Drala Mountain Center

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Red Feather Lakes, CO
Drala Mountain Center

Drala Mountain Center is a mountain valley retreat located on 600 acres in northern Colorado hosting meditation and yoga retreats.
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Since 1971 the Center has offered hundreds of programs on Buddhist meditation, yoga and other contemplative disciplines. Tamed by more than fifty years of use as a contemplative retreat, Drala Mountain Center is a place where one of the basic truths of Buddhism—that people can be profoundly open to the wisdom of the present moment—is always readily available.

04/16/2026

Step into the natural world and remember who you really are.🌿✨

We are not separate from nature, we belong to it. And yet, the pace and pressures of modern life can pull us away from that innate connection.

That's why Lama Elizabeth Monson has created a 6-day immersive retreat where the natural world becomes your teacher. Through direct experience, you’ll explore the wisdom of the five elements—earth, water, fire, air, and space—as pathways to clarity, presence, and deep connection.

🌄 The Luminous Wilderness: Awakening with the Five Elements
🌬 May 22–28
🌱 All experience levels welcome
🔗 Learn more & register: https://www.dralamountain.org/program/lw526-the-luminous-wilderness-awakening-with-the-five-elements/

04/13/2026

These little ducks have waddled their way into our hearts 🦆

They’ve become unofficial teachers by reminding us to slow down, stay curious, and take the scenic route (preferably in a tiny parade).

Have you seen the ducks on land yet?💛

04/11/2026

Motherhood holds a thousand untold stories. 🌷✍️

In this special Mother’s Day retreat, you’re invited to slow down, listen deeply, and write from the heart. Through guided prompts, spacious reflection, and supportive community, you’ll explore poetry as a way to reconnect with your creativity, your voice, and yourself.

Whether you’re new to writing or returning to it, this weekend offers rest, connection, and inspiration just for you. Join award-winning poet, author, and transmitted Zen teacher Brooke McNamara on May 7–9 for Write to the Heart of Motherhood for🌸rest,🌿connection,🖊️and creativity.

🔗Learn More: https://www.dralamountain.org/program/wm526-write-to-the-heart-of-motherhood-rest-connection-and-creativity-for-mothers-day/

04/09/2026

🏕️ Tent Set Up season is here at ! 🏕️

Calling all volunteers who want to help us this May from the 8th - 16th. This is a hands-on opportunity to spend time on land, contribute to the community, and be part of the behind-the-scenes magic that makes our summer programs possible.

What's Do You Get??
🍽️Meals
🛏️Lodging
🛠️ Experience with our incredible land staff
🌿 Community + time on the land

Come lend a hand, meet great people, and help bring the tents to life. Sign up: https://www.dralamountain.org/program/tent-setup-help-drala-mountain-center-prepare-for-the-summer-season/

04/07/2026

🌸First Flowers of the Season! 🌷

Just as the earth begins to soften and awaken, we’re reminded of the nurturing energy that makes new life possible. This upcoming Retreat & Renewal falls over Mother’s Day weekend, a beautiful opportunity to honor the care that sustains us. Whether you’re celebrating your mother and mother figures, remembering one, or simply tending to your own well-being, this retreat offers space to slow down and receive.

Spend the weekend in meditation, gentle movement, and time on the land as spring unfolds all around you. Let the stillness, fresh air, and emerging blooms support deep rest and renewal. 🌿

🌼 Retreat & Renewal 2026
💛 A nourishing Mother’s Day weekend
🧘 Meditation, yoga & spacious schedule
🌄 Time to wander, reflect, and reconnect

Learn more + register: https://www.dralamountain.org/program/rr526-retreat-renewal-2026/

04/03/2026

You're holding at lot at this stage in life... family, work, relationships, changes. That's why Annabelle Yoo and Julie Myers build a retreat especially for YOU.

Our upcoming Midlife Magic retreat on May 1 - 3 seeks to cultivate tools within you to support bodily, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being during this time of transition. It offers a space to pause. To breathe.

Together, we’ll explore gentle yoga, meditation, and honest conversations around perimenopause, menopause, stress, and the emotional shifts of midlife, all in a supportive, judgment-free community. Register and find your peace again: https://www.dralamountain.org/program/mm426-midlife-magic-a-womens-retreat-for-navigating-the-changes-of-midlife-with-sturdiness-and-grace/

This is your time to rest, unplug, and reset your nervous system in a peaceful mountain setting. 🌿No experience needed. Just come as you are.

04/02/2026

Among the quiet beauty of our land stand stone lanterns🏮These are more than garden features, they are living symbols of light and guidance. 🌟

Originally brought from East Asia alongside Buddhism, stone lanterns (ishi-dōrō) were first used to line the paths of Buddhist temples, where the candle or flame inside was offered as light to the Buddha and the teachings, a metaphor for dispelling the darkness of ignorance. Their presence invited contemplation and illuminated sacred ground.

Over centuries, this tradition became intertwined with the sacred spaces of Shinto shrines ⛩️🛕 where lanterns also serve to mark the threshold between the everyday world and the spiritual realm, guiding both worshippers and kami (spirits) to a place of reverence.

