Gaia House Trust

Who we are

Gaia House is a silent meditation retreat centre, a sanctuary of contemplative calm set among the rolling hills and woodlands of South Devon. For over 40 years, we have offered meditation retreats and Buddhist teachings that support wellbeing, insight, and personal transformation.

Founded in 1983, Gaia House is a registered charity dedicated to preserving, protecting, and enhancing emotional, psychological, physical, and spiritual wellbeing through meditation.

Today, Gaia House is one of Europe's largest silent meditation retreat centres, welcoming around 1,800 guests each year. Alongside our residential retreat programme, we offer online meditation sessions, courses, and guided at-home retreats, making our teachings accessible to a wider community.

Retreats are led by experienced meditation teachers and supported by a dedicated team. Some team members work in permanent non-residential roles, while others join our residential community, living and offering service at Gaia House for one to two years.

Our culture and values

Gaia House's vision is the liberation of all beings from greed, hatred and delusion.

Our mission is to offer the Buddha’s teachings of wisdom, compassion and meditation practice for the wellbeing of all that lives.

We are committed to supporting an inclusive international community of Dharma practitioners and teachers, through providing optimal conditions for a wide range of inspirational retreats, courses and events, open to all. Our offerings are rooted in the teachings of the Buddha and the practices of Insight Meditation that support peace, liberating wisdom, and the compassionate transformation of our world.

Our environment is one of silence, rural tranquillity, simplicity of lifestyle, sensitivity to the needs of others, and a commitment to ethical behaviour, compassion, loving-kindness and generosity.

As an Insight Meditation centre, we are affiliated with the ‘Vipassana’ (Insight) movement that began in the Theravada schools of Buddhism at the beginning of the twentieth century. As it has evolved, the Vipassana community has embraced other styles of Buddhist practice and other traditions in seeking to establish a culture of awakening in our contemporary world.

Equality, diversity and inclusion policy

Gaia House warmly welcomes all people of every age, ethnicity, cultural heritage and religious background, socio-economic group, ability, sexual orientation, and gender identity. We are committed to promoting inclusion and diversity both in terms of who comes on retreat here but also who works here. We include an anonymous demographic questionnaire for you to complete with your application, but this will not form part of your application. The information collected will form a confidential statistical record which will not be used for any purpose other than to support the Trust’s actions with regard to equity of opportunity and inclusion.