Retreats

Day Retreat:
The Buddha's Parinirvana

Sunday 15 February 10:30am – 4:30pm

We warmly invite you to join us for Parinirvana Day Festival, which marks the end of the Buddha's physical life and his realisation of full and perfect Enlightenment. This is full-day event with meditation, reflection and a three-fold puja. Celebrating Buddhist festivals like this is important. They bring the Buddha into our lives, and immerse us in the stories and myths of our tradition. They also gather us together as a sangha, creating the collective inspiration that only comes from practicing in large numbers.

Open to all over 18. Please bring photos of any loved ones who have died in the last year, to place on the shrine.

York Urban Retreat - The Four Reminders: Thoughts That Turn the Mind Towards the Dharma

Sunday 22 March – Sunday 29 March

Unlike a residential retreat an Urban Retreat takes place amongst the normal day-to-day conditions of your life. In this case it lasts for a week and begins and ends with a Day Retreat at the Centre, meditation/reflection each morning Monday to Friday a themed Practice Night, Thursday Daytime Class and Saturday Morning Meditation. A whole week of exploring the Four Reminders in our lives with an opportunity for one-to-one practice reviews during the week on Zoom with Taravandana.

Booking: Both Day Retreats must be booked (see link below) but you may just turn up for all the other activities.

North-Eastern Women's GfR Day Retreat

Sunday 12 April 10:30am – 4:30pm

A full day of practice for women in the north-east who have asked for ordination, led by Taravandana
More details shortly.

Day Retreat with Punyamala

Sunday 14 June 10:30am – 4:30pm

A day retreat for the York sangha, led by Punyamala
Details to be confirmed.

Adhisthana September 2026

Friday 25 September – Friday 2 October

Join Shakyapada and Mahasraddha for a great week at Adhisthana as part of the big Summer Sanghas gathering. Adhisthana is our our main retreat centre in Hereford. Find out more at Adhisthana.org

In 1976, Sangharakshita gave a series of public talks, collectively entitled Buddhism for Today and Tomorrow.

Under four headings – A Method of Personal Development, A Vision of Human Existence, A Nucleus of a New Society, and A Blueprint for a New World – he shared his vision of what the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order had to offer.

From the first of these talks, Sangharakshita tells us:

Perhaps it would be best to assume that nobody really knows anything about Buddhism in the West, and that perhaps we do have to make … a completely fresh start, to take, as it were, a completely new look at Buddhism. And this, we may say, is what the FWBO was founded for in 1967, and what it tries to do. It tries to take a completely new look. It tries to make a completely fresh start… It exists, we may say, to cut the Buddha’s teaching down to its absolute essentials and to make those essentials relevant to people’s lives.

This is an opportunity to experience a full retreat together with your friends from the sangha. We will stay together for groups during the retreat but we will also have an opportunity to meet lots of people