Holiday Retreat: Love in Action

Holiday Retreat: Love in Action

December 29, 2024 – January 03, 2025

As we approach the holiday season, our upcoming holiday retreat, “Love in Action,” offers an opportunity for you and your family to deepen your practice of love in all its forms—altruistic love, self-love, family love, love for humanity, and love for Mother Earth.

This retreat is an invitation to rekindle the fire of powerful and inclusive love within ourselves, cultivating harmony and peace during this time of great change.

This retreat warmly welcomes people of all ages, backgrounds, appearances, identities, and orientations. Wherever you come from and whomever you love, you are invited to join us. The retreat is open to everyone, including individuals without families. It will feature separate programs tailored for children, tweens, and teens, as well as Dharma circle sharing for educators, healthcare workers, Vietnamese speakers, Wake Up Young Adults (18-35), BIPOC, and LGBTQIA+ communities.

Mindfulness Practice

The holiday retreat will include:

• Live Dharma talks, panel sharings, presentations & a question and response session with senior monastics and direct disciples of Thay from Deer Park Monastery.
• Guided and silent sessions of sitting meditation
• Outdoor walking meditation & a hike  
• Mindful meals in silence – taking the time to truly enjoy vegan food in the company of other practitioners.
• Dharma sharing in small groups – practicing loving speech and deep listening, sharing our experiences with mindfulness practice.
• Beginning Anew – heal your relationships with the practices of flower watering, expressing regrets, letting others know when we’re hurt, and asking for help.
• The Five Mindfulness Trainings – how to live a happy life through training in reverence for life, generosity, true love, deep listening and loving speech, and mindful consumption.
• Deep relaxation – lying down meditation to relax our body and our mind.
• Noble silence – being fully present with ourselves and listening to our body and mind with gratitude and ease. 

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Retreat Costs & Registration Process

We know many of you love and value the annual Holiday Retreat and this brings us much joy. We are also aware that our capacity is not able to accommodate all those who wish to attend. Therefore, in order to offer a fair and stress-free registration experience we will be holding a lottery again for the available spots. 

Here are the important dates:

• October 25: Lottery opens at 9 AM Pacific Time (on this page)
• October 30: Lottery closes
• October 30: Waiting list opens (for those who missed the lottery)
• November 1: Invitations to register begin via e-mail. You will have one week to complete the registration payment upon being notified.
• November 15: All first-round invitations to register are completed.
• Starting on November 15: As cancellations occur, available retreat spaces will be offered to the remaining lottery applicants, followed by those on the waiting list.

~ Registration Team

Holiday Retreat Cost Per Individual:

• Bring Your Own Tent – Adult $425 | Teen $340 | Child $225
• Commute To The Retreat – Adult $425 | Teen $340 | Child $225
• 6 Bed Dorm Space – Adult $550 | Teen $440 | Child $275
• 3 Bed Dorm Space – Adult $750 | Teen $525 | Child $340

For cancellations made prior to arrival day, partial refunds will be available with a cancellation fee of $10 per night for adults, and $5 per night for teens and children 6 years and older. Cancellations made on or after the retreat arrival day do not qualify for a refund. Registration is non-transferable.

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Scholarships

Black and Indigenous Scholarships Available

For those who identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or as a Person of Color, a limited number of scholarships are available for special retreats, such as the Holiday Retreat. To extend the opportunity for many people to experience the Dharma, these scholarships are mainly for new practitioners. To apply, please write an e-mail to the registration office (you may click here) describing your financial situation; how much of a scholarship you are requesting on registration; and your aspiration to attend the retreat.