Dear friends, the brothers of the healing Spring monastery have decided to provide opportunity for english speakers to attend our week-end retreats; starting from our week-end in June, from the 24th to the 26th.
It is our great pleasure to reopen our monasteries to welcome you for weekends of practice together in the Monastery, in person!
The next weekend retreats will be :
June 24th to 26th
July 8th to 10th
July 22nd to 24th
August 5th to 7th
> For more information see our “retreat” page, or our “days of mindfulness” page
If you wish to come for a Day of Mindfulness, please contact us first so that we can try to organise a translation on that day.
Call for volunteers for translation
Dear friends, we aspire to offer the possibility to English-speaking people to come and participate in our retreats and mindfulness days.
To do this, we are looking for people who speak both languages: French and English, to help translate with us. It could be for days of mindfulness or for weekend retreats, just from time to time, or more often, depending on your wishes and availability. You don’t need to have any experience as a translator, just the desire to help us is enough. The best is if you are a little bit familiar with our practice.
Contact us and we will be very happy to call on your support from time to time.
For the first times we will accompany you, don’t worry we will adapt.
thank you
The Healing Spring Monastery is a mindfulness practice center, in the tradition of Plum Village.
It is located in Verdelot in Seine et Marne, Ile de France.
Today 8 brothers live there permanently.
This former convent, established by our Augustinian sisters of Meaux, who left the place around 2000, has been transformed into a mindfulness practice center. The monastery has a beautiful living space surrounded by 1.8 hectares of green hills. It has a tranquil atmosphere, conducive to spirituality. Nearby there is a spring with many legends and two small rivers.
The buildings can house about 20 monks and accommodate 20 guests at night. After renovating another part of the building, 40 retreatants can sleep there. There is 810 m2 of living space. The Healing Spring Monastery (for brothers and men) and Maison de l’Inspir (for sisters and women) form a refuge in nature, close to Paris and easily accessible from the capital by public transport (85 minutes from the Gare de l’Est). Sisters and brothers have separate activities and come together a few times per week, such as for our days of mindfulness.
The monastics of Plum Village wanted to respond to the growing demand for mindfulness retreats in France and especially in Paris. Lately, the French-speaking retreats at Village des Pruniers are fully booked months in advance.
Together with the sisters of the Maison de l’Inspir – which is located a few kilometres away, in the commune of Villeneuve sur Bellot – the monks organize mindfulness days (welcoming 30 to 50, and up to 100 retreatants) and retreat weekends, in English and in French. We also wish to organize special themed retreats such as: family retreats, Wake Up retreats for young people, retreats for teachers and health retreats. Our aspiration is to welcome about 3,000 visitors per year and spread the seeds of mindfulness to all generations.
Our beloved teacher Thich Nhat Hanh said: “everyone knows that peace must begin with oneself, but few people know how to do it.” At the Healing Spring Monastery, we will have the opportunity to learn this, supported by the monks and all those around us.