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Flowering Lotus Meditation is a mobile sangha.
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We host meditation retreats at multiple locations across the southern United States and strive to create retreat experiences accessible to all.
We bring in experienced Buddhist teachers to teach students, with any level of experience, meditation.
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All retreats and other events are based on Buddhist teachings of mindfulness and compassion.
We welcome anyone to attend.
Meditation & Community Across the Gulf South
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Upcoming Offerings
Refuge In the Storm: An Activist Perspective
with Caroline Durham
When the tides rise, how do we continue staying afloat? Living in a world where too clearly “there is always suffering,” where are the off-ramps for cessation of suffering? What is the interwoven relationship of the Four Noble Truths that provides refuge in the storm? In this discussion we explore the gifts that we each are - to ourselves, to one another and to the world.
Caroline Durham, founder of Mindful Justice, grounds into the dharma from a foundation of engaged Buddhism. A creative, visionary, and changemaker, Caroline interweaves the dharma with 25+ years service as a public defender and community organizer focused on healing the structural racism underlying the criminal legal system. Committed to healed, thriving communities through engaged Buddhism, her practice is grounded in the lineage of Thich Nhat Hahn through her dear mentor and friend Cherie Maples. Working on local and national level to bring about an end to the carceral state, she focuses on supporting community activists and people with lived experience with the criminal legal system and strengthening communities in the South.
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Saturday Morning Dharma: Refuge In the Storm: An Activist Perspective with Caroline Durham • May 10, 2025​ at 9 am CST
The Possibility of Peaceful Abiding: An Invitation to Rest the Heart and Mind
with Bhante Pañña
In the midst of our busy, often overwhelming lives, the idea of finding true rest—within ourselves—can feel distant, even impossible. Yet the teachings of the Buddha gently remind us that peace is not something we need to chase; it is something we can learn to recognize and rest into.
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In this talk, we will explore the possibility of peaceful abiding—a natural stillness of body, heart, and mind that arises when we allow ourselves to simply be. Through reflection, simple teachings, and guided presence, we will look at what it means to rest in awareness, meet life with greater ease, and cultivate a steadiness that carries us through both joy and difficulty.
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Online Meditation, Dharma Talk and Discussion with Bhante Pañña • May 14, 2025​ at 7 pm CST
First Aid Kit for the Mind
Breaking the Cycle of Habitual Behaviors
with Valerie (Vimalasara) Mason-John
A First Aid Kit For The Mind, a retreat to help us to stay equanimous during unsettling times. Statistics show that when people live under the reality and or the shadow of war, the fear of families being split up due to deportation, the fear of the woman's body under surveillance and the basic human rights being threatened, that addictive, compulsive habits escalate. People are more agitated, quick to react, suspicious, and sometimes even hateful. This retreat welcomes all who want to have respite from the ills of the world, and equip themselves with tools to live life from a place of loving kindness
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Teacher Bio: Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John is a Trauma expert working in the field for mindfulness for Trauma and Addiction. Trained in Internal Family Systems, and one of the founding facilitators of Dr Gabor Mate's Compassionate Inquiry, they teach the year long course and have a private practice. Award-winning author of 11 books, they are the co-founder and co-author of Eight Step Recovery: Using The Buddha’s Teachings to Overcome Addiction, with 8 step meetings in 3 continents. This year their new book a First Aid Kit for the Mind: Breaking the Cycle of Habitual Behaviours was published. They live on the unceded territory of Kanata.
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WJ Kelley Retreat Center
510 N 2nd St, Bay St. Louis, MS 39520
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Residential Retreat • June 13th - 15th , 2025
Join us for Lunch on Friday (Check in Window 10:45 - 11:30 am,
Lunch at Noon)
Retreat Concludes 11:30 pm Sunday
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Payment Plans Available
Finding Firm Ground: Mindful Tools for Uncertain Times
with Jennifer Sigrest
Feeling overwhelmed by stress? You're not alone. In challenging times, it’s easy to feel like the ground is constantly shifting beneath us. But there are ways to find steadiness—even when life feels uncertain.
In this half day live online workshop, Finding Firm Ground: Mindful Tools for Uncertain Times, we will guide you through simple, practical strategies to help you better understand your stress response and navigate it with more clarity and ease.
