Buddhafield North

2025 Programme

Dear Friends of Buddhafield North

This year we will be running a meditation retreat, a women’s weekend, and our open retreat.

Bookings for these are now open!

Buddhafield North

Most of us live our lives in a highly artificial way. The demands and addictions of the modern world control what we do and even what we dream of doing. Buddhafield North is the beginning of an escape from this cycle, an attempt to live out the teachings of the Buddha in a way more akin to  the life the Buddha himself led.

We offer a small programme of outdoor retreats. All activities are held outdoors or under canvas. They are for a weekend or longer. Some are meditation retreats, some are for families and children, but all have the common thread of the outdoors, a return to nature, and the teachings of the Buddha.

Our retreats are held near Ilkley in the Yorkshire Dales, at a lovely hillside site with beautiful views, dark nights, old trees, and several nearby walks up to the moors or down to the river.  

Retreats
Buddhism
Kids Area
Camping Tips

Meditation Retreat

30th May - 6th June 2025

Women's Weekend

6th - 8th June 2025

Open Retreat

26th July - 2nd August 2025

Retreats

A retreat is a period of time spent away from our usual life, spent in conditions that are helpful to our spiritual development. Retreats vary, some are silent and some can have a full programme of activities.

Retreats are not meant to be holidays, in the sense of a period away from home in which to relax. There may be a lot going on! But everything that happens on retreat is aimed at developing in us the twin goals of wisdom and compassion.

On a retreat you may be meditating, studying Buddhist texts, looking after your children (or indeed, someone else’s children!), chopping wood and cooking. All the activities of the day can be carried out in a way that can bring us closer and closer to the mind of the Buddha.

One of the great benefits of retreats for most people is a sense of community and belonging. During a retreat, you become part of a group of people who, to some extent at least, have a common purpose, and who care about each other and have an intention to act with kindness towards each other.

Kids Area

This year, we will create kids’ activities together. In the past these have included art & craft, bushcraft, dressing-up, needle-felting, games, night hikes, moor-top bivvies and, of course, the legendary ‘Play’.

There will be a covered area, a structure the children can use, in case of bad weather. A few people have already offered to bring kids’ activities to offer, but we’d love to hear from you if you’re willing to do that too. Thank you.

Get in Touch
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Camping Tips

Here are some lists of tips the team have come up with, to help make your stay a happy one!

In no particular order…

Any further tips welcome!

Buddhism

Buddhism is often described as a path of practice, leading from where we are now, to a higher state of being, to a more and more positive life. The depths and heights of our being are progressively transformed, culminating, ultimately, in the state of Enlightenment.

Buddhism has moved to many different cultures and as it does it takes on the local cultural ‘clothes’; in Japan, Zen Buddhism can appear very austere, Tibetan Buddhism is very colourful and flamboyant.

But each manifestation of the Buddha’s teachings is intended to take us closer and closer to the state of Enlightenment.

In the West

Buddhism has now arrived in the West. In fact, all the cultural manifestations of Buddhism arrived here virtually simultaneously. We now have to make sense of all these different teachings, we have to find a way of using what we have inherited from the East, but it has to be a way that works for us living now, in the modern world.

We, us people in the West, are often alienated from the natural world, and, in a related way, are alienated from ourselves. At Buddhafield North, we hope to go a small way towards bringing ourselves back into touch with nature and more in touch with our deeper selves.

For more on Buddhism visit The Buddhist Centre

Get In Touch

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