Four Foundations of Mindfulness Retreat

With Timothea Goddard and Mary McIntyre
8 - 14 December 2025 | Burradoo, N.S.W, Australia

This is a device free retreat

We invite you to relinquish electronic devices and a constant state of being busy, on and doing so that your nervous system can re-find its natural settling capacity. There will be of course an emergency contact number to give to your family should the need arise.

This silent retreat is suitable for anyone wishing to deepen their practice and cultivate further understanding of the wisdom teachings underpinning mindfulness practices. These teachings and practices will emphasise connecting to embodied experience, quieting the mind, opening the heart, and developing clarity and insight in order to explore and release suffering.

We will also consider our relationship to the suffering in the world more broadly – in the light of the emerging climate crisis, growing habits of device immersion and how this affects ourselves and our loved ones. A question might be: how can we use our practice and wisdom to investigate and choose our own responses to these challenges? We hope to create some space to reflect together, and cultivate some intelligent and tender care for our own lives, for the human community and the natural world.

This retreat will offer silent periods of stillness and moving meditation, yoga as well as group and individual discussions with the teachers. The emphasis will be developing a trust in your own mind. Teachers will also offer daily talks which will point to the integration of Buddhist ideas and actual practice. The quiet, continuity, spaciousness and good company will support you in developing an open, flexible and dynamic practice.

Who is it for?

Anyone is welcome to attend this inner adventure! However as this is a silent meditation retreat with intensive periods of practice, it will be beneficial for most people to have had some practice of mindfulness meditation beforehand (e.g. having completed the 8 week MBSR, MBCT or MiCBT course). Do be in touch if need be to check your suitability before enrolling.

Who is this retreat for?

for anyone wishing to deepen their practice and cultivate further understanding of the wisdom teachings underpinning mindfulness practices.

What the retreat offers

This traditional insight meditation retreat will offer silent periods of sitting and walking meditation, yoga as well group and individual teacher meetings..

Register Now

Ross C - April 2022

I attended the Four Foundations of Mindfulness retreat in Bowral April 2022. It was a wonderful and rich experience. Timothea Goddard and Mary Mcintyre are great facilitators: grounded, down to earth and at the same time challenging, holding the space always gently and with a humour that allows unforced exploration. They are both very open, and quite different in their approaches, which I found refreshingly allowing in finding a tone for my own engagement with the material. The mixture of secular mindfulness, Buddhist psychology, mindful movement and somatic practices - all as well informed by both teachers' expert understandings of psychotherapy - I doubt it could have been better delivered. To experience this in a setting that catered for all needs and allowed release in comfort into the process of reflection and acknowledgment was such a gift. I highly recommend this retreat.

Details

Dates and Times

Dates
8 - 14 December 2025
Times
Arrive from 12.30, starts 2pm Monday and concludes 2pm Sunday

Venue and Catering

Hartzer Park, Burradoo, NSW

Enjoy your own single room and delicious gourmet vegetarian cuisine by Claude's Food.

Hartzer Park is wheel-chair accessible.

Prices

Standard Rate
Price - $2045 (inc GST)
This is the usual rate for this type of event and the rate we ask you to select if you are able.
Supporting Rate
Price - $2145 (inc GST)
This rate is slightly higher than the usual rate for this type of event. Selecting this option is a way of supporting others to attend mindfulness events that they otherwise might not be able to attend. If you are able to select this option the MTIA guarantees that the additional funds will be directly channelled into supporting others to access mindfulness teaching who otherwise couldn’t afford it.
Subsidised Rate
Price - $1945.00 (inc GST)
This is a self-select funded rate whereby your place will be supported by other full paying participants. Please select this rate if you are in receipt of benefits or would find it otherwise inaccessible to attend due to the fee. We will not ask for evidence at this stage but may ask for evidence to support your claim in the future.

How to get there

Driving: Here is a link to Google Maps Hartzer Park.
Train: the nearest station is Bowral Station and then it's a short cab ride to Hartzer Park. Here is a link to Sydney Trains.
Car Pooling: Caroline will be helping to organise some car-pooling and will be sending an email out with details for those people looking for a lift. Do be in touch with if you can offer a lift or are looking for a lift.
Airport Arrivals and Departures - Sharing Transport: If you are arriving at Sydney Airport and would like to share taxi / mini-bus transport costs to Hartzer Park, please let Caroline know and she will connect you with others so you can organise your transport together. Please book flights to be available to catch a bus / taxi by 11.30 am on the 8 December 2025.
Book return flights on 14 December from 4.30pm for Domestic flights and 5.30pm for International flights. The retreat concludes at 2pm on 14 December. Allow 1.5 hours travel time from Hartzer Park to the Airport.

Refund Policy

A 90% refund will be issued if cancellation is received up to two months before the event.

A 50% refund will be issued up to one month before the event.

However, in either of those two circumstances, if a substitute person can be found so that MTIA is not impacted financially there will be a full refund less 10% admin fee.

No refunds will be issued after 7 November, 2025 except in extenuating circumstances.

If you are in any doubt about your suitability for the retreat, do be in touch in advance before enrolling to avoid cancellation fees.

Notice of cancellation must be provided to MTIA via email and will be confirmed via reply email. MTIA cannot accept responsibility for correspondence that is delayed or for failure of delivery.

In the unlikely event the workshop is cancelled by the organisers, registration fees will be fully refunded. No liability will be accepted for travel, accommodation or other costs / expenses incurred by participants.

Teachers

Timothea Goddard

BA, Dip Psych (ANZAP) Workplace Trainer, Cert V, Yoga teacher (YA200H)

Timothea Goddard is recognised as a pioneer in bringing MBSR to Australia over the past 14 years being the first in Australia to complete the training and be accredited as an MBSR teacher through the Center for Mindfulness, UMass Medical Center, USA; she maintains strong professional links there. Timothea has worked in private practice for 30 years as a psychotherapist, educator and workplace trainer, having trained in humanistic, psychodynamic and body-based psychotherapy as well as comprehensive training in MiCBT, and basic training in ACT, Breathworks, .B, and Mindful Schools. Since 2007, she has been offering MBSR training and supervision for health professionals and others.

She is a long time student of yoga, Aikido and meditation and practices in the Insight tradition. She is the Director of Openground – an Australia-wide network of clinicians and teachers offering MBSR and related programs. She is a founding director of MTI and is currently the Director of Training. She is very interested in the interface of biology and psychology and how mindfulness practice can facilitate the integration between what we experience as "body" and "mind".

Mary McIntyre

B.A (Bus) Dip. Couns, MACA II , SEP Trauma Therapy, Cert. Expressive Therapies, Cert IV Arch. , Circle of Security Parent Educator, Associate of Openground

Mary’s encounter with regular meditation practice began in earnest in 1989. She initially attended retreats in France in the Vietnamese Mahayana tradition (Thich Nhat Hanh) where she took lay ordination in 1995. Subsequently Mary moved from Europe to Sri Lanka for seven years where she explored traditional Theravadan and Western Insight traditions before emigrating to Australia in 2003 . She is motivated by various Insight style retreats including open, spacious style practices such as Reflective Meditation (Linda Modaro) which continues to inspire her.

Mary is passionate about good therapy, human metamorphosis, post traumatic growth and various modalities of healing. She works 1-1 in private practice as a counsellor/psychotherapist based in Brisbane where she also leads MBSR and offers ongoing mentoring supervision to new meditation teachers.

Awake. Alive. Present