Silent Meditation Retreat ~ Stillness & Mind Training

The Silent Meditation Retreat ~ Stillness & Mind Training is a silent meditation retreat held at Mahamudra Centre for Universal Unity, a Tibetan Buddhist retreat centre in the Colville Valley on New Zealand's Coromandel Peninsula. It is offered as an in-person retreat at the centre, for anyone drawn to quiet, stillness and the training of the mind in a Buddhist setting.

About Mahamudra Centre

Mahamudra Centre for Universal Unity is a charitable trust affiliated with the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), an international organisation in the Gelugpa tradition. It operates under the guidance of FPMT's Spiritual Director, Kyabje Thubten Zopa Rinpoche.

The centre began in the early 1980s, when Colville locals Roy Fraser and Sally Barraud saw the chance to build a retreat centre and bring Tibetan Buddhist teachers of meditation to the area. On the advice of their teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, they bought a local farmhouse and land. With the help of many volunteers and community members, they turned it into the retreat place it is today.

The centre describes its retreats as led by skilled and compassionate teachers, offering a space for rest, clarity and insight. Alongside in-person retreats, it also runs online teachings and training programmes through the year, so this silent retreat sits within a wider, long-running Buddhist study and practice community.

The Setting

The centre sits on 8 acres in the Colville Valley, surrounded by native bush, farm land and the hills of the Coromandel range. The surroundings are tranquil and natural, which suits a retreat built around silence. The grounds were shaped over decades by volunteers and local people, and the farmhouse at the heart of the place gives it a lived-in, community character rather than that of a formal institution.

Before You Go

The centre says most of its retreats are accessible to people from all walks of life, whether you are new to meditation or looking to deepen an existing practice. You do not need to be Buddhist to value a few days of silence in a place devoted to meditation, though the retreat takes place within the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and in a Buddhist centre.

If you have questions about the daily schedule, what to bring, meals or accommodation, ask the centre directly before you travel, as arrangements can differ between retreats.