What to Expect
Land of Joy is a truly wonderful place to spend time learning, practicing and contemplating. All those who worked incredibly hard to establish and develop the centre have created somewhere extremely special which is continuing to thrive and grow.
The onsite team are fully dedicated to ensuring those who visit have a beneficial and meaningful stay, while those who visit each leave their own imprint on the place, contributing to the incredibly peaceful and powerful atmosphere that exists here.
We are reasonably remote, with open vistas across the rolling hills of the Northumberland National Park. Our land stretches through beautiful and varied woodland where two lakes, a more ‘formal’ garden and a river can be discovered during relaxing walks that can be taken between retreat sessions helping to open the mind.
Inside Land of Joy
This video takes you on a tour of the inside of Land of Joy
Our Outbuildings & Grounds
This video takes you on a tour of Land of Joy grounds
Accommodation
With limited space, our accommodation is currently mostly limited to comfortable shared rooms, including some twin rooms. Single room accommodation is rarely available and is allocated on need according to need.
Please see our accommodation page for more information.
Food
We provide a varied vegetarian diet, but can cater for gluten-free, dairy-free and vegan options, with advance notice.
Retreats
We have a beautiful and peaceful gompa (meditation room) which holds a maximum of 25 people and is currently our only practice space with all retreats taking place there.
If you apply to attend a retreat here we will do our best to provide all the information you require for your stay with us but please be aware the retreat schedules are sometimes prepared quite close to the time, while decisions about periods of silence to be kept during the retreats are made by the retreat leader and are sometimes very last minute.
Your Arrival
As we often only have a few days to clean everything between retreats we ask people to please arrive on the day your retreat starts if attending shorter retreats of up to two week unless you will be travelling all day to reach us, in which case arriving a day early is no problem. If you plan to do so please let us know so we make sure we prepare meals for you. If you are attending a longer retreat (more than two weeks) and feel you would like to settle in before it begins you are welcome to arrive one or two days before the retreat starts, but again, please let us know you will be doing so.
If you apply to attend a retreat here we will do our best to provide all the information you require for your stay with us but please be aware the retreat schedules are sometimes prepared quite close to the time, while decisions about periods of silence to be kept during the retreats are made by the retreat leader and are sometimes very last minute.
What to Bring
We recommend bringing warm clothes for most of the year as the weather can be very unpredictable at times! If you’re keen to go for walks, are coming before June or if there has been a wet spell before your arrival we highly recommend bringing outdoor shoes/wellies and waterproof coats if you wish to go outside in the grounds and beyond. Indoor shoes/slippers can also be useful for inside the house.
Land of Joy provides bedding, towels and a meditation cushion or chair for the meditation room. If you are attending a retreat which lasts longer than two weeks you will also have access to our washing machine and dryer to do your laundry and wash bedding and towels.
A torch is also useful for use outdoors after dark.
Donations
Everything happening at Land of Joy is made possible through various forms of generosity. We believe in giving without any expectation of receiving anything in return and therefore do not charge for teachings, accommodation or food.
We invite those attending to donate whatever they would like, or can afford, to give. All donations help us cover our annual running costs of £90,000, enabling the centre to remain open for others to enjoy in the future.
This can be done in the following ways:
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Via the donation forms shared via the retreat information email before the retreat starts.
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By card while at Land of Joy
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By online bank transfer either before or after visiting Land of Joy