, and deep belonging. With much of the retreat happening outdoors, participants will become aware of all their senses and learn to appreciate the simple joys the earth is always offering. Gratitude becomes a natural state of mind. As practice deepens, one will gain insight into the fundamental truths, such as impermanence and interdependence, that lead to inner peace.
The retreat will be held in silence with periods of sitting and walking meditation, movement practices, as well as mindful hiking on the stunning land of the Ecodharma Center. Participants need to be able to do hikes of one to three miles.
Deepening Your Practice: A Meditation Retreat for Experienced Practitioners
With David Chernikoff
September 2 - 8, 2024
Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center (RMERC)
Book now and get $60.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Jun 18, 2024.
This retreat is for those who want to deepen their practice and to listen to what the Thai meditation master Ajahn Chah called “the one who knows.” Ultimately, spiritual maturation involves learning to trust our own inner guidance and resting in the felt realization that we already have what we seek and we already are what we wish to become. In a caring, supportive environment, we’ll practice sitting and walking meditation in silence. There will be dharma talks on the retreat theme as well as guided meditations and some interactive exercises that highlight the transformative power of the teachings.
This retreat is designed for people who have had a regular meditation practice for at least four years and have attended a minimum of three previous residential retreats. If you are unsure whether this retreat is appropriate for you, please contact David Chernikoff at davidchernikoff@icloud.com or 303-499-7592 to discuss your situation.
SoulFire Murmuration
With Carol Kortsch and Jade Sherer
September 11 - 15, 2024
Rocky Mountain Eco-dharma Retreat Center
Book now and get $45.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Jun 27, 2024.
This retreat is intentionally intergenerational for all women who identify with the Earth community and are open to exploring your true essence through your connection with Mother Nature. We are calling you personally back to the circle. We welcome all those who have attended our SoulFire gatherings or other nature-based retreats and who long for more opportunity to listen deeply.
We intend to create a murmuration in our unity, growing our individual and collective strength. Thus, discovering an emergent wisdom so needed in the world. Studies of murmuration have shown that a single starling responds to seven of its closest neighbors. So, consider coming in two’s and three’s, with those whom you share a common vision for change in your local communities, especially youngers and olders learning together.
Cultivating the Courageous Heart
With Jean Leonard and Sarah Heffron
September 17 - 22, 2024
Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center (RMERC)
Book now and get $55.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Jul 3, 2024.
Daily we are faced with our growing vulnerability and the challenges of being alive in this complex world, as well as possibilities for transformation, personally and collectively. More than ever, we are seeing our common humanity and how interdependent we are with each other and the more than human world. This is an opportunity to meet the moment, ourselves, and one another with care, clarity and compassion.
Courage is described as “the ability to do something that frightens one” and “strength in the face of pain or grief.” Cultivating the Brahma Viharas – the heart qualities of kindness, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity – develops the inner resources and resilience needed to consciously engage with suffering.
Finding deep refuge in the beauty and wisdom of the land and the teachings, we will rest and replenish, tend our nervous systems, and cultivate the courageous heart through silent meditation, nature-based practices, sharing and ritual. We welcome all who self-identify as women and both seasoned practitioners and those relatively new to practice.
Additional information about the retreat can be found here.
Silence, Stillness and Concentration
With Barry Gillespie
September 23 - 29, 2024
Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center (RMERC)
Book now and get $55.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Jul 9, 2024.
A traditional Theravada silent mindfulness retreat with emphasis on stillness, concentration and continuity of practice, leading participants to a spacious stillness of mind, a radiant calm. There will be regular seated and walking practice, daily meditation instruction, evening dharma talks, an optional daily gentle yoga class, individual practice meetings and time every day to hike/walk in the beautiful natural world surrounding the retreat center. All of the teachings will be based directly on the Buddha's teachings found in the Pali Canon, in particular in the Satipatthana Sutta.
