Garden of Mindfulness Retreat
Gathering Our Gifts
This family retreat is now FULLY BOOKED. If you would like to be placed on the Waiting List please contact the team at [email protected]. Join...
Beginning Now! An Introductory Meditation Retreat
Beginning Now offers a supportive space to learn the ancient breathing meditation, building confidence for newcomers while deepening experienced practitioners' skills in ethical living, inter-connectedness and compassionate wisdom within Wangapeka's beautiful silence and gentle guidance.
Refraining From Harm
Supporting All of Life
A 10-week community exploration of the five Buddhist precepts as living, transformative practice—not rigid rules but guiding principles that buffer life's challenges and help us train in awareness to refrain from harm and support all beings through our choices and relationships. Together we'll investigate ethics in action within our own raw material of daily life, calibrating our inner compass toward wholesome engagement with the world as it is.
2025 Chenrezig Retreat
Loving-Kindness and Compassion
An experiential meditation retreat exploring Chenrezig and unconditional loving-kindness through group practice, silence, and inquiries into refuge, ethical livelihood, and heart-felt aspiration. Beginners welcome to discover how compassion spontaneously expresses our natural kindness in life's struggles.
Vision for Wangapeka Hui and Planning For 2025 Service Programme
Join the Dharma community at Wangapeka on 14-15 December to vision our centre of Awakening together—sharing korero, meditation and creative responses to changing world needs, then shape the 2025 Dharma Service programme by bringing your voice and hands in dana
Service as the Path Retreat
The Service as the Path retreat welcomes newcomers and seasoned practitioners to explore Dana and Sila at Wangapeka through meditation and work exchange—a chance to integrate inner practice with daily compassionate action, offering a doorway into longer service and study.
Beginning Now
An Introductory Meditation Retreat
Where do I start? This gentle 11-year retreat guides beginners and refreshers into the breathing meditation, offering supportive silence, ethical living, and confidence to practice amid life's busyness and bring healing to self and others.
Chenrezig Meditation Retreat
2024
An experiential Chenrezig meditation retreat exploring the union of wisdom and compassion through symbolic imagery, mantra, and community practice. Together we'll deepen into compassion for ourselves and others while investigating refuge, ethical living, and heart-felt aspiration, held primarily in noble silence.
Don't Just Do Something. Sit there! (2024)
Join the 8th annual 'Don't just do something, sit there!' weekend at Wangapeka - deepen your breathing meditation in noble silence while learning, strengthening practice, and simply 'being' in this beautiful environment.
Chenrezig Meditation Retreat
2023 – CANCELLED
An intimate, predominantly silent retreat where up to fourteen of us will explore Chenrezig’s union of wisdom and compassion through group and solo meditation, gentle teachings on refuge, ethical living and heartfelt aspiration, all offered freely in the spirit of dana.
Beginning Again!
An Introductory Meditation Retreat for All
An inclusive, predominantly silent retreat providing beginners and experienced practitioners alike reliable grounding in the Buddha's ancient breathing meditation, fostering practical wisdom and compassionate living.
Don't Just Do Something, Sit There! 2022
CANCELLED
Unwind with silence and simplify at Wangapeka: breathe, sit, explore your meditation and simply enjoy 'being' amid the beauty.
Chenrezig Meditation Retreat
5-day or 2-day (weekend only)
Step into the silence of a Chenrezig retreat where experiential meditations, rich symbolic imagery and mantra open the heart’s wisdom-compassion, exploring refuge, ethical livelihood and heartfelt aspiration in shared stillness and gentle dialogue.
Beginning Again
An Introductory Meditation Retreat
A practical 5-day retreat to begin or refresh meditation through the Buddha's breathing meditation, building confidence and deepening practice in silence at the beautiful Wangapeka Centre while supporting wise and compassionate living.
YAR: Embracing Life
A toolkit for living with Wisdom and Compassion
YAR gathering for 18-35s explores meditation, conscious dance, art and nature connection at Wangapeka's wilderness retreat, fostering wisdom and compassion through accessible, dana-based practice within supportive young adult community of Aotearoa.
