Led by Dharma Teacher Khaydroup Zangmo
Assisted by Deidre Sklar guiding Feldenkrais & Addie deHilster guiding Yoga
The 12th Annual Bodhi Path Heart of Practice Program
(Online and In-Person in Natural Bridge, Virginia)
March 29th - April 4th, 2026
(Hosted by Bodhi Path Pasadena & Bodhi Path Natural Bridge)
We are happy to announce for the seventh consecutive year, our annual online week-long practice intensive with Dharma teacher Khaydroup, this year hosted by both Pasadena and Natural Bridge Bodhi Path Centers. The first 5 years of this retreat was in person only. We met on lovely grounds in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Since then our retreat has expanded to include folks from all over the US, Mexico and Guatemala. For the past two years, we have hosted a hybrid version meeting in Martha’s Vineyard. This year we are most grateful to have the opportunity to meet at the seat of Shamar Rinpoche, the founder of Bodhi Path International, a 50 acre parkland with Meditation Hall, 9 outdoor Stupas, a Buddha Pavillion, Lotus Pond and an indoor Reliquary Stupa.
It is fortunate indeed to have the time to delve deeply into spiritual discovery. This is a rare opportunity to set aside our normal routines, unplug from distractions, and allow ourselves to experience the true relief that comes from cultivating a quiet mind and an open heart. Learning to be gentle with ourselves and “to relax in the doing” is liberating and transformative.
Creating a retreat environment offers the support of a daily schedule and the opportunity to practice together. The key is finding the balance between, “not too tight, and not too loose”, between relaxed discipline and awake relaxation. In so doing we discover that peace and happiness are already present within our own mind, we only have to relax in the practice and let go of everything that obscures the innate qualities of wisdom and compassion.
We will provide individual “Zoom Rooms” for each of the practice sessions, meditation, Yoga, Feldenkrais, small group and whole group sessions, and daily Dharma Talks.
The Meditation Hall at the Natural Bridge Bodhi Path Center will be open during the retreat to welcome registered participants who wish to join the practice sessions in person. We invite in person participants to stay for the daytime hours of the program and bring a sack lunch every day in order to maximize the retreat experience and enjoy the many blessings of this place. The schedule has been designed to allow NB participants to go home for dinner and to do the evening sessions online.
We are not able to offer housing but there are hotels, motels and vacation houses in the area.
For those who can attend on a partial basis, you may set your own retreat schedules around personal obligations. We ask that whatever schedule you set for yourself, that you sincerely commit to it for the entire week and don’t make last minute changes. Let us know your intentions at the start of the retreat. Each person’s attendance and commitment to the practice truly supports the whole retreat community.
Link to the schedule:
2026 Heart of Practice Master Schedule
We warmly invite you to join our online and in person (Natural Bridge) Dharma community program. Registration details are now available at
bodhipath.org/pasadena/ and bodhipath.org/events
For more info please write to pasadena@bodhipath.org
__________________________________________________________________________________
Khaydroup Zangmo has been studying and practicing Buddhism since 1982 and kept monastic vows for 18 of those years. Under the guidance of the highly respected meditation master Lama Gendun Rinpoche, she completed two consecutive three-year retreats at Dhagpo Kundreul Ling in central France.
After completing her second retreat in 1997, Khaydroup lived in the women's monastery established by Gendun Rinpoche and began teaching the Dharma in centers, schools and organizations in Europe and in the USA. At the request of Shamar Rinpoche, Khaydroup moved back to the US in 2000 to be a resident teacher at the Santa Barbara Bodhi Path Center. During the two years she was there, she helped found the San Luis Obispo Bodhi Path and the West Los Angeles Bodhi Path. The West Los Angeles group moved to Pasadena in 2004 where Khaydroup has been the resident teacher and held weekly classes and organized programs and retreats ever since.
In 1981, Khaydroup moved to Boulder, Colorado to work with a team of psychologists and a psychiatrist from The Naropa Institute who were using an innovative approach to caring for persons in psychological crisis in home settings. There she met and studied for 5 years with her first Buddhist teacher, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
Khaydroup was also a primary school teacher for 15 years, owning and directing a Waldorf Preschool for five of those years. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she is now a lay practitioner and lives on an avocado farm in North San Diego.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Deidre Sklar (PhD) has been investigating the effects of movement and stillness since she was asked to impersonate a snowflake in kindergarten. Her investigation started in theatre as an actor, corporeal mime, and director, then in academia as a scholar of dance ethnology and performance theory (teaching at UCLA, UC Irvine, TWU and Oberlin from 1995 to 2006), now as a Feldenkrais practitioner. Her book, Dancing with the Virgin: Body and Faith in the Fiesta of Tortugas, New Mexico, asks questions about the relation between a community’s embodied practices and people’s transformative experience of belief.