Here, our stone lanterns quietly anchor the land in that same lineage of illumination, devotion, and sanctuary reminding us that the path of practice is one of clarity, presence, and steady light.📿

03/31/2026

As Women’s History & Gender Equality Month comes to a close, we’re celebrating the incredible women in our community who help shape . We’re so grateful for their wisdom, courage, and compassionate leadership, today and always. 💛🌿

🌲 Robbie Rettmer, Executive Director ☀
With 25+ years in leadership, Robbie has designed award-winning programs for organizations like McKinsey and Ford. A longtime meditation practitioner, her path is rooted in Kagyu, Shambhala, Mahamudra, and Nyingma traditions. She revitalizes DMC by stewarding the land, rebuilding systems, and ensuring programs offer wisdom, compassion, and connection. Fun fact: she helped create tsatsas (sacred votive offerings, some containing relics of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche) placed within the Great Stupa.

🌲 Joanne Martin Braun, Ph.D., Governing Council Member ☀
Practicing with Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and other masters for 40+ years, Joanne is a meditation teacher and nonprofit consultant who brings mindfulness and compassion to all she does. A grateful DMC attendee since 1982, she has served as staff and on advisory boards, now continuing her commitment as a Governing Council member.

🌲 Melissa Hoskins, Governing Council Member ☀
With 20 years in communications, program management, and organizational coaching, Melissa helps organizations thrive at the intersection of people, process, and technology. A lifelong practitioner, she began meditating at 11 and has served as DMC staff. Melissa works to nurture DMC so generations can continue connecting with their hearts and wisdom.

🌲 Karen Wilding, DMC Governing Council Member ☀
A licensed Clinical Social Worker and longtime meditation instructor, Karen has served Boulder for decades, including 17 years as Director of Counseling at September School. A student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, she’s been part of DMC since 1976 and continues to share her warmth and deep care for this “magical, open-hearted and spacious place.”

03/29/2026

Let art be the doorway to connection, presence, and graitude🎨🌿

These temporary land-based artworks and gestural drawings offer a glimpse into the kinds of creative explorations you'll get hands on experience with in our upcoming retreat Regenerations: Cultivating Connections to Earth, Art & Activism.

📅 When: April 28th - May 3rd, 2026
📍 Drala Mountain Center
🔗 Register here: https://www.dralamountain.org/program/rc426-regenerations-cultivating-connections-to-earth-art-activism/?form=1

Join author, Molly Murfee, and artist, Ivy Kim, to recconet with the natural world through visual and written practices. Explore how your creativity can become a form of meaningful response.

This oppurtunity is both an inward journey into our creative love for the Earth and an exploration of how to share that care outward; in community, on the land, and back in our home environments.🌎✨

03/28/2026

At , staff life is more than a job, it’s an opportunity to live in community, deepen your practice, and support meaningful retreat experiences in a beautiful mountain valley. Surrounded by forests, meadows, and wide-open skies, staff members help create a supportive container for personal transformation, mindfulness, and contemplative living.✨🌄

If you're drawn to intentional community, meaningful service, and life on retreat land — we’d love to hear from you.

📍 Live on the land
🌄 Work in community
🧘 Deepen your practice
🌎 Support transformative retreats

🔗 Learn more & apply: https://www.dralamountain.org/dmc_stafflife/

03/27/2026

For too long, these stories have been overlooked.📖

Buddhism’s Foremothers: Stories of Courage, Compassion, and Leadership hosted on land at explores the lives of the first Buddhist women, both lay and monastic, whose courage challenged the norms of their time and helped shape the Buddhadharma as we know it today. Through storytelling, reflection, and shared insight, we invite you to reconnect with a lineage that is powerful, human, and deeply relevant to the world we’re living in now. 🗣️💬

Register today! 🧘‍♀️ https://www.dralamountain.org/program/bf1026-buddhisms-foremothers-stories-of-courage-compassion-and-leadership/?form=1

Join writer, independent scholar, and authorized dharma teacher Wendy Garling in honoring the women who walked before us and continue to guide the path.🛤️

03/26/2026

Silence settled across the land as practitioners gathered with for a weekend of deep meditation at Drala Mountain Center. Participants moved through sitting meditation, walking meditation, and mindful meals, creating space to befriend themselves and uncover their natural basic goodness. This kind of silent container offers the opportunity to “settle” and practice welcoming experience just as it is. This is what we call the heart the cradle of loving-kindness.

If you missed this one, Gelong Loden Nyima returns May 1–3, 2026 for another weekend immersion at in silence designed for meditators ready to deepen their practice through sustained sitting, walking meditation, and mindful awareness.

👉 Learn more & register: https://www.dralamountain.org/program/smi326-silent-meditation-intensive-the-cradle-of-loving-kindness-2/

Address

151 Shambhala Way
Red Feather Lakes, CO
80545

Telephone

+19708812184

Website

https://www.dralamountain.org/

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