253 Philbrick Hill Road, Springfield, New Hampshire, USA
12am - 12am
About this Retreat
Lama, Managing Teacher, Spiritual Co-Director
Elizabeth Monson, PhD, is the Spiritual Co-Director of Natural Dharma Fellowship and the Managing Teacher at Wonderwell Mountain Refuge in Springfield, NH.
Liz was authorized as a dharma teacher and lineage holder in the Kagyu Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism after over 30 years of studying, practicing, and teaching Tibetan Buddhism in the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages. In 2015, Liz completed a doctorate at Harvard University, and was a Visiting Lecturer in the Study of Religion in 2015-16.
Liz is the author of two books: More Than a Madman: The Divine Words of Drukpa Kunley (2014) and Tales of a Mad Yogi: The Life and Wild Wisdom of Drukpa Kunley. (2021)
Liz is currently working on a book on Buddhist Tantra for publication with Shambhala Publications (forthcoming 2025). Her articles have appeared in Tricycle, Lion’s Roar, Buddhadharma, Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, and other periodicals.
At present, Liz writes, guides meditation retreats, and develops curricula for people interested in reconnecting with the natural world and in responding to contemporary social and spiritual issues as a path for liberation. She is engaged in an ongoing exploration of the potential of combining Buddhist meditation and indigenous plant medicines and psychedelics as portals for accessing and resting in the natural state.
Liz teaches around New England and online, helping people to access their innate awakened energies and open awareness and to discover tools for how to become free in everyday life. She focuses her teaching on developing diverse methods for incorporating the Buddhist teachings into this human life through the practices of kindness and compassion, and on recognizing the natural state in every moment of our lives. She derives inspiration from the teachings of Anam Thupten, Mingyur Rinpoche, and Tsoknyi Rinpoche. She finds deep solace and healing in the teachings that have long been held by native peoples around the planet, teachings that are continuously streaming towards us from the natural world.
Details of this retreat
This is the ONLINE component of the retreat. If you’d like to register for the RESIDENTIAL component, please click here.
Beneath the forest floor, an ancient conversation is taking place. Delicate threads of mycelium weave through the earth, carrying nourishment, exchanging information, and quietly sustaining the life of the forest. Though largely unseen, this living network reminds us that what appears separate is, in truth, profoundly intertwined.
For centuries, Buddhist teachings have pointed toward this same discovery. We usually experience ourselves as isolated individuals moving through an external world, yet with careful attention another reality begins to reveal itself. Our lives arise within an immeasurable web of relationships. Breath depends on forests. Bodies are shaped by sunlight, rain, soil, stars, and countless generations who came before us. Even our thoughts and emotions arise through conditions beyond our own making.
But Buddhism invites us one step further. It asks us not simply to understand interdependence, but to recognize the boundless field in which interdependence appears. Before there is “self” and “other,” before there is “inside” and “outside,” there is awake presence—vast, luminous, and naturally compassionate. This is not something we create through meditation. It is the ground of our experience, present before every thought, every perception, every story about who we are.
From this perspective, the forest is not merely something we observe. It is an expression of the same living awareness that knows this very moment. The wind moving through the pines. The song of a thrush. The fragrance of cedar after rain. The beating of your own heart. Each arises within one indivisible field of knowing.
Please join us to:
Explore the mycelial network as a living metaphor for interconnection, reciprocity, and belonging
Practice meditation as a form of rooting into breath, body, and earth
Be inspired by the intelligence and resilience of the forest
Reconnect with your place within the larger web of life
Throughout this long weekend, we will allow the living world and the forest to become our teachers. Through periods of silent sitting, walking meditation, contemplative practices in nature, Dharma teachings, and shared inquiry, we will gradually soften the habit of perceiving ourselves as separate observers. Again and again, we return to immediate experience—not searching for extraordinary states but learning to trust the extraordinary completeness of what is already here. Meditation becomes less an effort of concentration and more an act of remembering. Like roots settling into fertile soil, we allow attention to sink beneath the restless surface of conceptual thought into the quiet immediacy of embodied presence. There we can discover an intelligence that is not manufactured by the thinking mind—an effortless awareness that is intimate with every sound, sensation, emotion, and perception without clinging to any of them.