Continuing with movement as a path to transformation, Deidre studied hatha and Kripalu yoga in the late 1960s, culminating in a month-long Viniyoga practicum in Chennai, India in 2002. Overlapping yoga practice, she was introduced to long Buddhist meditation retreats through Spirit Rock in northern California. The depth possible with sitting meditation eventually led her deeper into Buddhist philosophy and refuge. She joined Khaydroup's Pasadena Bodhipath group in 2007 and has remained devoted ever since.
Deidre began studying the Feldenkrais Method® of Somatic Education in 2010, completing the training in 2016. It is a gentle movement practice that emphasizes awareness -- of kinesthetic sensation, visualization, and mental processes. Feldenkrais lessons parallel and support meditation: learning from oneself by noticing differences, exploring possibilities, and finding alternative pathways. The emphasis is on ease, curiosity, discovery and pleasure in movement.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Addie deHilster is a C-IAYT Yoga Therapist, a Yoga teacher trainer, and a Mindfulness Meditation Facilitator. She is the founder of the Moved to Meditate Class Library, which offers online classes based on the 4 M’s: Meaningful Mindful Movement that Meets you where you are. Now based in Vancouver, Washington (USA), she previously owned and operated a community yoga studio (Spiral Path Yoga Center) in Los Angeles, California for over five years. Her studio was known for its warm and inviting environment, robust teacher training program, and emphasis on adaptive yoga that made the practice more accessible to students who would not have thrived in most mainstream studios.
In addition to leading yoga classes and meditation groups for the general public, she also offers private yoga therapy sessions, as well as one-on-one meditation coaching, and Yin Yoga Teacher Trainings (all online). A dedicated practitioner of Buddhist Insight Meditation (aka Vipassana or Mindfulness), she has accumulated over three months of silent retreat practice over the years. She is a graduate of the 2014-15 Mindfulness Yoga & Meditation Training Program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, which is a program dedicated to weaving together the wisdom traditions of Hatha Yoga and Buddhist meditation. Her classes highlight the mindfulness principles within movement practice, helping students find an accessible pathway to self-healing and the heart of what yoga and meditation have to offer.
For more information and resources, you can visit her website at movedtomeditate.yoga, or tune in to the Moved To Meditate Podcast on any of the major podcast apps.
Led by Dharma Teacher Khaydroup Zangmo
Assisted by Deidre Sklar guiding Feldenkrais & Addie deHilster guiding Yoga
The 12th Annual Bodhi Path Heart of Practice Program
(Online and In-Person in Natural Bridge, Virginia)
March 29th - April 4th, 2026
(Hosted by Bodhi Path Pasadena & Bodhi Path Natural Bridge)
We are happy to announce for the seventh consecutive year, our annual online week-long practice intensive with Dharma teacher Khaydroup, this year hosted by both Pasadena and Natural Bridge Bodhi Path Centers. The first 5 years of this retreat was in person only. We met on lovely grounds in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Since then our retreat has expanded to include folks from all over the US, Mexico and Guatemala. For the past two years, we have hosted a hybrid version meeting in Martha’s Vineyard. This year we are most grateful to have the opportunity to meet at the seat of Shamar Rinpoche, the founder of Bodhi Path International, a 50 acre parkland with Meditation Hall, 9 outdoor Stupas, a Buddha Pavillion, Lotus Pond and an indoor Reliquary Stupa.
It is fortunate indeed to have the time to delve deeply into spiritual discovery. This is a rare opportunity to set aside our normal routines, unplug from distractions, and allow ourselves to experience the true relief that comes from cultivating a quiet mind and an open heart. Learning to be gentle with ourselves and “to relax in the doing” is liberating and transformative.
Creating a retreat environment offers the support of a daily schedule and the opportunity to practice together. The key is finding the balance between, “not too tight, and not too loose”, between relaxed discipline and awake relaxation. In so doing we discover that peace and happiness are already present within our own mind, we only have to relax in the practice and let go of everything that obscures the innate qualities of wisdom and compassion.
We will provide individual “Zoom Rooms” for each of the practice sessions, meditation, Yoga, Feldenkrais, small group and whole group sessions, and daily Dharma Talks.
The Meditation Hall at the Natural Bridge Bodhi Path Center will be open during the retreat to welcome registered participants who wish to join the practice sessions in person. We invite in person participants to stay for the daytime hours of the program and bring a sack lunch every day in order to maximize the retreat experience and enjoy the many blessings of this place. The schedule has been designed to allow NB participants to go home for dinner and to do the evening sessions online.
We are not able to offer housing but there are hotels, motels and vacation houses in the area.