Join us on June 28! Watch this video to learn more, and click the link below to register.
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Online Workshop • June 28, 2025​ at 9 am - 12 pm CST
Loving Kindness Retreat
with Rev. Mikey Noechel, MS and
Andrew Chapman, LMSW
In this retreat, we will engage in sustained meditation practice to cultivate a deeper understanding and connection with our internal experience. By observing the natural flow of the
mind-body process, we develop the clarity and compassion necessary to meet life’s joys and challenges, pleasure and pain, fear and joy, sadness and happiness with greater acceptance and balance.
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St. Mary’s Sewanee
770 St. Mary's Lane Sewanee, TN 37375
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Residential Retreat • July 16-20, 2025
The Path of Recovery:
Healing the Wounds of Addiction
with Kevin Griffin
Join us for a unique meditation retreat combining traditional Buddhist practices with recovery work. Primarily conducted in silence, the retreat focuses on insight meditation and heart practices, along with interactive exercises, lectures, and meetings. We learn to practice mindfulness in all activities, whether formal meditation, movement, speaking, listening, or eating.
This retreat we will put a special emphasis on exploring “the felt experience,” watching how emotions arise with thoughts, sensations, and social interactions. This focus helps us to avoid craving, aversion, and distraction.
Participants practice Noble Silence outside of the interactive exercises and 12-Step-style meetings. All recovery paths are welcome, whether Twelve Step, Recovery Dharma, substance, process, or relationship-oriented. The intensive nature of the retreat allows for profound personal openings, insight, and transformation. The support of the community carries us through the sometimes challenging, sometimes inspiring
elements of this deep inner work. You must be at least 30 days clean and sober in order
to attend the retreat.
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WJ Kelley Retreat Center
510 N 2nd St, Bay St. Louis, MS 39520
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Residential Retreat • October 1 - 5, 2025​
New Year's Eve 2025-2026
with Dave Smith
Topic and Retreat Description Coming Soon!
Teacher Bio:
For nearly 30 years, Dave Smith has held a practice rooted in the Insight Meditation (Vipassana) tradition. He was empowered to teach through the Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society, is a certified teacher for Cultivating Emotional Balance (CEB) which is combines contemporary emotion based scientific research with contemplative practices and psychology drawn from Buddhism and has studied Buddhist psychology at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies (BCBS).
Dave teaches residential meditation retreats, weekly live dharma classes, online courses, and workshops. He has developed educational tools and resources, including mindfulness and emotional skills trainings, in both secular and Buddhist contexts. Dave also works with students 1:1 through his dharma mentoring program.
In 2016 he founded the Secular Dharma Foundation to foster the advancement of emotional and psychological well-being through the education and integration of mindfulness, psychology, and various therapeutic modalities. Dave has brought dharma and meditative interventions into a variety of settings including jails, prisons, youth detention centers and addiction treatment facilities. Dave lives in rural Colorado with his wife and two sons.
Explore more about Dave Smith here.
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WJ Kelley Retreat Center
510 N 2nd St, Bay St. Louis, MS 39520
Residential Retreat • December 30, 2025-January 2, 2026
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Weekly Practice Opportunities
Recovery Dharma Meeting
​Every Tuesday at 6:30 pm CST Online Only
Using Buddhist Practices and Principles to Recover from Addiction
You do not need to pay to attend this meeting.
Here's the Zoom Link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81433309237
Recovery Dharma is a Buddhist-based, compassionate approach to addictions of ALL kinds, not just substance abuse. We will begin our meeting with a 15-20 minute meditation, followed by a topic discussion. Typically we will begin reading from the Recovery Dharma literature which can be found on their website recoverydharma.org
In our meetings we don’t identify as anything other than our first names. And we do not keep “sober time” We keep this space safe, welcoming, and non-judgmental. All are welcome here.
Weekly • Tuesdays at 6:30 pm CST
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Weekly Dharma Basics
and Meditation Practice
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Come sit with us every Sunday online. We sit in meditation and and learn about the Dharma together.
Keep a consistent meditation practice and learn about how these ancient teachings are relevant to your life.
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Beginner friendly, all are welcome.
Meditation and Dharma Share • Sundays at 6pm - 7pm CST
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