A Seven-Day Meditation Retreat
with Brian Lesage and Diana Clark
Offered by the Santa Fe Vipassana Sangha and the Albuquerque Insight Meditation Center
September 12 – 19, 2025
Our Lady of Guadalupe Abbey in Pecos, NM
This retreat offers a gentle arc of practice, beginning with Insight meditation to help us settle into presence, quiet the mind, and establish a grounded awareness. As the retreat unfolds, we will transition into the heart-centered practice of Loving-Kindness (Metta), allowing the steadiness of mindfulness to support the opening of the heart.
Through this natural progression from settling into stillness to opening into warmth, we’ll explore how awareness and kindness together can nourish inner peace, compassion, and freedom.
Held in silence, the retreat includes daily meditation instruction, Dharma talks, and practice discussions with the teachers. Suitable for both beginning and experienced meditators, this retreat invites a deepening of practice and a softening of the heart.
Our Lady of Guadalupe Abbey is about 30 miles east of Santa Fe along the Pecos River, and is surrounded by juniper forest native to the area. The Center is isolated and large enough to provide for the quiet and seclusion needed to support the practice.
The Retreat will begin at 4:00 pm on Friday, September 12, and complete around noon on Friday, September 19, 2025.
Accommodations: Accommodations are simple rooms with private bathrooms. Vegetarian meals will be provided from dinner on Friday evening through breakfast on Friday morning. A full meal will be served at lunch, with light breakfast and evening meals. We can accommodate some special dietary needs, but not all. Please check with the contact person below if you have special needs of any sort.
Please bring your preferred sitting equipment: zabuton, zafu, bench, and/or backjack. Chairs are available.
Dana: Since the time of the Buddha, the teachings have been given freely, as they are considered to be priceless. This 2,600-year-old tradition continues to be sustained with the practice of dana, which allows yogis to offer support to their teachers, who receive no other financial compensation. There will be an opportunity to offer dana at the end of the retreat, so please bring either checks or cash for your offering.
Fee: The fee for the retreat is a sliding scale of $900 to $1,250. The estimated cost to our sangha for the retreat is $1,005. Please pay as much as you can so that we can offer this retreat to all regardless of their financial situation. Payment plans and scholarships are available so that anyone interested will be able to attend. If you need scholarship information, please send your queries to Sarah Grant, sarahcrawfordgrant@gmail.com and Francesca Morfesis, francesca@voiceofanother.com.
Registration: To register for this retreat, please fill out the questionnaire using the link below. Once we receive your completed form, we will send you an acknowledgment of receipt and instructions about how to send in a $150 non-refundable deposit. Your spot will be secured once the deposit is received. When registration is full, you will be placed on the waiting list on a first-come, first-served basis.
Questions? Please email Sarah Grant: sarahcrawfordgrant@gmail.com and Francesca Morfesis: francesca@voiceofanothercom. Please allow up to 7 business days for a response. Thank you and we look forward to practicing together.
Brian Lesage has practiced Buddhist meditation since 1988 and has taught meditation since 2000. He has studied in the Zen, Theravada, and Tibetan schools of Buddhism. He was ordained in the Rinzai Zen tradition in 1996. His training in Vipassana Meditation includes extended retreats in Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, and India as well as numerous retreats in the U.S. He leads retreats and teaches meditation courses nationwide. Brian also has a private practice in Somatic Experiencing, which is a naturalistic approach to healing trauma. For more information, go to https://liberatingawareness.com.
Diana Clark, PhD., is a dedicated dharma teacher based in the San Francisco Bay Area, teaching primarily at the Insight Meditation Center and Insight Retreat Center. Her extensive meditation experience includes years of silent retreats at Spirit Rock, IMS, and the Insight Retreat Center, where she received training from esteemed teachers Gil Fronsdal and Andrea Fella. Inspired by the Buddha’s teachings on peace and freedom, Diana’s teaching approach aims to combine the profound and the practical with a sincere commitment to cultivating an environment that nurtures both wisdom and compassion. Diana holds a PhD in biochemistry, and much like her scientific training facilitated her comprehension of the human body, her Buddhist practice deepens her insights into the workings of our precious minds and hearts.