For those who can attend on a partial basis, you may set your own retreat schedules around personal obligations. We ask that whatever schedule you set for yourself, that you sincerely commit to it for the entire week and don’t make last minute changes. Let us know your intentions at the start of the retreat. Each person’s attendance and commitment to the practice truly supports the whole retreat community.
Link to the schedule:
2026 Heart of Practice Master Schedule
We warmly invite you to join our online and in person (Natural Bridge) Dharma community program. Registration details are now available at
bodhipath.org/pasadena/ and bodhipath.org/events
For more info please write to pasadena@bodhipath.org
__________________________________________________________________________________
Khaydroup Zangmo has been studying and practicing Buddhism since 1982 and kept monastic vows for 18 of those years. Under the guidance of the highly respected meditation master Lama Gendun Rinpoche, she completed two consecutive three-year retreats at Dhagpo Kundreul Ling in central France.
After completing her second retreat in 1997, Khaydroup lived in the women's monastery established by Gendun Rinpoche and began teaching the Dharma in centers, schools and organizations in Europe and in the USA. At the request of Shamar Rinpoche, Khaydroup moved back to the US in 2000 to be a resident teacher at the Santa Barbara Bodhi Path Center. During the two years she was there, she helped found the San Luis Obispo Bodhi Path and the West Los Angeles Bodhi Path. The West Los Angeles group moved to Pasadena in 2004 where Khaydroup has been the resident teacher and held weekly classes and organized programs and retreats ever since.
In 1981, Khaydroup moved to Boulder, Colorado to work with a team of psychologists and a psychiatrist from The Naropa Institute who were using an innovative approach to caring for persons in psychological crisis in home settings. There she met and studied for 5 years with her first Buddhist teacher, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
Khaydroup was also a primary school teacher for 15 years, owning and directing a Waldorf Preschool for five of those years. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she is now a lay practitioner and lives on an avocado farm in North San Diego.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Deidre Sklar (PhD) has been investigating the effects of movement and stillness since she was asked to impersonate a snowflake in kindergarten. Her investigation started in theatre as an actor, corporeal mime, and director, then in academia as a scholar of dance ethnology and performance theory (teaching at UCLA, UC Irvine, TWU and Oberlin from 1995 to 2006), now as a Feldenkrais practitioner. Her book, Dancing with the Virgin: Body and Faith in the Fiesta of Tortugas, New Mexico, asks questions about the relation between a community’s embodied practices and people’s transformative experience of belief.
Continuing with movement as a path to transformation, Deidre studied hatha and Kripalu yoga in the late 1960s, culminating in a month-long Viniyoga practicum in Chennai, India in 2002. Overlapping yoga practice, she was introduced to long Buddhist meditation retreats through Spirit Rock in northern California. The depth possible with sitting meditation eventually led her deeper into Buddhist philosophy and refuge. She joined Khaydroup's Pasadena Bodhipath group in 2007 and has remained devoted ever since.
Deidre began studying the Feldenkrais Method® of Somatic Education in 2010, completing the training in 2016. It is a gentle movement practice that emphasizes awareness -- of kinesthetic sensation, visualization, and mental processes. Feldenkrais lessons parallel and support meditation: learning from oneself by noticing differences, exploring possibilities, and finding alternative pathways. The emphasis is on ease, curiosity, discovery and pleasure in movement.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Addie deHilster is a C-IAYT Yoga Therapist, a Yoga teacher trainer, and a Mindfulness Meditation Facilitator. She is the founder of the Moved to Meditate Class Library, which offers online classes based on the 4 M’s: Meaningful Mindful Movement that Meets you where you are. Now based in Vancouver, Washington (USA), she previously owned and operated a community yoga studio (Spiral Path Yoga Center) in Los Angeles, California for over five years. Her studio was known for its warm and inviting environment, robust teacher training program, and emphasis on adaptive yoga that made the practice more accessible to students who would not have thrived in most mainstream studios.
In addition to leading yoga classes and meditation groups for the general public, she also offers private yoga therapy sessions, as well as one-on-one meditation coaching, and Yin Yoga Teacher Trainings (all online). A dedicated practitioner of Buddhist Insight Meditation (aka Vipassana or Mindfulness), she has accumulated over three months of silent retreat practice over the years. She is a graduate of the 2014-15 Mindfulness Yoga & Meditation Training Program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, which is a program dedicated to weaving together the wisdom traditions of Hatha Yoga and Buddhist meditation. Her classes highlight the mindfulness principles within movement practice, helping students find an accessible pathway to self-healing and the heart of what yoga and meditation have to offer.
For more information and resources, you can visit her website at movedtomeditate.yoga, or tune in to the Moved To Meditate Podcast on any of the major podcast apps.