Review of the activities of the year 2025

Claire Vigé Hélie, coordinator of the association Cévenn'Zen, helped us to take stock of the activities in 2025 of the Mountain of Dharma.

I am Claire, coordinator for Cévenn'Zen, the association that manages the Dharma Mountain.

Claire participated in the construction site retreat in October 2025

At the beginning of the year, I would like to share with you a small review of the year 2025 at the Dharma Mountain:

=> 4 beautiful retreats from June to September:

* Retreat "Silence, Nature & Simplicity" - the second retreat in silence at the Dharma Mountain has mixed time of introspection, meditation sessions sitting longer than usual and many hikes in the mountains

* Retreat meditation and singing "The Echo of Being: Voice, Body and Presence" - this is the 3rd year in a row that this singing retreat is organized with the choirmaster Nicolas Parisot, who offers us arrangements of songs of Plum Village and other songs, with a concert proposed to the neighbors at the end of the retreat!

* Retreat "For a Benevolent Civilization" on the Five Mindfulness Trainings - this retreat allowed to discover or exchange on the concrete practice of the 5 MTs, starting from time to time in small groups and testimonies.

* Rainbow retreat - LGBTQIA+ - a retreat that regularly takes place at the Dharma Mountain, whose team is committed to queer topics in the broad sense.

Left : Singing retreat in July 2025

Right: Five Mindfulness Trainings Retreat, July 2025

=> A gradual expansion of the team:

The founding members of the association remain present but wanted to leave room for new people to engage and come to bring ideas and renewed energy to Cévenn’Zen. The retreats of 2025 facilitated this expansion, welcoming new people from volunteers, including co-organization and co-facilitation, some of whom then chose to become active members in the association.

This has also been facilitated by a process of clarified integration for new and new active members; in connection with a reorganization of the association into thematic clusters: Retreats cluster, Days of Mindfulness, Dream 2030, Admin' cluster, Communication cluster, Heart cluster... This allows us to better distribute energies according to the appetites of each and to better guide new and new volunteers.

Namely, the first step to becoming an active member is to come and participate in a retreat as a volunteer, and that’s good: we’re launching the recruitment of volunteers for our 2026 retreats!

=> Continuous maintenance of the place

The site has undergone improvements throughout the year, especially thanks to Laurent, our maintenance manager, who manages the maintenance of the premises (those who have come to retreat in 2025 have particularly appreciated our new small tables / large benches, depending on the point of view 🙂, a new water point next to the outdoor showers, a refreshed bathroom...). The yurt has also been strengthened to better withstand the weather. A retreat carried out in small committee finally brought several novelties: platform construction, creation of a Buddha garden, construction of dry stone walls...

Construction retreat in October 2025

In short, 2025 has been rich... and 2026 should also be with the continued integration of new active members, 4 retreats that loom on the horizon, and ambitious projects in terms of renovation and development of the site and buildings to welcome you with more comfort and security.