2026 Retreat Programme Now Available
28 December 2025We're delighted to share our 2026 programme of retreats!
This Year's Highlights
Since we are hoping to begin Vijayaloka renovations this year, the programme is a little simpler than usual.
We will still offer two meditation teaching retreats which aim to take people who are already familiar with the meditations we teach a little deeper. The Immeasurables builds on the mettā bhāvanā practice, and will run for 7 nights: Sunday 1 – Sunday 8 March. A mindfulness retreat will build on the mindfulness of breathing practice and will be running either for 10 nights Friday 25 September – Monday 5 October or 3 nights Friday 2 October – Monday 5 October depending on where we are at in the Vijayaloka renovation project at that time.
For meditation practice retreats instead of offering separate for retreats for men and women this year, we are having a single mixed retreat which we are calling The Winter Retreat, which will run Friday 19 – Sunday 28 June.
To balance this with some extra opportunities for people to get in some practice at Vijayaloka, we are also introducing a new kind of retreat we are calling Simply Retreat. These weekend retreats will be unstructured, allowing you to have the space to practice in your own way. Think of it like a solitary, but with other people! We will run two: one in the winter: Friday 24 – Sunday 26 July, and one in the summer: Friday 18 – Sunday 20 December.
Also, for Order members, we have a few special retreats this year:
- Spiritual Death and The Emergent Ḍākinī: Led by Dharmananda and following on from themes of the spiritual death Order retreat last year. Friday 13 – Sunday 22 February.
- Uncontrived Mindfulness. Led by special guest Vajradevi. Monday 19 – Wednesday 28 October.
- Also Vijayaloka will be hosting the Oceania Order convention in April/May. To book, please visit the Oceania Convention website.
The Regulars
We will of course also have our usual staples of:
- Introductory weekends
- Working with nature weekends
- Eleventh step recovery retreats
- Mitra weekends:
- Womens mitra retreat Friday 3 – Sunday 5 July
- Mens mitra retreat Friday 11 – Sunday 13 September
- Combined mitra retreat Friday 27 – Sunday 29 November. The combined mitra retreat will also be taking place over the weekend celebrating Sangha Day and will include a Sangha Day at Vijayaloka festival. More details will be available closer to the time.
- GFR retreats: This year there will only be one GFR retreat each for women (Saturday 16 – Wednesday 27 May) and men (Thursday 12 – Sunday 22 March), but we will also have a GFR weekend for men Friday 17 July 2026 – Sunday 19 July.
- 2 Qi gong and meditation retreats: Friday 27 – 29 March, and Friday 4 – Sunday 6 September.
- People of colour retreat (Friday 31 July – Sunday 2 August)
- Rainbow retreat (Friday 14 – Sunday 16 August 2026)
- Young peoples long weekend retreat (Thursday 2 – Monday 6 April).
Extras
In addition to all of the above:
- We are also introducing a new weekend retreat, Turning Toward Climate Anxiety (Friday 28 August – Sunday 30 August).
- We will again have an Approaching Enlightenment course which will run at the Sydney Buddhist Centre every other Saturday 4pm – 6pm for 6 weeks starting 14 March, and then culminate in a retreat for those who attended (or have previously attended) Friday 5 – Monday 8 June over the long weekend.
- The 2026-2027 New Year retreat will be on the theme of The Dream (Saturday 26 December – Sunday 3 January 2027).
Book Now
Many of our retreats book out fast. Make sure you book early for the retreats you want to attend to avoid disappointment!