Insight Meditation nine-day retreat Coromandel - February 2025

The heart’s release: Cultivating the spiritual faculties

In Buddhist practice, confidence, energy, mindfulness, collectedness and insight are cultivated together as the five spiritual faculties (Indriya). These qualities exist naturally in the mind and have both a linear and dynamic interplay. By developing them in meditation practice, we more clearly understand what needs balancing in both our meditation and overall spiritual cultivation.

When all five faculties are brought to fulfilment they overflow in the heart’s release. A heart released from suffering and its causes has an embodied realisation of Nibbāna: freedom from the stress inherent in misunderstanding the world.

In this retreat, we will encourage you to develop an attuned approach to your meditation and to on-going experience – just as it is. This generates a safe holding for practice in an ethically sensitive environment. Noble silence will be a support to quieten the mind and deepen the enquiry.

Reflections on the Buddha’s teachings, Q&A sessions, individual practice meetings with the teachers and optional mindful movement will be offered each day.

The schedule will include structured periods of sitting and walking meditation, as well as the opportunity for less structured practice for more experienced practitioners.

There will also be some opportunities for relational practice in pairs or small groups, to support our sangha / community connections.

Teachers: Willa Reid and Jill Shepherd 

Willa Thaniya Reid spent 18 years in Ajahn Chah monasteries in Thailand and the UK extending her practice of meditation and Buddhist contemplation. As the senior nun of the Chithurst community in England for eight years, she supported both the lay and monastic communities. She has taught retreats in Europe, America, Australia and the UK, and continues to teach in the US and NZ. She has a Masters of Counselling, and clinical pastoral training.

Jill Shepherd is the guiding teacher for Auckland Insight and is a graduate of the IMS / Spirit Rock teacher training program in the US, under the guidance of Joseph Goldstein and Gil Fronsdal. She lives in Aotearoa / New Zealand and teaches internationally, offering insight / vipassanā and brahmavihāra retreats as well as ongoing study and practice groups focused on bringing the dharma into daily life. She also leads courses and non-residential workshops exploring the relational practice of Insight Dialogue, as developed by Gregory Kramer and colleagues.

Accommodation: 

Rooms are mainly curtained cubicles with shared bathrooms. A limited number of single rooms/cabins/cottages are available at a surcharge. Please see Te Moata's FAQ page for details about accommodation options. 

NOTE: couples and/or friends are housed separately, to protect their solitude during the retreat.

Retreatants are requested to bring their own bedding. For those flying in, bedding can be hired for $25.00, payable in advance.

Food: 

The centre will provide simple vegetarian meals for the retreat. Please indicate on the registration form if you have any food allergies or medical dietary needs. If your needs are complex please contact Te Moata.

There is a surcharge of $10/day for special diets. Please see Te Moata's FAQ page for details

Work meditation: 

To help integrate mindfulness into daily life activities, there will be a period of work meditation each day of approximately 45 minutes.

Getting to the retreat centre:

Te Moata is located near Tairua on the Coromandel peninsula, approximately 2.25 hours drive from Auckland. If coming from overseas and flying into Auckland airport, please book flights that allow you enough time to get to the centre for the start of the retreat, and to get back to Auckland after the retreat ends in plenty of time for your flight departure.

Volunteers from Auckland Insight may be able to arrange ride shares between Auckland and Te Moata, but we can't guarantee it.

There is a daily shuttle from Auckland Airport to Tairua leaving Auckland Airport at 2:00 pm, arriving in Tairua at 4:25 pm.
Tairua Bus Company also runs a shuttle service. See here for more info. The retreat managers can pick you up from Tairua.

Retreat fees: 

Please be aware that Te Moata has increased their charges this year so we're having to increase what we charge, too, to cover the cost of putting on this retreat. We are still committed to making our events available to everyone regardless of financial circumstances, so if money is a barrier to you attending the retreat, please let us know and we'll see what scholarship funds we could offer.

Sliding scale $1290-$915 + dāna*

Supporter rate $1290 - Slightly more than actual-cost ticket: covers cost of food and accommodation and a contribution to scholarships for low-income attendees

Actual cost $1110 - Actual-cost ticket covers cost of food and accommodation

Scholarship rate $915 - Below cost ticket: covers a contribution towards cost of food and accommodation only

To reserve your place on the retreat, you will need to pay a $100 deposit via this site, then the balance is payable directly to Auckland Insight. Their account details will be emailed to you when you register.

If necessary, you can pay the retreat balance in three instalments: one third when you register, one third on 21 October, and the final third on 21 December

Your place is not confirmed until you have paid the balance in full.

Cancellation policy: 

The payment is refundable up to thirty days before the retreat begins (minus a $50 admin fee). If you cancel after this time, the retreat payment will be forfeited and used to help provide scholarship places and/or support Auckland Insight's running costs.

*Dāna: In most Buddhist traditions the teachers are not paid to teach. Instead, the teachings are given on a ‘dāna’ basis – dāna being the Pali word for generosity or giving freely - so there will be an opportunity to offer a donation for the teaching at the end of the event