SAVE THE DATE

7-Night Residential Retreat
Teachers: John Travis & Adam Stonebraker
Location: Big Springs Garden Retreat Center, 32613 Highway 49, Sierra City, CA 96125
Dates: Sunday, August 30 to Sunday, September 6, 2026

Cost: Sliding Scale amounts coming soon.

Registration required: details coming soon
The full registration payment is due upon registration. Included in the registration is a $300 non-refundable deposit.

Retreat Description: "The Knowing Heart: Awareness that Feels, Feeling that Knows”
This weeklong silent retreat explores the natural union of awareness and heart. In the Thai Forest tradition, clarity and kindness deepen together. As the mind settles through sustained sitting and walking meditation, experience is known more directly and met with steadiness and care.

Through silence, daily teachings, and meetings with the teachers, we will cultivate a grounded, embodied awareness that can receive both ease and difficulty without struggle. As stability grows, the heart reveals its innate capacity for patience, compassion, and quiet confidence.

Open to both newer and experienced practitioners, this retreat offers a supportive mountain setting for deepening insight and discovering the strength of a knowing heart.

Big Springs Garden Retreat Center: Nestled in a turquoise forest opening to the natural stupa spires of the Sierra Buttes, Big (Maha) Springs is a spring fed, sky-windowed residential retreat center in the Yuba river drainage. An enchanting, contemplative sanctuary latticed with walking trails, ponds and meditative nooks and crannies, it provides comfortable lodging (single and shared rooms and camping platforms) and serves nourishing food from a master Bodhi Chef.

Accommodations: Big Springs Garden Retreat Center has four large cabins beautifully situated beneath the pines that accommodate five to nine people in each cabin. All cabins have three shared bathrooms. In addition, there are two ADA suites with two twin beds each. Every cabin includes a shared tea station and small refrigerator. Retreat participants are also welcome to camp on wooden tent platforms above the main buildings. There is a central Bathhouse with an indoor and outdoor private shower, and two ADA compliant bathrooms.

Registration Rates for this 7-Night Retreat:

Single Room: coming soon
Shared Room: coming soon
Tent Platform - coming soon

*Four ADA compliant twin beds in shared rooms are available.

**Please consider paying at the highest rate that you can afford. Your generosity supports Mountain Stream, staff, and fellow practitioners.

Cancellation Policy: A partial refund (less the $300 deposit) is possible up until 30 days before the retreat start date (Friday, July 31, 2026). If cancellation occurs less than 30 days prior to the start of retreat and no one is found to take your place, the registration fee is nonrefundable and your registration will go toward covering the cost to sponsor the retreat.

Donations for Teacher & Staff: In keeping with the Buddhist practice of generosity (dana), there will be an opportunity to offer dana (donation) to our teacher, retreat manager, and bodhi chef. All of whom are not being compensated for their efforts in supporting the retreat.

John Travis Bio: The Founding Teacher of Mountain Stream Meditation, John M. Travis, has been a student of meditation since 1969 and teaching since 1986. He studied in Asia with senior teachers of both Vipassana and Tibetan traditions and completed a four-year teacher training with Jack Kornfield. His vision and teaching have been very important in the growth and development of Buddhism and meditation in the Northern Sierra Nevada region.

Adam Stonebraker Bio: Adam Stonebraker has been dedicated to Buddhist practice and meditation since 1999 and serves as the Guiding Teacher for Mountain Stream Meditation in Nevada City, CA. Since 2010, he has been sharing the Buddha’s teachings with diverse audiences locally and internationally. His approach is deeply influenced by the Thai Forest Tradition, the Bodhisattva path, and the transformative power of meditation.

Adam has been mentored closely by Kittisaro & Thanissara as a retreat and meditation teacher in the lineage of Ajahn Chah and the Kuan Yin Dharmas as taught by Master Hsuan Hua. His teaching emphasizes trust in one’s innate wisdom, the cultivation of an open heart, and an embodied understanding of interdependence. While his primary focus is on Buddhism and meditation, his background in yoga and somatic practice informs his approach to embodied awareness and the integration of insight with daily life. Deeply attuned to the natural world, he draws inspiration from its rhythms and resilience as a source of practice and insight.

Adam has studied with a wide range of teachers, including Kittisaro & Thanissara, Sarah & Ty Powers, Zen Master Dae Gak, and Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche. In 2019, he earned a Master’s degree in Mindfulness Studies from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is currently in the four-year Spirit Rock/IMS teacher training, further deepening his commitment to sharing the Dharma. Since 2020, his teaching and practice have been exclusively dedicated to Buddhism and meditation. To learn more about Adam, visit, www.mtstream.org/adam-stonebraker