The mycelial network offers us a profound image for this journey. It does not strive to hold the forest together. It simply participates in the life that is already unfolding. In much the same way, awareness does not need to create connection. It is connection. It is the open, living field within which all relationships continuously arise.
As our practice deepens, we may notice that the boundaries we habitually defend begin to soften. The distinction between “my breath” and the breathing forest becomes less fixed. Listening happens without a listener. Seeing occurs without a separate seer. Compassion arises naturally because there is no longer such a solid division between ourselves and the world around us.
The great Dzogchen masters often speak of awakening as recognition rather than attainment. Nothing new is added. Nothing essential is acquired. Instead, we simply cease overlooking what has always been present. This retreat is an invitation into that recognition. To discover that awareness is not confined within us, but that we live within awareness. To experience the earth not as scenery but as kin. To rediscover ourselves as participants in an immeasurably ancient conversation that began long before we arrived and will continue long after we are gone. Like the hidden mycelium beneath the forest floor, this living field quietly sustains every moment of our lives. To remember it is to rediscover our original belonging.
Whether you are participating from Wonderwell Mountain Refuge or from the living landscape beyond the Zoom screen, all are invited to discover the profoundly intertwined web of relationships within which our lives arise. Wherever you find yourself—a front porch, backyard, community garden, nearby park, or simply with the sky framed through a window—the living world can become our teacher, inviting us to rediscover our original belonging.
Typical Retreat Schedule
(All times are Eastern time zone)
First Day — Opening session begins around 7:00 pm.
Full-Day Schedule — Morning meditation 7:00 am; Breakfast break 8:00-9:30 am; Lunch break 12:00-2:00 pm; Dinner break 5:30-7:00 pm.
Last Day — The closing session typically ends by 12:00 pm.
These times are just for reference. An expanded schedule will be provided in pre-retreat information emailed during the week prior to the event.
Zoom Link
The Zoom link will be sent several days before the retreat to all those registered. If you register after that date, you’ll receive the link with your confirmation email shortly after submitting your registration. If you don’t see an email from Natural Dharma Registrar or Wonderwell Mountain Refuge, it may have mistakenly gone to your spam folder or to Promotions or Updates in Gmail.
Important: Please put these this email address in your Contact or Safe-Send list to make sure you receive our emails:
register@naturaldharma.org
Program Cost
Our program fees provide essential support to our non-profit operations and NDF’s mission to spread the Dharma in accessible, relevant, and creative ways. Our goal is that no one misses out on our events due to lack of funds. Thanks to our generous donors, we are able to offer tiered pricing and additional support to fit varied financial situations:
May All Beings Benefit! *– supporting access for all and general support for NDF operations
A Middle Way – covering the base cost
Held in Sangha Loving-kindness – offering ease when financial resources are limiting
If the lowest cost tier creates an obstacle to your attendance, please see our financial support options on the registration page. The process is simple and does not require extensive information. Financial aid is immediately approved using discount code options that allow you to contribute the most you are able while honoring your particular resources.
* The difference between the May All Beings Benefit! tier and the Middle Way tier will be considered a tax-deductible donation and will be acknowledged as such in writing. Contributing at this level helps us offer financial aid to other participants. Thank you!!
Access to Recordings
NDF offers unlimited access to recordings, which are available in your user dashboard (more information about user accounts provided in pre-retreat materials). If you have a user account, please register with the same email you use to log into your dashboard. If not, an account will be created for you using your registration address.
Availability will vary depending on the type of event and the backlog for our precious resource volunteers. Thank you for your patience.
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