Chenrezig Meditation Retreat
Join an intimate 5-day experiential retreat exploring Chenrezig meditation, where Mark Schrader's 8th year course at Wangapeka weaves group practice, silence and personal inquiry into developing authentic wisdom and compassion within Tibetan Buddhist wisdom.
Transforming our Emotions – Relating Compassionately in the World
Harness the intelligence of emotions to meet all feelings with kindness, revealing their wisdom aspect for wholesome relating. Through meditation, silence and creative engagement in Wangapeka's beauty, we explore compassionate communication in every relationship.
Practice Weekend at Wangapeka
Open to All
Join the Wangapeka community for a meditation/practice weekend balancing formal practices in the whare with informal time around fires, shared meals and forest walks. Come for the whole weekend or just a day - all welcome.
Beginning Now!
An Introductory Meditation Retreat
Starting exactly where you are, discover the Buddha's ancient breathing meditation - a 5-day silent retreat offering skilful tools and deep healing wisdom for both complete beginners and experienced practitioners seeking to live more compassionately in our world.
Transforming our Emotions
Relating Compassionately in the World
Through meditation, silence and creative exploration, we'll transform emotions with kindness to discover the wisdom within difficulty and beauty, nurturing wholesome communication with all beings and the earth itself.
Don't Just Do Something. Sit there! 2020
Don't just do something, sit there! A predominantly silent weekend to learn, strengthen and enliven your breathing meditation practice in the beautiful Wangapeka Centre, with support for both beginners and those wishing to deepen their practice.
Chenrezig Meditation Retreat
4 days (or 2-day weekend option)
Chenrezig meditation retreat—4 days or weekend—explores compassion for self and others through group practice, silence, and themes of refuge, ethical life and heart-felt aspiration with Tibetan Buddhist wisdom rituals. Fees + generous dana.
Beginning Now
An Introductory Meditation Retreat
Whether you're new to meditation or deepening an existing practice, this week-long silent retreat at Wangapeka guides you in the ancient breath meditation taught by the Buddha, developing focus, calm and clarity for wise and compassionate living.
Open Day for our Local Community
An Opportunity to Visit the Centre
Wangapeka Centre warmly invites local community to an open-door day of meditation, mindful forest walks, tea and guidance. All welcome - bring loved ones and a picnic to share these peaceful grounds together.
Life as It Is!
a Family Friendly Community Retreat
Join us for a warm community weekend of mindfulness where we explore walking a spiritual path together with our families and lives as they are – simply exploring presence and shared learning while living our ordinary spiritual lives.
‘Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There’ – Breathing Meditation Weekend
A silent breathing-meditation retreat at Wangapeka for new and experienced practitioners to learn, deepen practice, reflect in silence and ask questions when ready.
Chenrezig Meditation Retreat
Fully Booked
Chenrezig Meditation Retreat is fully booked. To add your name to the waiting list, contact Kath at [email protected] for cancellations.
Compassionate Relating
The Power of Compassionate Communication
How can we meet life continuously with kindness? We gather at Wangapeka to explore compassionate relating through the Sadhana of Chenreizig, blending wise communication with deep listening to ourselves and all our relationships. Together we delve into wholesome connecting through silence, creative engagement and shared enquiry.
Chenrezig, Wisdom and Compassion Retreat Weekend
Returning to WET Winter’s third-year Tibetan Chenrezig retreat, we practice the union of wisdom and compassion through rich symbolic imagery, group meditation, individual creative work, and deep inquiry into refuge and authentic aspiration at Wangapeka’s mega-supportive valley.
Compassionate Relating
Explore compassionate relating in all relationships—friends, earth, food, breath—through silence, Chenreizig practice, and intrapersonal deepening. At Wangapeka, discover how kindness can meet every moment of life.
Young Adults Retreat
Loving and Being Loved
The 2015 Young Adult retreat at Wangapeka explores kindness and compassion through meditation, creative activities, and community contribution. Set in nature, we deepen understanding together through small groups, silence, art, drama, and caring for this sacred land.
Chenreizig Practice Weekend
Join us to explore together the beautiful sadhana of Chenreizig, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, in various creative ways at an intimate retreat for 16 adults where children are welcome alongside caring companions.