In today’s economy, very few people are able to take much time off work and even fewer can afford to take an expensive vacation to relax and get in touch with their spirituality. Fortunately, Texans have several options close to home where they can take a healthy time-out from the pressures of daily life, without breaking the budget. Spiritual retreats can be found in or near almost every major Texas city.
Dallas Spiritual Retreats
Siddhayatan Spiritual Retreat, about an hour outside Dallas, offers several different types of retreats, meditation, yoga training, and offers an intensive Ashram Living Program. This is an exceptional program, and the rates are unbelievably affordable. From the website:
“Siddhayatan Spiritual Retreat and Hindu-Jain Tirth is a non-profit organization dedicated to guiding all to find peace, hope, and compassion in their life through the universal teachings of meditation, yoga, non-violence, vegetarianism and unconditional love. Siddhayatan is a Spiritual Retreat Center with residence of living enlightened master, Acharya Shree Yogeesh.
Siddhayatan is located on 155+ acres of beautiflul rolling hills, less than an hour from Dallas, Texas. This spiritual retreat center flourishes with spirituality, healing vibrations, and the perfect atmosphere of tranquility, harmony, and peace.”
Visit the website at http://siddhayatan.org
Dhamma Siri Southwest Vipassana Meditation Center in Kaufman outside Dallas offers meditation courses and retreats for adults, teens and children, lasting from one to 45 days. Vipassana means “to see things as they really are” and is one of India’s most ancient meditation techniques. Vipassana is the process of self-purification by self-observation.
Visit the website at http://www.siri.dhamma.org/ and click on “Course Info.”
Austin Spiritual Retreats
2011 Plum Blossom Sangha Retreat, April 8-10, 2011, a mindfulness retreat hosted by Austin’s Plum Blossom Sangha in the McKinney Roughs Nature Park in Bastrop, Texas, about 30 minutes from Austin. Plum Blossom Sangha members use the Five Mindfulness Trainings as the foundation for mindful living. The sangha is guided by members of the Order of Interbeing, founded by Thich Nhat Hanh. From the website:
“Please join Br. Chan Huy, Plum Blossom Sangha members and other friends in the tranquil setting of McKinney Roughs Nature Park to practice caring for ourselves and our world. We will practice as a community, as a spiritual family learning the art of tending the gardens of our mind and body. We will learn and practice how to breathe, sit, and walk freely and peacefully, so we may enjoy the present moment and be present to the wonders of our world.”
Visit the website at http://www.plumblossomsangha.org/
Rainbow Hearth Sanctuary & Retreat Center is a unique “bed and breakfast” style retreat center offering spa retreats, personal retreats, spiritual retreats, and couples retreats on the shore of beautiful Lake Buchanan. Retreat packages include comfortable accomodations, natural organic meals and snacks, massage and bodywork, spa treatments, and the center is pet-friendly. Visit the website at www.rainbowhearth.com
The Center for Well-Being offers several types of personalized, non-denominational retreats throughout the year, and tuition includes meals and accommodations. Visit the website at www.thecenterforwellbeing.com
Galveston Spiritual Retreats
Zen Island Fellowship in Galveston hosts a weekend meditation retreat two to three times yearly. These retreats are held in silence and involve an number of meditation practices including: sitting, walking, daily work practice, listening to daily dharma talks, and participating in personal interviews with Zen Master Dae Gak. The retreats include vegetarian meals and lodging is occasionally available. For more information, visit the website at http://www.galvestonzen.org/retreat.htm
Houston Spiritual Retreats
Insight Meditation Houston offers retreats at the Margaret Austin Center (macenter.org) two or three times yearly. In The Footsteps of The Buddha with Howie Cohn takes place Thursday, April 28-Sunday, May 1, 2011. From the website:
“This Insight Meditation Retreat will follow the Buddha’s path of ethics, concentration, mindfulness and love, illustrating how each of us can move from grasping and attachment to freedom, from confusion to clarity, and from tension to ease. Sitting and walking in silence, and meeting our own experience moment by moment, we can relinquish the causes of suffering and rediscover our natural happiness.
Howard Cohn is a founding teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in the San Francisco Bay area. He has been in private practice as a psychotherapist, guided a local sitting group in San Francisco, and led Vipassana retreats worldwide since 1985. He incorporates the influences of Theravada, Zen, Tibetan Dzogchen, and Advaita Vedanta in his teaching, with an emphasis on reawakening our intrinsic freedom.”
Visit the website at http://www.insighthouston.org/html/retreats.html
Nichiren Buddhist Sangha hosts in annual weeklong Intensive Practice Retreat July 29 – August 5, 2011 at the Margaret Austin Center in Chappell Hill. From the website:
“Retreats are time to concentrate on your practice, meet other members of different sanghas, and learn more about practice in the Nichiren tradition. This is an intensive week of practice in a comfortable peaceful seting which provides time and space without worries from the outside world. Retreats are a week long, Friday to Friday. Activities include Suigyo (water purification), daily services, chanting practice, special services, Shakyo (sutra copying) and Shabutsu (Buddha image copying) practice, vegetarian food, Shodaigyo meditation and time to reflect, stretch and enjoy the company of sangha members. We will have classes for both beginners and advanced students.”
The sangha also hosts weekend practice retreats several times a year. Visit the website at http://www.nichiren-shu.org/Houston
San Antonio Spiritual Retreats
San Antonio Zen Center offers weekly Sunday Retreats. These are silent retreats that alternate sitting and walking meditation in 30-minute increments. Visitors may sit for the full retreat or for as few periods as they like. Visit the website at http://www.sanantoniozen.org
