What if You’re Already Enough? Taking Refuge as a New Year’s Resolution

Arti Mehta & Melina Bondy

We begin with a daylong retreat on Sunday to immerse into a day of contemplative practice, followed by morning and evening sessions Monday-Friday that will help to carry the themes into daily life. Morning sessions will include a brief reflection, meditation and chanting while the evening sessions will also include small group sharing, wisdom harvests and more practice.

Sunday, January 4 - Friday, January 9, 2026

Description

As we enter a new year, the world calls us not toward reinvention, but toward remembrance. This online meditation retreat  an invitation to set aside ideas of self-improvement and rather turn toward the Four Noble Truths as sacred commitments—living recognitions of suffering and its causes, and of the radical possibilities for freedom. Through meditation, reflection, chanting and a grief ritual, we will honour the First and Second Truths, recognizing how acknowledging loss, sorrow, and structural harm can crack open the heart and awaken us. From there, we will cultivate wisdom and compassion–the Third and Fourth Truths–as real forms of power that root us in presence and move us toward liberation, not just for ourselves, but for our communities and the earth.

This retreat is a call back to what we already know in our bones: that Buddha Nature is not a distant ideal we strive for, but a here-and-now remembering. Together, we will reimagine the turn of the year—not as a moment to fix ourselves, but to recommit to the path of truth, interconnection, and care. This is not a retreat to escape the world, but to return to it with greater courage and tenderness.


Schedule

Sunday, January 4 - Friday, January 9 

Sunday, January 4
10am - 4pm ET 

Monday to Thursday 
Morning Session: 7:30 - 8:30 am ET 
Evening Session: 7 - 8:30 pm ET 

Friday - Closing session 
7:30 - 8:30 am ET

Teachers

Arti Mehta

Arti (pronounced arthy, they/them) is a South Asian, trans and queer, neurodivergent, chronically ill artist and community Dharma leader. Arti has been practicing meditation since 2006, and completed True North Insight's (TNI) Community Meditation Teacher Mentorship Program. Their offerings often focus on relational Dhamma, social justice, and the gifts that marginalized people's experiences offer the Dhamma.

Arti has trained in Somatic Experiencing and Relational Psychotherapy, and has a deep interest in embodied approaches to trauma work. Their Dhamma offerings are a mix of trauma-informed somatic practices, devotional practice, and traditional Theravadan teachings. Arti has been teaching Dhamma for 5 years including mentoring in Dhamma courses, offering 1:1 mindfulness support, and teaching at identity-specific sanghas. They are on a continuous inquiry of understanding the somatics of the Middle Way.

Arti fell deeply in love with this path because of the transformative possibility for social action, transformative justice and right relationship with each other and the earth. They are profoundly moved by how these wisdom and heart practices allow us to unfold into our inherent goodness, so that we can be good to each other. You can find out about their offerings at @arti.mehta.mindfulness on Instagram.

Melina Bondy

Melina (they/them) began meditation and Dharma practice in 2003 in both Plum Village and Vipassana traditions, taking monastic vows under Thich Nhat Hanh in 2012 with the name HaiAn (Sister Ocean.) After six years in the monastery, and a few more outside, Melina returned to lay life in 2021, sharing traditional Buddhist practices with a contemporary spin by blending Insight and Plum Village practices with an orientation to somatics, social justice and creativity. As a white, queer, genderfluid, neurodivergent settler, Melina both is grateful and heartbroken to live on the colonized land of Tkaronto where they are helping to grow True North Insight Toronto.

Melina completed the True North Insight Community Meditation Leader Mentorship program, the Dharmapala Program with Thanissara and Kittisaro, a Masters in Buddhist Spiritual Care and the Somatic Experiencing trauma therapy training, all of which combine into their Dharma and psychotherapeutic offerings. They love finding more ways to care for people, to find the sublime in the mundane, and to welcome the 10 000 joys and 10 000 sorrows of the world at once.

Sliding Scale

TNI is dedicated to offering affordable rates to all. TNI retreat fees are on a sliding scale basis that allows participants to pay according to individual means. Fees do not include compensation for the teachings, and teachers rely on the generosity of retreatants for a sustainable income. There is an opportunity to offer dana (donations) to the teachers at the end of each retreat.


Benefactor - The Benefactor rate provides the opportunity to offer more substantial support for TNI.

Sustaining - The Sustaining rate represents the actual cost to TNI to operate our programs. If you can afford this level or higher, you assist our efforts to offer lower sliding-scale rates and ongoing financial subsidies.

Base - The Base rate covers 82 % of what is needed to run our organization. To balance our budget and to wisely steward our resources, donations must supplement our registration income.

Reduced - Payment at the Reduced rate covers only 71 % of what is needed to run our organization. To balance our budget and to wisely steward our resources, donations must supplement our registration income.