Cancelled: Zeden Lake Insight Meditation Retreat – September 2024 🌲

Unfortunately, we have made the difficult decision to cancel this year’s retreat. Although we hoped that the date change to early September would work for the community, we just don’t have enough registration to go ahead. We have already tentatively scheduled back to the last week of August for 2025 (August 25-31 – dates to be confirmed), and we hope that you can join us again then. We will update our website when the dates and other details are figured out.

Our True Nature: Still, Easeful, Spacious

Silent Insight Meditation retreat at lovely Zeden Lake, with Jeanne Corrigal

September 2-8, 2024

some people in canoes and a paddleboard are floating on a lake with reeds, the sky is a hazy blue and there are tall evergreen trees in the background
Meditating on the lake in 2023
Photo by Andrea G.

Practicing in community with beloved nature as a teacher can cultivate deep settling, nurture the heart, and free the mind. This retreat will support these innate processes through pathways of concentration, kindness, awareness, and liberation. As we rest into these practices we can come to understand our own true nature more deeply, and this can be a nourishment and wisdom that we carry in all aspects of our lives. In this time of global crisis, the refuge of nature can support our embodied care, engagement in the world, and capacity to love the earth.

The retreat includes dharma talks, practice talks with Jeanne, reflective meditation practices, and gentle paddling each day. For more information, please email the Saskatoon Insight Meditation Community at contact@saskatooninsight.com.

Two pine trees frame the view of a lake with the opposite shore in the distance. There is blue sky with some grey and white cumulus clouds.
Photo of Zeden Lake, from the St John Bosco Wilderness Camp website.

Retreat requirements

To support the safety and practical aspects of this nature retreat, we ask that participants have:

  • A minimum of one weekend silent insight meditation retreat, or a conversation with Jeanne to understand more about your experience.
  • Previous insight meditation practice.
  • Good swimming and basic canoe skills.
  • If tenting, basic camping experience.

Retreat Etiquette

We will share the happiness of the community work meditations of on-site food preparation and clean up.

This retreat will be held in silence, except for safety and logistical needs, and for practice talks with Jeanne. This supports the whole community.

Please come prepared to participate fully in the retreat schedule:
Day 1: 3:45 pm to 9 pm
Days 2-6: 6 am to 9 pm
Day 7: 6 am to noon

Logistics

  • We will set up our home at the St. John Bosco Wilderness Camp.
    • Please note there is no cell-phone coverage at this location. An emergency number will be provided for you to give to family or friends in case they need to contact you.
  • Base registration fee: $315, plus a food contribution equaling about $80-$100.
    • The base fee is for those who plan to camp (bring your own tent, etc.). There are some additional options for accommodation:
      1) A bed in a bunkhouse for an additional $63 (total
      2) A private bedroom in a cabin for an additional $315
      3) A private bedroom with a shared bathroom for an additional $378
    • Some scholarship support is available, if the registration fee is a barrier.
  • Registration fees cover the operational expenses of the retreat (site, equipment, fees, transportation, etc.). They do not cover the teachings, which are offered on a dana basis. Dana is a Pali word meaning generosity. In keeping with Buddhist tradition, teachers do not charge for their services but are sustained by the generosity of their students. Dana allows the teacher and retreat manager to continue their Dharma work. There will be an opportunity to offer dana to Jeanne for her teaching. (Ways to offer dana to Jeanne.)
  • Protocols to safely offer this retreat in light of Covid will be determined closer to the event.

Registration

Registration is closed.

Jeanne Corrigal is the guiding teacher for the Saskatoon Insight Meditation Community, and a graduate of the 2017-2021 IMS teacher training program. She has trained primarily in the Burmese lineage of Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw, with a great affinity for the Thai Forest Tradition of Ajahn Buddhadasa and for the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh. She is a certified MBSR teacher, is certified with Indigenous Focusing Oriented Trauma Therapy (IFOT), and she has trained with Mindful Schools and Somatic Experiencing. She has taught with Mindfulness Magazine, Lion’s Roar and Tricycle’s online programs, and teaches across North America. She is Metis, and one of her first teachers in loving presence was Cree Elder Jim Settee.