Natural Compassion: Opening the Heart Through Practice (Residential)

This is the RESIDENTIAL component of the retreat. For the ONLINE component, please click here.

This retreat is the annual Margha Summer Retreat. While open to everyone, regardless of past or current participation in Margha, students enrolled in the current Margha Program Year are especially encouraged to attend.

This six-day retreat explores Buddhist practices of love and compassion as a way of opening the heart and accessing our deepest nature. By cultivating bodhicitta—the mind of awakening, expressed as our natural impulse toward compassion and our aspiration to awaken for the benefit of all beings—we discover our innate capacity for compassion within all experience, both difficult and pleasant.

An important part of NDF’s Margha Program Year of Bodhicitta/Natural Compassion, this retreat cultivates self-compassion and compassion for others as interconnected pathways that deepen wisdom, openness, and skillful engagement in the world.

Please join us to:

• Open the heart through Buddhist practices of love and compassion
• Learn to access bodhicitta in everyday experience
• Practice deeply, supported by Noble Silence and embodied listening
• Discover your innate capacity to care for self and others
• Develop greater capacity to skillfully engage life’s difficult moments

Natural Compassion: Opening the Heart Through Practice offers an opportunity to engage with Buddhist practices of love and compassion to open our hearts and access our deepest nature. Together, we will explore these practices to discover the power and potential which are innate to all our experience both difficult and pleasant.

While all are welcome, this retreat is an integral part of NDF’s Margha Program Year of Bodhicitta/Natural Compassion. Throughout the six days, we will focus on bodhicitta practices that reveal how self-compassion and compassion for others are interconnected, and how, together, they deepen our ability to meet the world with wisdom, openness, and effectiveness.

Together, we will share in dharma teachings and meditation, along with small group inquiry and deep listening. Our time will be held in the stillness of Noble Silence, with space for solitary walks in nature, meditation, contemplation, and reflection.

This retreat is an invitation to be immersed in Buddhist practices that reveal our inherent compassionate nature and our capacity to care for ourselves, others, and our struggling world. 

Natural Compassion: Opening the Heart Through Practice includes yoga. Please bring clothing suitable for movement. This retreat will be held in Noble Silence.

Residential retreat is an opportunity to deepen meditation practice and be nurtured by nature on Wonderwell Mountain Refuge’s verdant campus, tucked in New Hampshire’s Upper Valley. Daily teachings, guided and silent meditation, delicious meals and supportive group discussions structure the day, while contemplative walks and resting in the surrounding fields and forest gently nourish your connection with the more than human world.  

All are welcome. Students in the Margha Program are especially encouraged to attend.

Meditations supported by various Margha Mitras
Yoga offered by Matt Fritts

Typical Retreat Schedule

(All times are Eastern time zone)

First Day — Orientation at 6:45 pm. Opening session begins around 7:00 pm.

Full-Day Schedule — Morning meditation 7:00 am; Breakfast break 8:00-9:30 am; Lunch break 12:00-2:00 pm; Dinner break 5:30-7:00 pm. Evening session 7:00-8:30 pm

Last Day —The closing session end at 12:00 pm.

These times are just for reference. An expanded schedule will be provided in pre-retreat information emailed during the week prior to the event.

Important Health Information

COVID-19 testing is no longer required. Masks are optional and encouraged if you are at higher risk. We encourage you to stay at home if you are symptomatic to protect others.

Scholarships

Cancellation Policy

We understand that personal circumstances may require you to cancel your registration. In these cases, please contact us right away at register@naturaldharma.org. Cancellations affect our ability to offer rooms to others and create additional work for our staff, therefore we charge the following fees to help mitigate these costs.

For cancellations (based on program start date):

• > 45 days: 100% refund minus a $75 admin. fee.
• 31-45 days: 50% refund of the required deposit; or 75% refund if registration paid in full.
• 21-30 days: 50% refund of total registration cost
• < 21 days: nonrefundable

If you must cancel due to an emergency or extenuating circumstances, please contact us at register@naturaldharma.org.

Access to Recordings

NDF offers unlimited access to recordings, which are accessed in your user dashboard (more information about user accounts provided in a pre-retreat letter). If you have a user account, please register with the same email you use to log into your dashboard. If not, an account will be created for you using your registration address.

Availability will vary depending on the type of event and the backlog for our precious resource volunteers. Thank you for your patience.

Natural Dharma Fellowship Full Calendar