From time to time we all need a break. We need space—space for silence and for renewal, space for listening and for learning. Even the most mindful among us need more than a 20-minute morning sit or a quick body scan between meetings. To loosen the demands of daily life, to give the thinking mind some breathing space, to hone our skills, or to deepen our daily practice sometimes requires not ordinary time but un-ordinary time—if not time in the mountains or in the desert or by the ocean, then at least time away.
“All of us desperately need time to quiet the mind and tend the heart. We need to re-regulate ourselves and to listen more deeply, to hear the wisdom that we carry, to let the love that we carry fill us in healthy ways, and to let our innate understanding grow,” says Jack Kornfield, teacher, author, and founder of Spirit Rock, a retreat center in northern California. “Going on retreat is in part a shedding—a releasing, an opening, a letting go—of all that we carry: the tensions, the worries, the busy-ness of mind and body. And that letting go allows a renewal of spirit and heart that is life changing. Taking time to listen in a deep way—going on retreat—is one of the most powerful things that you can do in your life.”
We offer, below, a sampling of five centers where time away is supported by experienced teachers, nourishing meals, natural beauty, and a commitment to diversity in every sense of the word. But each is different. Some embrace the word “retreat.” Others prefer words like “immersion” or “learning destination.” Some support silence. Others create connection. Some are on the West Coast. Others are on the East Coast. One is celebrating its 41st anniversary. Another just opened its doors. All practice presence—being in the moment, in the body, in the mind, and in the heart—and all welcome the busy, tired traveler.
1) Copper Beech Institute
West Hartford, Connecticut
copperbeechinstitute.org
For Brandon Nappi, founder and director of Connecticut’s Copper Beech Institute, mindfulness provides a common language with which people of all faiths and backgrounds can hold and examine some of the deepest questions humans can ask: What makes me happy? How can I live in a more peaceful way? How can I be more compassionate? What do I do with my pain? How do I forgive? How can I suffer less?
Nappi opened the institute in 2014 to create an affordable and regional center where people can learn the practices of mindfulness and contemplative meditation that have touched his own life so deeply.
Copper Beech shares a 50-acre site with a Catholic monastery and retreat center, though the two entities are entirely separate in all but their shared property. “We are never going to be mistaken for anything other than a Catholic campus, but when the guests settle in, I think they actually feel like it’s kind of cool—‘I’m in a living monastery,’” Nappi says. “We’re all in this together. We don’t have to practice in the same way, but it’s important to recognize and honor that we are each on a path.”
In that same spirit, the central approach of Copper Beech is inclusivity. Nappi sees it as a safe and welcoming space where contemplative teachers from different traditions can share their wisdom with an equally diverse community. Its offerings include half-day and daylong programs on Zen meditation, tai chi, Qigong, or Christian centering prayer. Nonetheless, most of the teachings at Copper Beech are based on the secular principles and practices of mindfulness. “We exist to help ease the suffering of the world and to help people become more grounded, compassionate, and loving. We try to do that as practically as we can. A lot of our visitors are learning mindfulness for the first time.”
At the end of the day—or the retreat—Nappi says, “We want people to feel that they’ve been embraced and loved, that the experience of being here was like receiving a warm hug from someone you hadn’t seen in a long time.”
AT A GLANCE
Founded
2014
What’s Offered
Retreats range in length from half-day to week-long
Accommodations
Single and double rooms
Program Calendar
Year-round
Fun Fact
Copper Beech features a labyrinth, an ancient symbol for wholeness, built on the site of an abandoned tennis court. At its center is a nine-foot-tall stone structure in the shape of an open circle (pictured left).
2) Insight Meditation Society
Barre, Massachusetts
dharma.org
When visitors to the Insight Meditation Society approach the retreat center, they’re hit with an unexpected image: a New England brick mansion, with its classical portico and white columns, and the ancient word “metta.”
In the Pali language the word means “loving-kindness” or “love.” The center’s founders salvaged the five letters of “metta” from signage for the property’s former occupants—Fathers of the Blessed Sacrament—and “metta” became the greeting for visitors to IMS’ tradition of insight meditation.
“We had a big debate about that,” says Sharon Salzberg, one of the center’s cofounders. That was forty-one years ago, when Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, and Joseph Goldstein were converting a defunct Catholic novitiate into a Buddhist meditation center. “Why should we have a word up there that no one understands?”
“But someone will call for directions, and whoever answers the phone will describe a large brick building with white pillars and this word—‘metta.’ And then they’ll ask what it means,” Salzberg says.
And so the training begins.
Unlike many retreat centers whose broad mission translates into an even broader agenda of activities, workshops, and amenities, IMS maintains a singular identity as a silent retreat center, located on a bucolic tract of land, steeped in the tradition of mindfulness and compassion training, and welcoming to all.
“At IMS you can make a friend of silence,” Salzberg says. “It’s very supportive, because teacher contact is always available.” While the teachers and the retreats topics vary—from the “Teen Retreat” and the “People of Color Retreat” to “Awareness, Insight, and Liberation” and “Emptiness: A Meditation & Study Retreat for Experienced Students”—the daily structure and core culture remain constant: group sittings, mindful movement, group Q & A sessions, and evening talks. “Even though you are silent, you don’t feel isolated,” Salzberg says. “You feel as if you are part of this interesting community.”
At its core, IMS seeks to equip the retreatant, the beginner and the experienced alike, with confidence in and clarity about the skills of mindfulness and compassion. For Salzberg, it’s that simple: “I want people to walk away thinking not just ‘Wow, that was an amazing experience! When can I go back?’ but also ‘What can I do every day to reawaken or reinforce the things I understood here?’”
AT A GLANCE
Founded
1975
What’s offered
Retreats range in length from weekend to three months
Accommodations
Single rooms
Program Calendar
Year-round
Fun Fact
When the founders were looking for a place to establish a meditation center, they visited Barre to visit the site for IMS and were struck by Barre’s town motto: “Tranquil and Alert.” How fitting!
3) Spirit Rock
Wo