2025 Online Retreat: Awakening Body, Mind and Heart - The Joy of Mindfulness

This 5-day silent online retreat with James Baraz, Suzie Brown, Zoe Zohs and Nadine Levy will provide you with the precious opportunity to deepen your practice and engage in embodied mindfulness from your home environment. 

The focus of the 5 days will be on cultivating joy, ease and balance through the practice of sustained mindfulness, embracing mind, body and heart and offering experience a soft place to land. 

Each day will include two sessions of mindful movement, a Dharma talk and meditation instructions. The retreat will support you to deepen into stillness and actively cultivate wholesome states of mind that promote joy and gratitude in the present moment.

The daily schedule will span from 7am to 7pm (Sydney time) and will include periods of online and offline practice. 

Small group interviews with the teachers will also be offered.

The retreat is open to all, and no particular experience is required. 

The retreat can be used to fulfil the retreat requirement for the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program (MMTCP).* 

Cost: 

Tiered registration. Please choose the fee most appropriate to your financial circumstances. Benefactor contributions will be used to support scholarship positions. Registration fee does not include dana (donation) for the teachers which, in keeping with the Buddhist tradition, will be encouraged as a practice of generosity.**

Your teachers:

James Baraz has been teaching mindfulness meditation classes and retreats in the US and internationally since 1978. He is a founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California where he started the Community Dharma Leader Program, Kalyana Mitta Network, and the Family Program. James has been teaching his popular “Awakening Joy” online course since 2003. He serves as a Guiding Teacher to One Earth Sangha, a Virtual EcoDharma Center devoted to Buddhist responses to Climate Change. James is a guiding teacher of Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley (IMCB) where he leads a weekly sitting group. His books include Awakening Joy: 10 Steps to Happiness and Awakening Joy for Kids.

Suzie Brown has been teaching Insight meditation for the past eight years, having trained with her Australian teachers Subhana Barzaghi and Carol Perry, as well as with US Insight teacher, James Baraz. She was co-founder of the Melbourne Insight Meditation group and offers Insight, Mindfulness and Ecodharma retreats in NSW and Victoria and online. Suzie is also trained as a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher and has been teaching MBSR courses and workshops for over 10 years. She has specialised in teaching mindful parenting, mindfulness for anxiety, and mindfulness for chronic pain—all themes that relate to her personal experience - as well as the Buddha’s four divine abodes: lovingkindness, appreciative joy, compassion, and equanimity. She has also worked as a climate and environmental activist for two decades and teaches ecodharma and mindful approaches to dealing with climate anxiety and grief.

Zoe Zohs has been teaching and mentoring meditation and movement practices since 2006. She has been leading or co-facilitating yoga teacher training courses since 2013, and mentoring through the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training Certification Program since 2021. She also teaches and mentors at Banyan, an online practicing community. Zoe can be playful, cheeky and energetic, as well as sensitive, tender, slow and loving. She intends to allow room for her whole personality to thrive, and wishes for you to feel at ease in your own skin. Zoe supports you with this through embodied teachings that she's been practicing since 2002. When we can meet together in a space of comfort or trust with who we are, the great mystery and wisdom of life can emerge. Outside of practice and work, Zoe spends time with her dog, who makes many appearances on screen, she plays ultimate frisbee and is slowly completing her social work degree

Nadine Levy, PhD, has been practicing Buddhism for 20 years across the Zen and Insight traditions, and she has undertaken dharma teacher training with James Baraz and with the Insight Meditation Institute. By day, Nadine works as an academic at a Buddhist higher education institute in Wollongong, Australia, where she teaches mindfulness and compassion science to teachers, health professionals, and post-graduate students. Nadine has led multiple meditation groups, retreats, Buddhist study groups, and compassion courses over the last decade and is passionate about the wisdom of the body and other ways of knowing. Her teaching style is intuitive, organic, participant-centered, and inquisitive. She enjoys adventures with her two sons and partner and taking in the mountains she is lucky enough to live close to, as well as taking time out for silent retreat practice.

All four teachers have been Mentors in the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program (MMTCP).

*Subject to MMTCP's attendance and completion requirements

** If finances are an obstacle to participation, please email us at awakeningbodymindheart@gmail.com. Subject to availability, no one will be turned away.

Awakening Retreat Schedule 4-8 April 2025 (Sydney time) and 3-7 April (American time):

Here is the retreat schedule so you can plan for it. This schedule may be subject to minor alterations. If you have any other questions, feel free to contact us.

4 April: 11:30am to 7pm Sydney time (3 April 5.30pm PT to 1am PT)
Opening day (shortened day)

5-7 April: 7am to 7pm Sydney time (1pm PT to 1am PT Recordings will be provided so you can catch up in the morning!)

7:00am (Sydney time) – Guided movement practice

7:45am – Instruction & Guided Sitting practice

8:30am – 9:45am BREAK (OFFLINE)

9:45am Stillness/sitting practice

10:30am – Self-directed movement practice (OFFLINE)/Group meetings with US participants

11:15am -– Dharma talk

12:15pm – stillness/sitting practice

12:45pm – 2:15pm BREAK (OFFLINE)

2:15pm – Stillness/sitting practice

3:00pm – self-directed movement practice (OFFLINE)/Group meetings

3:45pm – stillness/sitting practice/Group meetings

4:30pm – Cup of tea (OFFLINE)

5:15pm – Guided embodied practice

6:15pm – Guided heart teachings

7:00pm – Conclusion of daily schedule

8 April: 7am to 12.15pm Sydney time (2pm to 7.15pm PT)

Closing Day (shortened day)

MMTCP Attendance:

MMTCP student attendance and practice participation (with camera on) must be observed and confirmed for at least 5 formal practice sessions per day that can include a combination of talks; guided/instructional meditations; Q&A periods; silent meditations; guided mindful movement; and small group/individual teacher meetings.

Time Zone Conversion:

To convert to your time-zone please use the following site and include the relevant dates so that any daylight savings changes are captured:

Time Converter and World Clock (worldtimebuddy.com)

Enquiries:

Please send any questions to awakeningbodymindheart@gmail.com