Mike
Mike Helmle
Riverheart’s Co-Director & Meditation Teacher
Mike Helmle is the resident meditation instructor at Riverheart Retreats, sharing his passion and knowledge about the practice of meditation by leading our nine-day Vipassana retreats. Together with his wife, Samm Helmle, Mike co-founded the Riverheart Retreats center in 2017 in order to create a space for people to come and develop their spiritual practice; a space where people could find the peace needed to ground themselves and listen to their inner voice.
In 2009, Mike decided to sell his well-established design studio in Berlin after realising that financial success and material possessions could not result in any lasting happiness for him. Having already spent years living a life based on external validation, constantly moving between countries and cities in search of an external solution to his inner dissatisfaction, a deep depression forced him to step away from everything he identified with and seek refuge in a remote forest monastery in Thailand. There, detached from all distractions, Mike spent six months learning the foundations of mediation and mindfulness under the guidance of Ajahn Tipakorn.
Certain that his perspective on life had been changed for the better and full of enthusiasm for life again, Mike started to work as a Rescue Diver and Dive Master on a small island in the Gulf of Thailand, but soon leaned that the integration of what he had discovered through meditation with an everyday lifestyle was much harder than first expected. Old patterns and habitual behaviour quickly gained the upper hand and he found himself slipping back into depression.
This experience led Mike to self-isolate in a small wooden hut nestled into a hillside in the Thai rainforest, where he remained in solitude for one year and continued his meditation practice. Although determined not to leave the mountain and his isolation until he had healed himself from his suffering, in 2011 Mike put himself through therapy and medical treatment in Berlin, however the medical approach soon revealed itself to be more deconstructive then the problem it was meant to cure. After one year, the diagnosis of depression was revoked by his doctors, leaving them uncertain to what the true cause for his suffering was. Mike followed his inner call to return to Thailand, his instincts leading him back into isolation in the tropical forests.
In 2013 he met a woman who was on her way to a Vipassana silent meditation retreat and was persuaded to join her. Held at the Kow Tahm Insight Meditation Center, the retreat was led by the highly respected teacher Anthony Markwell - a previous monk and Buddhist scholar. With an already solid foundation in observing the breath and strong self-discipline in practicing for very long periods of time, Mike was able to dive deep into the Buddha’s teachings to experience his true nature. It was a life-changing week in the truest sense. Mike experienced numerous profound insights during that first retreat and started to gain clarity on some of the challenges he had been facing.
Over the next year, Mike traveled to the meditation centre every month to participate in the Vipassana retreats, deepening his study of the self and furthering his meditation practice under the guidance of his teacher, Anthony. A radical new understanding of reality was unfolding before him, as he struggled with the complex task of rebuilding his structure of beliefs to function with both the old and the new understanding of who he was.
In 2015 Mike moved into the Kow Tahm Meditation Center and became a full time volunteer, putting himself in service to the Buddha’s teachings and anybody who chose to come and practice them. During this time, Mike’s studies branched into numerous other practices including yoga, reiki, breath work, sound therapy and physics. In 2016 his teacher left the meditation center, prompting Mike to follow a calling into the depths of the Peruvian Amazon where he devoted himself to further exploration of the self with the assistance of the local Shipibo shamans and numerous plant medicines. Entering into another long run of retreats, Mike stayed and practiced with the Shipibo shamans for five months, expanding his understanding of reality before being ultimately guided to return to Germany in order to focus on the family ties that had been neglected after so many years of living abroad.
Once again, Mike was faced with the challenge of integrating his practice and the lessons he had learned with everyday life. It was during these turbulent times that a mutual friend introduced him to Samm Short, a young woman in England who was in the midst of opening up a retreat center with her parents in the south of Spain. Mike and Samm exchanged ideas about the philosophical and aesthetic design of a retreat center, and quickly realised that their admiration for each other went far past that of a mutual spiritual understanding. In January 2017 Mike moved to the Spanish countryside, where he and Samm founded not only a retreat center, but also a family.
The hard work of building a retreat center, life in nature and the loving environment of a fast-growing family (Alba was born in 2017 and Jesse in 2020) seemed to have been the last necessary elements in a lifetime of striving, as Mike finally succeeded in balancing his spiritual understanding with an everyday sustainable lifestyle. True happiness became a solid foundation in his life and together with his wife, the couple devoted themselves to sharing their experience by creating a rural paradise where others could come to heal and learn. In 2020, after hosting numerous retreats and teaching one-to-one meditation classes, Mike stepped into one of his long-held dreams of hosting Vipassana retreats at their own meditation center; putting himself in the service of the Dharma once again, and allowing others to experience the teaching which was so essential to his path of self-development and healing.
In 2013 he met a woman who was on her way to a Vipassana silent meditation retreat and was persuaded to join her. Held at the Kow Tahm Insight Meditation Center, the retreat was led by the highly respected teacher Anthony Markwell - a previous monk and Buddhist scholar. With an already solid foundation in observing the breath and strong self-discipline in practicing for very long periods of time, Mike was able to dive deep into the Buddha’s teachings to experience his true nature. It was a life-changing week in the truest sense. Mike experienced numerous profound insights during that first retreat and started to gain clarity on some of the challenges he had been facing.
Over the next year, Mike traveled to the meditation centre every month to participate in the Vipassana retreats, deepening his study of the self and furthering his meditation practice under the guidance of his teacher, Anthony. A radical new understanding of reality was unfolding before him, as he struggled with the complex task of rebuilding his structure of beliefs to function with both the old and the new understanding of who he was.
In 2015 Mike moved into the Kow Tahm Meditation Center and became a full time volunteer, putting himself in service to the Buddha’s teachings and anybody who chose to come and practice them. During this time, Mike’s studies branched into numerous other practices including yoga, reiki, breath work, sound therapy and physics. In 2016 his teacher left the meditation center, prompting Mike to follow a calling into the depths of the Peruvian Amazon where he devoted himself to further exploration of the self with the assistance of the local Shipibo shamans and numerous plant medicines. Entering into another long run of retreats, Mike stayed and practiced with the Shipibo shamans for five months, expanding his understanding of reality before being ultimately guided to return to Germany in order to focus on the family ties that had been neglected after so many years of living abroad.
Once again, Mike was faced with the challenge of integrating his practice and the lessons he had learned with everyday life. It was during these turbulent times that a mutual friend introduced him to Samm Short, a young woman in England who was in the midst of opening up a retreat center with her parents in the south of Spain. Mike and Samm exchanged ideas about the philosophical and aesthetic design of a retreat center, and quickly realised that their admiration for each other went far past that of a mutual spiritual understanding. In January 2017 Mike moved to the Spanish countryside, where he and Samm founded not only a retreat center, but also a family.
The hard work of building a retreat center, life in nature and the loving environment of a fast-growing family (Alba was born in 2017 and Jesse in 2020) seemed to have been the last necessary elements in a lifetime of striving, as Mike finally succeeded in balancing his spiritual understanding with an everyday sustainable lifestyle. True happiness became a solid foundation in his life and together with his wife, the couple devoted themselves to sharing their experience by creating a rural paradise where others could come to heal and learn. In 2020, after hosting numerous retreats and teaching one-to-one meditation classes, Mike stepped into one of his long-held dreams of hosting Vipassana retreats at their own meditation center; putting himself in the service of the Dharma once again, and allowing others to experience the teaching which was so essential to his path of self-development and healing.
INSPIRING A GREATER LOVE OF LIFE
