This weekend retreat at Land of Joy is an invitation to open our hearts to the power of loving kindness — for ourselves, for others, and for the world we share.

Through a blend of teachings, guided meditations, group discussion, and gentle body practices, teachers Lou Beaumont and Paula Chichester will guide us in exploring kindness as a profound source of strength and happiness. Together, we will look closely at what supports kindness, what can prevent it, and how we can cultivate it in daily life with courage, balance, and warmth.

Short sessions of pranayama and chi gong will support the retreat by relaxing the body and mind, creating an open foundation from which loving kindness can naturally grow. These embodied practices will be woven gently alongside Dharma reflections and opportunities to share and learn from one another.

Lou Beaumont has taught yoga, pranayama (breathing exercises) & meditation – for many years & is a qualified Wheel of Yoga teacher. She has also practiced chi gong & tai chi extensively with a master in the Hun Yuan tradition. Lou has been a longtime Buddhist practitioner taking teachings from Buddhist masters & has studied for many years. She is committed to living and helping create a culture of loving kindness for ourselves and for our planet. You may already know her as a volunteer and teacher involved with Land of Joy from its first days as a retreat centre.

This weekend we will be doing some gentle sessions of pranayama & chi gong to energise & relax the body & mind where we can find a safe space without so many barriers setting a foundation on which to help us open our hearts. This will be interspersed with short meditations where we will explore all aspects of loving kindness so that we can develop our inner natural kindness & expand on that. There will be some discussion & hopefully lots of input from the group so that we can share & learn together.

Paula began her studies of Buddhism when she was 14 at Berkeley High School in California. Her exposure to geopolitics and war at a young age sent her looking for a culture of kindness, empathy and care, which eventually led her to Lama Yeshe and Tibetan Buddhism.

Inspired by the example of the meditators in Dharamsala and the inspiration of great Tibetan masters, she has devoted the rest of her life to following the guidance and teachings her awesome, amazing teachers— which included 24 years preparing for and completing long retreats, 2 of which were 4 year solitary great maha-anuttara yoga retreats. The confines of solitude for years on end, forced her to heal herself by including the study of western psychology, Chinese medical theory, diet, and various practices of chi gong and yoga to her daily tantra retreat routine. She had to listen to her heart and trust the guru yoga.

Her focus now is on simplifying the dharma into gentle practices that cultivate care and kindness and abiding awareness of our subtle being, our deepest nature, that is available as a refuge to us at all times. As a dancer, healer, singer, student of psychology and ecology, she brings all these elements to her the transmission of the traditional Buddhadharma to offer the gentle transformation we seek for ourselves and for our culture.

Find out more about Paula and many other materials and resources which can support you in your practice on her website: http://braveview.org