Meditation-Medicine for Conscious Living

Meditation Is My Medicine

In my 40 years of meditation practice, I have attended more than 60 silent retreats, lived 13 years in
a meditation community, studied for 22 years at a Zen Center, and spent a year in a silent retreat in a mountain cabin. Meditation is my medicine – for life, leadership, relatiohship, and spirituality.
As a meditation guide, I’m offering my toolkit, heart, and experience to host intimate, twice-yearly meditation retreats. These silent gatherings are designed for beginners and experienced practitioners alike.
If you’re craving sincere meditation practice and community, then I invite you to read on.

An Approach for Modern Life

The signature of our retreats is the seamless blend of ancient wisdom and contemporary
application. Drawing from my extensive 40 years of Zen training, more than 30 years in
business, and 25 years of coaching executives, I offer practices that are:

Secular and universal

While rooted in Zen tradition, our
teaching transcends religious
boundaries, welcoming practitioners of
all backgrounds

Leadership-minded

Specially crafted for leaders and
professionals, these practices address the unique challenges of high-stakes
decision-making and workplace dynamics

Practical and profound

There are tried and true instructions that empower you to experience timeless
wisdom and help transform your modern challenges into fodder for evolution

What To Expect

We work with a blend of traditional Zen wisdom and accessible modern practice
at three levels:

Self-regulation

Settling the body and mind enought to actually be here

Self-exploration

Seeing what’s under the roles you play without the usual escpae patterns

Self-liberation

Loosening what’s gripped. Arriving at something quieter and truer.

The Experience

We gather in North San Diego County for three transformative days of practice. Our retreat environment provides:

  • Beautiful land that has hosted spiritual practices for 85 years
  • Comfortable and private residential accommodations
  • Nourishing, home-cooked vegetarian meals
  • Periods of noble silence for deep practice
  • Small, intimate group settings for personal attention

What Leaders Are Saying

  • I was scared that I would lose it at the end of the first day, but instead I found tranquility and clarity. The meditation practices brought me joy – non-extinguishable self-generating untethered joy. A feeling that I had not felt in the twenty years since my father’s passing burdened with a mountain of responsibilities and a fevered wish to survive.

    Elvin L, CEO

  • As an entrepreneur of multiple businesses, on multiple boards and commissions AND a family with two very young children, I found the silence amazing and rejuvenating. I brought home with me intentionality and focus, how to set aside my constant need to go go go, and be purposeful with my time and energy. Focusing my attention has made me more efficient and present with my work as well as with my beloved family.

    Fred M, CEO

  • Eric’s decades of experience in meditation shines through the way that he holds space. The container – the mats, the circle, the energy – draw the group to mindful presence like a candle in the dark.

    The rhythm of meditation, contemplation, and time in nature created a special bond among the group. It was subtle. It just seemed to happen. We focused on our mindful practice. Somewhere along the way we became fast friends.

    David A, Executive Director

  • I have been a regular meditation practitioner for over 25 years and have been to numerous retreats. After having attended several of Eric’s retreats, I find that they are both incredibly deep and totally accessible. I feel that someone new to meditation benefits as much as a long-term practitioner. His technique and teachings are very effective at giving a practical approach toward meditation, providing inspiration, and setting a foundation for creating a long-term practice.

    Mikel B, CEO

  • Eric weaves a space that is at once holy and simple. He welcomes us, disarmingly inviting us to come as we are, and holds space for whatever that looks like. He takes us deep, yet makes the journey easy. Watching him is to see well honed, lightly held, selfless mastery at work. It is a privilege.

    I worried I wouldn’t enjoy long silent days of meditating. Instead, I rued their end and wished there were twice as many left when it came time to leave – I really wished for more.

    Killu S, Managing Partner

  • To call this meditation retreat life-changing is an understatement. Eric is knowledgeable and supportive, and creates a safe and comfortable environment for us to explore and deepen as a community. I entered the retreat resistant and anxious thinking it would be impossible for me to meditate for such a length of time. I left the retreat feeling a renewed connection and presence to my power and the beauty of everything around me. If you’re not interested in stepping into a higher version of yourself stay home, if you’re looking to level up with a top-notch crew Eric’s retreat is for you.

    Micha M, CEO

  • I have sat in many circles over the years, but the thought of three days of full meditation felt like a lot. Yet with Eric’s guidance and wisdom, I left wanting more. I wanted more of the deep silence and stillness that he cultivated so masterfully. I wanted to be back in the womb of connection and community that was nurtured so elegantly. Rooted. Rising. Relaxing. A sweet and simple methodology for finding my center and staying there. It was… delicious.

    Craig S, Executive Director

Is this for you?

Maybe you’ve never meditated a day in your life. Maybe you’ve got a decade of practice.
Either way, the question underneath is the same: when was the last time you stopped?
Not vacation-stopped, or sleep-at-night stopped. Long enough to hear what’s actually going on in there.

For three days you become an urban renunciate. You drop the roles – parent, executive, friend, fixer –
and enter monk mode: no talking, no managing, no performing. Just sitting, walking, breathing,
letting whatever sufaces surface.

This isn’t for people looking for a wellness weekend. It’s for people who know there’s something
quieter and truer underneath the noise of their life, and who are willing to sit still long
enough to find out.

We keep the group to 14 because silence is fragile. It doesn’t survive crowds.
Small means you’re actually still in a safe space, actually able to go as deep as you’re ready to go.

Come as a beginner. Come as a lifer. Come ready to listen deeply.

Upcoming Retreat Dates

— Sept 30 – Oct 3, 2026 —

Our gathering begins on Wednesday afternoon and ends on Saturday at lunchtime.
We gather in the Spring and in the Fall, when the weather in San Diego is most pleasant.
Space is intentionally limited to preserve the intimate nature of our practice together.
Application

Meet Eric Kaufmann

In my early 30s, after spending a decade blending corporate success with intensive spiritual study, I made a dramatic decision to leave my career entirely. I gave away my money and possessions and retreated to the mountains to build a cabin for unbroken meditation and deep spiritual contact.

The retreat lasted over a year. It brought me face to face with my demons and my deepest fears — what some call the dark night of the soul. Through sustained meditation and relentless inner work, I emerged with a clear message from somewhere beyond my usual thinking: my path wasn’t seclusion. It was to bring what I’d found back into the world — into marriage, into fatherhood, into business, and into the ordinary friction of daily life.

I call this householder enlightenment. Not the mountaintop. The kitchen table. The awakening isn’t proven in stillness alone — it’s proven in how you show up when your daughter needs you at 6am, when a business decision costs you sleep, when someone you love is upset with you and you stay present anyway. Forty years of practice, more than sixty silent retreats, thirteen years living in meditation community, twenty-three years of study at a Zen center — all of it was preparation for this: staying awake inside a full life, not instead of one.

That same practice grounds my professional work. I founded Sagatica, a firm that brings conscious leadership to executives and teams, and I serve as a Thought Leader at Harvard’s Institute of Coaching. But the business work is downstream of the meditation — not the other way around. Wisdom, love, and power in leadership are only real if they’re rooted in something quieter and more honest first.

When I guide a retreat, I’m not teaching a technique I read about. I’m offering what forty years of sitting — through joy, through grief, through the dark night and the long return from it — has actually shown me. Meditation is my medicine. I’m glad to share the prescription.