The Garrison Institute is a not-for-profit, non-sectarian organization exploring the intersection of contemplation and engaged action in the world.

Our program initiatives - Contemplation and Education, Transforming Trauma and Transformational Ecology - create rigorous, innovative, contemplative-based tools and approaches to help teachers, caregivers, human service providers, environmentalists and others on the front lines of social and environmental engagement succeed.

We nurture development of professional fields to discuss and disseminate these approaches, breaking silos and opening up dialogues between frontline professionals, scientists, and contemplatives. We test these approaches in innovative pilot programs in settings from domestic violence shelters to classrooms. We refine, replicate them and adapt them to new settings and larger scales, and track results.

At the same time, our retreat programs bring world-class teachers from diverse wisdom traditions to wide audiences, conveying a wide range of contemplative ideas and practices conducive to personal growth and social change.

Since its founding in 2003, the Garrison Institute has hosted hundreds of retreats and events, and attracted some 18,000 participants – each one a potential agent of change. The Institute is housed in a beautifully renovated 77,000 square foot former Capuchin monastery with comfortable accommodations, world-class meeting facilities, and healthy food for groups of up to 165 people. Located one hour north of New York City, on the banks of the Hudson River, surrounded by forests and fields, it offers a unique and authentically contemplative setting provide for non-sectarian exploration of contemplative practice within a social context.

Our program initiatives - Contemplation and Education, Transforming Trauma and Transformational Ecology - create rigorous, innovative, contemplative-based tools and approaches to help teachers, caregivers, human service providers, environmentalists and others on the front lines of social and environmental engagement succeed.

3 levels of blue and green; first one of each is from email from Nate:
Transformational Ecology
Transformational Ecology
Transformational Ecology
Transformational Ecology
Transformational Ecology
Transformational Ecology

"Garrison brings together the players in the arena better than anyone. It is a place where there can be meaningful dialogue. They can do this because they are interested in bringing together as many of the people in the field as possible, they are open to all spiritual traditions, and the facility is tremendous."