Retreats
Deepen your practice with an immersive experience shared with other like-minded explorers.
Residential mindfulness retreats provide the time and space necessary to deepen your inquiry into the questions that matter – who we really are and how we can live our lives to the fullest, in a way that transcends limitations.
Our retreats are held in quiet natural settings that activate the senses and encourage participants to relax and let go of the concerns of our ordinary lives.
Creative Inquiry retreats are gentle enough for beginners and spacious enough to engage advanced meditators. We welcome all experience levels.
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What Does It Mean to Be Free
Center for Creative Inquiry's annual Time, Space, and Knowledge retreat
We live our lives within limits we have learned to take for granted.
Because we put our own wants and needs at the center of experience, we live in a world where time rushes on from moment to moment, separating us from what we desire.
Because we are always reaching out for what we hope to possess, we occupy a small and closed-off space. We rob ourselves of the joy of being fully present.
In this retreat, we will question the limits we impose on ourselves and the positions we impose on experience. We will learn how to connect with all that happens, and to appreciate more fully the beauty of the world we inhabit.
This retreat is based on Tarthang Tulku’s Love of Knowledge. It will emphasize practice and discussion.
Date and Location
Neu Plaue Retreat Center, Germany
September 24-29, 2024
Co-sponsored by Nyingma Centrum Nederland and Neu Plaue Retreat Center.
Led by Jack Petranker
Being Fully Present
Ratna Ling Retreat Center
June 14-16, 2024
For many of us with busy and fast-paced lives, stress, overwhelm, irritation, or anger arise more frequently than we would like. This causes strain in our relationships at home and at work. The antidote for difficult and damaging emotions is the practice of becoming fully present, finding our breath and being with what is actually happening in this moment, open to our sense of past and future, but not trapped by them.
In this retreat, we explore ways to be fully present with the now. Through contemplation and movement, time spent in nature, and sharing our time together, we will learn to become more fully alive. A new way of experiencing starts with relaxation and the joy of discovery and deepens naturally into compassion and calmness.
Led by Jack Petranker and Ignacio Ercole
Retreat Features
- Four guided group sessions per day (with 1-2 sessions on the days of arrival and departure) led by an experienced instructor
- Four to six hours of sitting and movement practices per day, with additional opportunities for solo practice
- Comfortable accommodations in a private room
- Three buffet meals per day prepared by a chef
- Complementary snacks provided between sessions
- All necessary equipment such as meditation cushions and mats provided
- Opportunities for hiking and stargazing in a peaceful rural setting
- Opportunities to connect with like-minded practitioners
- Resources and advice for carrying what you learned at the retreat into daily life
Meet the Instructors
Jack Petranker
Jack Petranker (he/him) is the founder of CCI and regularly offers courses and retreats. He is the author of When It Rains, Does Space Get Wet? (Dharma Publishing 2006), and has written numerous academic articles in consciousness studies, organizational change, political transformation, and the value of work as a spiritual practice. Jack holds an MA in political theory from UC Berkeley, and a JD from Yale Law School. He is also the Director of Mangalam Research Center in Berkeley, CA.
Ignacio Ercole
Ignacio Ercole (they/them) is a psychologist, artist and mindfulness trainer. They have been trained as a psychodrama facilitator and contextual and mindfulness based therapy psychology. They teach mindfulness programs for general audiences and for educators including mindful art classes and mindful eating sessions. Currently they are completing teacher training programs in Full Presence Mindfulness and Kum Nye Tibetan Yoga.
Focusing your TSK or mindfulness practice
In Creative Inquiry retreats, we touch knowledge in an experiential way, focusing on practices that relax the grip of the ego and challenge our usual way of seeing things. Each practice session is supplemented by light guidance from the instructor and group discussions. The total amount of quiet practice per day ranges from 4 to 6 hours.
Many of our retreats are held in silence – check the specific retreat description for detail. Unless otherwise noted, silence begins on the 1st morning and extends until the final morning of the retreat, including meals and breaks – with the exception of guided group discussions during evening sessions.