Guhyaloka – News and information about Guhyaloka Retreat Centre

Happy New Year

We wish you a Happy New Year – hopefully it will be better than 2020. Like others we have had a difficult year financially but it has been a good year for the community and life at Guhyaloka has continued to develop. We’ve had several visitors – particularly at Uttaraloka – and the solitary retreat huts have been in use much of the time. May 2021 bring a close to these strange times.

Good News

The good news is that Guhyaloka is open for solitary retreats providing you are able to travel here in accordance with the travel, lock-down & quarantine rules that apply to you. Please contact us for further information.

Welcome to our new website

We hope you find it informative and easy to use. Please contact us if you have any suggestions for improvement. We will be making more changes to the site, including adding multi-lingual content. Don’t forget to bookmark this new site!

Help support Guhyaloka

Please consider making a donation to help us maintain and develop this amazing place. Like so many places we have lost the majority of our income this year and so any contributions would be especially welcome at this time.

Our Programme

23/01/21 – 20/02/21

Winter
Working Retreat

Come and enjoy shared practice and help maintain Guhyaloka at the same time! Because of COVID restrictions we have very few takers for this retreat but the community will still go ahead with a month of focused work, maintaining the retreat centre and preparing it for the Ordination course. So, we will still welcome men to join us if they are able to satisfy the Covid restrictions of the various countries.

06/04/21 – 29/06/21

Spring
Ordination Course

Ordination into the Triratna Buddhist Order normally occurs in the context of a three-month course. We hope that this course will still go ahead this Spring and look forward to welcoming the dozen or so men who hoped to join the Triratna Buddhist Order last year. We also have hopes that there will be a second course in the Autumn.

03/07/21 – 21/08/21

Guhyaloka available
for reunion retreats

Since the anniversary of the first Ordination Courses we have hosted short reunion retreats in the summer months.
So although there is so much uncertainly this year, if you are interested in us hosting a retreat for your year please get in contact.

Solitary Retreats

Darsendo

Darsendo is close to the retreat centre and offers beautiful, expansive views down the valley towards the sea. The sunsets of autumn are famous.

Almendra

Set deep in the pine woods that fill the valley, this cabin is the most secluded of the three locations, disturbed only by the occasional grunt of wild boar.

Jnanakhadga

Jnanakhadga is a modern, spacious cabin with a shaded patio area overlooking Moorish terraces thick with gorse, flowers and wild rosemary.

Arthasarana

Arthasarana is the largest ‘cabin’ – a kilometer away from Guhyaloka – and set in 9ha (22acres) of open terraces and rocky mountain slopes.

Book a solitary

About Guhyaloka

Although one can see the Mediterranean from some parts of the property Guhyaloka is situated in a very secluded mountain valley in the province of Alicante in Spain. The community members have chosen to live a simple life away from the business of the world and modern social life and at the same time to provide facilities for men who also want to leave their normal world behind for anything from one to twelve weeks, so as to deepen their spiritual practice. This can be done either alone, in one of our four solitary cabins, or with others, by joining the community for a while, or by coming on one of our other type of retreats.

An important function of Guhyaloka is to host the annual Ordination courses during which fifteen or so men, after several years training, join the Triratna Buddhist Order.

Guhyaloka is for men only but at Akashavana, which is also in Spain, there are similar facilities for women to engage in intensive retreats, especially when they are ordained.

Uttaraloka

Uttaraloka is a “forest hermitage” in a neighbouring valley. Manjuvajra, a long time member of the Triratna Buddhist Order lives there as caretaker and invites others to join him to live a simple life as part of a small community away from the ‘world’ – the complexities and distractions of normal life.