These popular retreats offer a nourishing mix of movement and meditation, giving time to connect with yourself and to experience community with others, all held in the beautiful landscape of Balquhidder Glen. 

The retreat combines introductory meditation teaching with a blend of traditional yoga and contemporary approaches to embodied movement. This playful synthesis of body-based approaches to well-being in the peaceful and supportive environment of the retreat can help you find ease and balance in your life. 

We will introduce two traditional Buddhist meditations and offer a solid introduction to the principles of meditation, giving you tools and practices that you can continue at home. We will also explore some traditional Buddhist teachings to get a sense of how these might be relevant in modern life. 

No previous experience of meditation, yoga or embodied movement is assumed, so these retreats are suitable for complete beginners, and they are also a good refresher for those who already have some experience.

For more information, read the retreat information sheet. 

Our human heart holds both our suffering and our joy. And our hearts are also universal, boundless and full of love.

On this retreat we will be invited to open to our heart’s qualities and learn to sit with self-blessing, strengthening our capacity to open and meet ourselves and the world. We will focus on embodied meditations that will lead us into the hidden depths and treasures that lie in our hearts; and explore the heart-opening potential of living for a week in spiritual community with like-minded people. 

The approach to teaching will be practical and direct, with meditation, poetry, simple ritual, movement and time in nature. We will have plenty of time to reflect and just to be, free from all the pressures and demands of our ordinary lives.

This retreat is suitable for complete beginners to meditation as well as being an ideal refresher for those who already have some experience. For more information, read the retreat information sheet. 

This retreat will take a playful approach to reconnecting with the body through the elemental experience of water and through movement. Each day we will have the opportunity for several swims in the local lochs and rivers as well as other explorations of water and wet places. 

We will have daily guided movement sessions to support embodiment and connection. There will also be introductory meditation teaching, daily collective meditation practice, and a practical contemporary look at some traditional Buddhist teachings. 

Swim activities will include lifeguard supported bank-based activities, swim trips (for more experienced swimmers) and the opportunity for un-supported personal swimming. There may also be the opportunity to walk by water and explore local burns and waterfalls.

For more information, including swimming ability and wetsuit requirement, please read the retreat information sheet before booking. For more detail about wetsuits, read our guide. 

This retreat will take an embodied approach to the traditional Buddhist teaching of the four foundations of mindfulness – of body, feelings, thoughts and awareness – known as the Sattipatthana.  

We’ll practice slowing down and sensing into the subtle details of arising experience in movement and meditation, weaving between and combining these two aspects of practice – movement and stillness – to explore and deepen qualities of presence and aliveness.

Developing mindfulness of these aspects of unfolding experience grows our ability to embrace life fully – the painful and the beautiful – and to loosen fixed or limiting views of ourselves and others. 

The dance sessions will usually be with music and will involve guided exploration, exercises and time to follow your own experience in movement. No experience of dance or movement is required, only a willingness to explore your experience of movement in the body you are living in. For more information, read the retreat information sheet.

This is a Going Deeper retreat, for people who have done an introductory retreat or have been attending a local Buddhist centre and are familiar with the Metta Bhavana and Mindfulness of Breathing meditation practices. 

Imagine being able to meet the world with love, no matter what life throws at us. To actually live with the intention of love towards everything, be it joy, sorrow, or the whole mix in the show of life. 

The Brahma Viharas are a set of meditation practices that invite us to engage with this territory of love in the most optimistic and hopeful way and give us clear guidance on how to cultivate not only love, but also compassion, joy and equanimity. 

Giving very practical instructions on how to work with love in all aspects of life, from what to do when we encounter suffering, to how to deal with success and joy, they also point out how we can live in a way that is less bound up with our ego-driven motives and instead go beyond likes and dislikes by dwelling in equanimity, making possible a freedom of heart we could only dream of before.

We will work with embodiment in our meditation practice and what it actually means to experience ourselves as humans, cultivating a curious and interested attention to being alive which then allows us to deeply engage with the Brahma Viharas and to open to wisdom and insight. 

This retreat is open to people who have been on retreat before and have a regular meditation practice. These retreat will be conducted mostly in silence, and will normally have between 5 and 7 hours a day of sitting meditation. For more information, read the retreat information sheet. 

“If you can live in your body and not reject any of it, then you will be guided in discovery of your own wisdom and Nature’s wisdom, guided into this vast, awesome field of spacious Presence” (Ed McMahon, Founder of Bio-Spiritual Focusing)

Combining meditation with the process of Focusing, this retreat explores a way of living from an embodied sense of Presence. 

In the 1960’s Eugene Gendlin coined the term ‘Focusing’ to give expression to an innate way of being, along with a practice to re-kindle this natural process.  In essence, the process of Focusing offers a way of compassionately listening to our lived experience.  Through the timeless, sacred act of listening, we give space for the body’s wisdom to be known and creative new life to unfold. 

Guidance in the Focusing process will be offered. As it can be amazingly supportive to have another person ‘companioning us’, we will also be practicing Focusing in pairs. Exploring how Focusing can enrich our Dharma practice will be a central element of the week.

The retreat is suitable for people who have been on retreat before and have a regular meditation practice. For more information, read the retreat information sheet.