Buddhist Meditation Retreat Center in Redwood Forests

We are a registered 501(c)(3) non profit Buddhist Meditation Retreat center with founders from Apple, on beautiful 45 acre of redwood forest with creeks and small waterfall. Only 30 min to the center of Silicon Valley (Apple and Google), 30 min to the beach, and 1 hour to San Francisco.

We are a small "startup" and looking for people to help build our retreat center and community while enjoy the nature, learn and practice meditation, meet interesting people, and explore nearby cities in the area include visiting Apple/Google campus, state parks and beach.

Minimum stay of 1 month required.
We only take applications 1 month ahead while we keep a waiting list you can get on at any time.

Meet very interesting people with diverse background and culture, from US, Europe to China and Tibet.
Taste and cook different styles food!
If you are interested, we can teach you meditation and Buddhism.
Hmm, what about learn high tech and maybe simple coding?
Or a new language like Chinese?

We are in the early phase of building the retreat center.
There are the regular maintenance needed for the 45 acre property with a campground including landscaping etc.

RV, trailer, camper Private glamping tent with bed and simple furniture. Small retreat hut. Shared bathroom and kitchen. Washer and dryer. We provide food, mostly vegetarian, and volunteers cook for themselves. We have wifi in the campground for the volunteers. The cell phone reception is pretty good at the entrance area, somewhat weaker down at the campground area. Our free meditation classes are online due to covid. No drugs of any kind (including e-cigs, vaping etc) , entheogenic (psychedelic/hallucinogenic) 'plant medicines' , or tobacco are allowed anywhere on the property. No alcohol is allowed during the stay here for the volunteers. Meditation is the training of the mind to gain insight and wisdom to see the truth so that we can attain freedom from sufferings, exactly the opposite of intoxication and impairment of the mind which in the short term may bring joyful hallucinations but in the longer term be even further away from the truth and causes more and deeper sufferings. We are very strict on these fundamental rules with zero tolerance and we are not equipped to help people to quit addictions.


Reseñas

3.5
(12 reseñas)12

Anfitrión y equipo

4.0

Horas y tareas

4.0

Hostal

4.0

Aprendizaje y diversión

4.0

Brasil

3

The forests close to Santa Cruz are peaceful, the place is fine to have connection with natural environment. The search within is a individual choice and the place favors the travel within. The sunlight and the leaves above gives a great present to the presence of stillness.
Santa Cruz has a great ocean and great beach to visit and to run all the path is a challenge that brings joy to the body.

hace 11 meses

Chile

4

Jessica was a great support for me. Until the end she always had a lot of empathy with me and that is very much appreciated. I connected a lot with the nature of the place. And I took the opportunity to study English and meditate.

hace 2 años

Colombia

4

Is a nice place, some things could be better, but is a good place to be in contact with nature and make some friends, jessica is a very kind person and very flexible

hace 2 años

México

3

Beautiful forest to connect with nature and do meditation by yourself. I wouldn't recommend this place to those travelers looking learn about meditation because they don't have anything to learn meditation.
They don't provide food but you can go to a nearby church where they donate food, really amazing food.
The others volunteers were amazing, friendly and helpful. Jessica was very attending with the cellphone.
In my case, I didn’t feel completely comfortable and I had been very nervous about the rats.

hace 2 años


Jessica respondido

We have meditation class online (due to covid) every week but no volunteer ever attended these teachings. I used to go and give meditation teachings onsite but very few volunteer were interested so I stopped. We got a Buddhist nun living onsite to teach meditation to our staff and volunteer every day since Oct 2022 right after Andrea left, but participation from the volunteer in the teaching is low, sometimes no volunteer attending at all.
We do provide the vegan food as our listing says, but volunteers don't like those vegan food, for example they told me that the bread and buns we brought no one eat them and they got bad so don't bring them any more. The church provides more variety of food including meat so the volunteers like to get the food from church. We are Buddhist center and are supposed to be vegan or at least vegetarian, not supposed to provide meat.
We are in the forest/woods, there are all kinds of animals including not only deer and turkey but also rats, and this is their homeland, we are not here to kill them.

Estados Unidos

3

Jessica was communicative throughout the application process, and she welcomed my daughter to participate in an on-site youth leadership camp as part of our stay. I really appreciate that. I enjoyed opportunities to get out and explore the culture of the area as well as get to know other volunteers from around the world. That said, the accommodations offered more of a third world experience than anything thoughts of Silicon Valley may conjure up. For me, it furthered my awareness of the dichotomies of our lives and helped me see others with more insightfully.

hace 2 años


Jessica respondido

We are in the Santa Cruz mountains, in the middle of redwood forest/woods with all kinds of animals around, not any city. This is the homeland of animals of the forest and we as humans are not here to kill or drive away any animals.

The Santa Cruz mountains area is very dry. All other retreat centers in this area get water from the wells and have signs of conserve water in all the bathrooms, some even suggest not to flush the toilet every time after use to save water.

Having said that our campsites are award winning, ranked top 5 in all campsites in CA on Hipcamp. We are very lucky to have abundant water from a natural spring and no need to put signs of conserve water in all bathrooms. And we provide unlimited free hot water shower which is a luxury in this area. Our trailers are dry camping experience. If one is expecting standard city facility, it's the total wrong expectation.

Los Gatos is also a very expensive city with medium house price $2.7M. One small campsite for 4 people without even a tent is $80/day on weekends and $40/day on week days. So a private trailer should cost around $100/day on weekends and $50/day on week days. This is nothing cheap by any means.


Perfecto para ti si estás buscando

Contacto con la naturaleza

Vegetariano / Vegano

Espiritual

Yoga / Meditación

Montaña

Zona salvaje