ArtLife - Awakening Original Creativity
With Jane Seaton
October 2 - 6, 2024
Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center (RMERC)
It is becoming ever more urgent to break free from the old paradigms strangling our world. How are we each called to contribute, from our hearts and with our myriad skills, to no less than radically heal and evolve beyond this fractured reality? Whether as contemplatives, healers, visionaries or social activists, our natural creative gifts support fulfilling our true life purpose.
During this retreat, we’ll go on intuitively guided and sometimes marvelously surprising creative adventures. No prior art making experience is needed to engage with and be nourished by participating in this program. The kind of creativity that we will explore exists in all of us, whether we know it or not.We’ll go for long contemplative wanderings on Rocky Mountain Ecodharma’s wild and lovely land. And experience leaning into and learning with and from each other in sacred and dynamic group circles.
Zen and Ecodharma Retreat (Sesshin)
With Kritee (Kanko) and Imtiaz Rangwala
October 8 - 13, 2024
This silent retreat is for participants who want to learn about Zen tradition and deepen their surrender to the “Enlightened Mind”. Our sangha takes a trauma informed approach to healing, awakening and changemaking. As a result, at our retreats, we combine practices from the ancient tradition of Rinzai Zen with our current understanding of what individuals need to face and release our trauma.
Each day will include indoor zazen (seated meditation), outdoor meditation (by trees, bonfire or flowing water), kinhin (group walking meditation), deep abdominal chanting, opportunities to share our experience with other participants, a talk at the interface of Zen and Ecodharma teachings, rest periods, samu (silent work periods to prepare food) and dokusan (private interview with the teacher). We will have time in the afternoons for personal extended time in nature.
Deepening Kinship: Exploring the Intersections of Queerness, Ecology & Dharma
With Kirsten Rudestam, Emerson James and Jean Leonard
October 15 - 20, 2024
Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center (RMERC)
Book now and get $55.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Jul 31, 2024.
As practices, kinship and queer ecology can help us get in closer touch with the truth of who we truly are, as well as strengthen our inherent connection with the more-than-human world. In queer ecology, at the scale of the individual, to be queer is to be mutable; queerness signifies that which is unfixed and in a constant process of becoming. At the scale of the collective, queerness is relational, symbiotic and supportive.* In this retreat we apply these lenses of kinship and queer ecology to explore the paramitas, a set of 10 qualities or perfections of character, that, once honed, lead to liberation of the heart and mind.
Drawing on the wisdom of the land, this retreat weaves together three strands of practice: silent meditation periods, experiential nature-based practices, and small group discussions. These three strands will support us in opening to the questions: How might we deepen into a greater sense of interbeing through the flexible spaces of queer ecology? How does recognizing conditionality and relationality transform and inform our connections with and compassion for ourselves, others, and our more-than-human kin?
The Body of Stars: Exploring Embodiment, Earth & Purpose through Astrology
With Ramon Gabrieloff-Parish, Renee Sills and Michelle Gabrieloff-Parish
October 24 - 27, 2024
Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center (RMERC)
PRIVATE RETREAT Exploring to Embodiment, Earth & Purpose through Astrology Astrology is a symbolic language that helps us attune with our intuition, open the gates of our imagination and live with a sense of inspiration, presence and purpose. As a model for complex systems thinking and mind-body coherence and integration that predates and underlies many […]
Awakening the Heart of Love; Walking the Path of the Bodhisattva
With Heidi Bourne and Laurie Cousins
November 5 - 10, 2024
Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center (RMERC)
Book now and get $60.00 off listed prices. Offer valid until Aug 21, 2024.
The path of the Bodhisattva asks us to dedicate ourselves to the well-being of all sentient beings - to show up as best as we can for ourselves, each other, and the natural world with a quality of no-matter-whatness. It's an impossible though necessary task.
Drawing on the teachings of the Buddha, our retreat focuses on cultivating the capacity to skillfully navigate our everyday lives with a steady receptive mind and a courageous wise heart. Held in peaceful noble silence throughout the retreat, our practices include foundational and transformative guidance on lovingkindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity.
Please join us as we take a deep dive into the timeless and beautiful teachings of the Bodhisattva, the one who meets suffering with intention, strength, determination, courage, and love.