Episodes
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We are sitting in an East End art studio talking about death. The London tube rolls by outside, surfacing momentarily from tunnels dark as Hades, trundling its occupants inexorably on to somewhere. You can hear at intervals its soothing, almost womb-like background rumble and hush as a reminder of sorts - fitting sound as backdrop to this conversation with Buddhist artist Hugh Mendes, whose celebrated series ‘Obituaries’ we are exploring in a new online ‘Story’ space: ‘The Impermanence of Everyone’.
Explore the work of Hugh Mendes and watch the accompanying film about the Buddhist aspects of his work
Far from being grim or at all didactic, these canvases light us up when we see them: whether with recognition of a famous face; startled apprehension that this is the artist’s dead father not long after the moment of death; or fascination at the mysterious techniques of oil painting and how on earth it survives and thrives as a medium in the contemporary art world.
Mendes - ordained Buddhist name, Paramabodhi (“Supreme Enlightenment“) - loves painting, loves meditating, and loves teaching both. His practice - as artist and Buddhist - is fused in the ongoing contemplation of impermanence as a core aspect of whatever it is we mean when we say “reality”. Equally at ease immersing himself in the Satipatthana Sutta, with its exercises contemplating the decomposition of our own body as a corpse, or becoming deeply absorbed in the physical act of painting for hours on end every day, Mendes is usually in touch with something both intimate and detailed, vast and universal.
We hear about his time teaching art in in San Francisco, where he also co-founded the San Francisco Buddhist Center in the city’s Mission District. His years of training and counter-cultural experiment at Chelsea Art school in the 1970s, where he booked the Sex Pistols for one of their first ever gigs. And his return to London following the death of his father to focus on art practice and, latterly, public Buddhist teaching at the London Buddhist Centre.
We also discuss the challenges for both Buddhism and art of reaching a more diverse group of people - finding ways to cross class, racial, gender and financial boundaries. One of Mendes’ great heroes in this is the Indian Buddhist leader and author of the Indian Constitution, Dr. Bimrao Ambedkar. It’s fascinating to watch the artist very much at home in his studio, surrounded by inspirational figures mythic and human, all looking back at him as he tries to capture both their own versions of themselves and our culture’s gaze as they exit life and are being memorialized. We get to dwell with Mendes as he continues his decades-long meditation on the elusive nature of selfhood and identity that slips in and out of light and shadow yet may - sometimes - be beautifully and usefully reflected in the eye of the beholder.
Show Notes
The Impermanence of Everyone: In Studio With Buddhist Artist Hugh Mendes (Paramabodhi)
+ Follow Hugh Mendes on Instagram
Visit Hugh Mendes’ website
Satipatthana Sutta: The Foundations of Mindfulness
Find out more about Dr. Ambedkar
Follow us on YouTube and Instagram
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Theme music by Ackport! Used with kind permission. -
Kamalashila is dying. So are we - we are dying. Really.
In this recent conversation with Kamalashila following his diagnosis of terminal cancer - and in the closing guided meditation reflecting on death - this is the core theme to which we keep returning: the value of familiarising ourselves with our impermanence: dying and death are going to happen to every single one of us. As Kamalashila says, “Taking it out of the taboo cupboard”.
We hear Kamalashila’s perspective starting out on what he refers to in his cancer blog as “A Voyage into the Unknown”. What it’s like to be in relationship to other people’s responses as he himself comes to terms with what’s happening. What he is carrying with him by way of reflections on a path of Buddhist practice, regrets in relationship to his own Dharma life and community, and thoughts on the nature of sangha itself. Exploring how, as Buddhists, as humans, we can work effectively with the intimations of our own mortality that are there if we only choose to look.
We revisit the themes of previous conversations: modes of Buddhist practice and ways of seeing community; the effect of landscape as a space of practice; the ongoing life of a particular spiritual context (the Triratna Buddhist Order) and his sense of sometimes being “a square peg in a round hole” within it. We hear Kamalashila’s sense of Triratna’s history, its up and downs, its many gifts, its changes for better or worse, its historical dynamics, its tensions and contradictions - all with a temperamental leaning towards personal agency in practice, trust in community, and finding unity through diversity.
The exchanges here are grounded in Kamalashila’s present experience - but his thoughts on the past are naturally part of it. And as anyone who knows him might expect, we are never too far from his sense of depth connection to the importance of playful, curious, committed meditation practice and teaching, one of the great loves of his 50+ years as a Buddhist. Whether he’s talking about life back in the London of his childhood or the nature of agnosticism in relation to the teaching of Padmasambhava, Kamalashila is always a good companion in attending to what matters.
This is a fascinating and generous hour of engaged conversation - followed by a beautiful 20 minute gently guided reflection on how our bodies and our consciousness (parsed by Kamalashila as “manifesting a world”) might, in time, come into relationship with our own dying and death.
