Special Events and Retreats

Updated June 1, 2025

Information on Upcoming Residential Retreats

Magnolia Grove Monastery Family Retreat 2025

I Have Arrived, I Am Home: A Journey of Togetherness Retreat

Wednesday, July 2nd to Sunday July 6, 2025. 

The “I Have Arrived, I Am Home: A Journey of Togetherness Retreat,” at Magnolia Grove Monastery offers us an opportunity to come back to ourselves, release tension, learn how to listen deeply, use loving speech, take mindful steps and peaceful in-breaths and out-breaths in order to rebuild and nourish our haven: home sweet home. Each family member may strengthen their capacity to offer loving smiles and joy to one another after a hard day of work and study, and as a result, there is more positivity and energy to begin anew each day. Our Magnolia Grove Monastery monks and nuns would like to invite all of you to return to the world of peaceful, present moment.

We welcome families, couples, and individuals of all ages and all nationalities, to join us during this joyful and colorful time of living mindfully together. 

Looking forward to fall, there will be an October Retreat at Well Being Retreat Center in Tennessee led by our Dharma teacher, Leslie Rawls. A note from Leslie-- Although October seems a long way off, registration will open in the next few days. This will be our seventh Plum Village Tradition retreat there, and we have always had a wait-list. Registration is now open. Details are here.

WAITLIST ONLY

Thursday, October 23-Sunday, October 26, 2025
Living the Heart Sutra: A Path to Happiness
A (Mostly Silent) Weekend Retreat with Dharmacharya Leslie Rawls
Wellbeing Retreat Center, Tazewell, Tennessee

Sometimes we seem to live in the Beatles’ song “I, Me, Mine”: grasping, competing, comparing, blaming, separating ourselves from others and the world. The Heart Sutra invites us to step beyond this limited view and into the beauty and expansiveness of emptiness and interbeing. In this retreat, we will study and practice with the Heart Sutra’s teachings, perhaps moving beyond intellectual understanding and into realized experience of the teachings. Activities will include silent and guided sitting meditation, group walking meditation, Dharma talks, private practice interviews with Leslie, and personal practice time. On the last day of the retreat, Leslie will offer a transmission ceremony for friends who would like to formally receive one or more of the Five Mindfulness Trainings.

Suitable for experienced practitioners and newcomers.
Registration will open mid-March 2025.
Sponsored by Mountain Solid, Water Reflecting Sangha, Knoxville, Tennessee.
www.knoxmindful.org