Show Notes
Follow ‘A Voyage into the Unknown’: a blog by Kamalashila
Online classes and retreats with Kamalashila (with teaching archive)
Read Kamalashila’s thoughts on his diagnosis and upcoming meditation teaching
Some previous podcast conversations with Kamalashila:
Kamalashila's Quarterly No.1
Kamalashila's Quarterly No.2 - On Landscape And Experiment
Kamalashila's Quarterly No.3 - On Gonzo Psychogeography and New Beginnings
The Magic Of Meditation with Kamalashila
Parami & Kamalashila Talk About Meditation
Satyaraja and Kamalashila Talk About Meditation
Other links:
Read free digital editions of ‘Crap, I’ve Got Cancer’ by Suvarnaprabha
Amitasuri on her work as a Buddhist chaplain
Watch Seamus Heaney reading his poem ‘Mint’
Follow us on YouTube and Instagram
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Visit The Buddhist Centre Live (events year-round on Buddhism, mindfulness, meditation, and culture)
Come meditate with us online six days a week!
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Missing episodes?
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In this latest episode of the Buddhist Centre podcast, we are delighted to welcome back Tejananda, one of the most experienced meditation teachers within the Triratna Buddhist Community. Tejananda will be bringing insights from decades of practice to his upcoming Home Retreat on The Buddhist Centre Live, ‘Emptiness and Compassion: The Divine Abodes’, starting March 29th.
The retreat is part of a trilogy (so far!) exploring the Buddhist concept and experience of ‘emptiness’ (shunyata - pointing to the lack of an “objectively” fixed essence or selfhood in anything). This time around we are approaching the great field of contemplation and reflection from the meditative perspective of the 'divine abodes' (brahma viharas)—unconditional love, compassion, joy, and equanimity–all seen as pathways to liberating the mind. By cultivating these beautiful qualities, Tejananda says, we can find a larger context for our afflictive emotions—craving, hatred, and ignorance—and in the process gradually find unveiled the uncultivated, unlimited, and unconditional nature of them as ways to engage with ourselves, with other beings and with reality itself.
Tejananda is interested in a non-abstract, earthed, experiential relationship to ‘emptiness', and in the transformative power of compassion for our consciousness. The ensuing conversation opens a seam of truly rich material: from constructed realities (yes, we talk about the Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest) to how we can work with difficult emotions, to the relief of resting in a developing experience that we are fundamentally okay. Even as we are all subject to impermanence in the luminous emptiness of this reality, “Let there be unconditional love” is Tejananda’s quietly encouraging rallying call.
This is a fascinating glimpse into the work waiting for us when we close our eyes in meditation, experience more fully sensed and in potentially higher resolution than any fancy-pants headset can render!
🧘 Reserve your place on ‘Emptiness and Compassion: The Divine Abodes' with Tejananda and friends
Show Notes
Like all our Home Retreats Tejananda’s week-long meditation event is designed to support you in exploring in-depth Buddhist practices and teachings in your own time - during the live retreat or at any time after in the archive.
Visit our Home Retreat spaces
Listen to ‘Meditating in the Mandala’, a previous episode with Tejananda about Triratna’s System of Practice
‘Being Divine Online’ - a Home Retreat space with Ratnavandana on the Brahma Viharas
Home Retreat spaces with Paramananda and Bodhilila focussed on the body in meditation:
‘The Alchemical Heart’
‘The Myth of Meditation’
‘The Poetics of Awakening'
'Following the White Deer: Answering the Mythic call in Meditation’Paramananda’s books on Buddhism and meditation from Windhorse Publications
‘Forces for Good – Challenging Emotions as Portals to Liberation’ with Balajit, Singhashri and Viveka
‘Entering the Mandala: Mindfulness and Imagination’ with Vidyamala and Vishvapani
Follow us on YouTube and Instagram
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Visit The Buddhist Centre Live (events year-round on Buddhism, mindfulness, meditation, and culture)
Come meditate with us online six days a week!
Theme music by Ackport! Used with kind permission. -
Join us for a ‘90s story of inspired Buddhist practice in Missoula, Montana - of great friendship, fierce love, burnout and life lessons learned in the fire of idealism and spiritual adventure. There’s nothing quite like going through a big experience together - and Tipu’s was a very big one for so many people as a new Buddhist community took root in the United States.
Founders Buddhapalita and Varada witness to the joys, trials, sacrifices and lasting consequences of starting the first (east) Indian restaurant and explicitly ethical Buddhist ‘Right Livelihood’ business in a small midwestern city. Old friends and colleagues, Aryadrishti and Viriiylila, bring their own accounts of fortitude, loss, abandonment and resolution to the reunion. Grief and cherishing, naivety and wisdom go hand in hand as we hear the tale of Tipu’s Tiger and how much it still means all these years later.
Listen to this beautifully, sometimes achingly, resonant conversation about the good that survives long after a shared project has fallen away. Listen closely, hang onto the tail of the tiger, and you can still almost taste the best chai and channa this side of Mumbai…
Recorded in Ahuatepec, Mexico, October 2023.
Show notes
Tipu's Chai (the legacy business, no longer owned by Buddhapalita and Varada)
Wolf Water Resources (Aryadrishti's subsequent ethical engineering business)
This week’s guests
Aryadrishti
Buddhapalita
Varada
Viriyalila
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Visit The Buddhist Centre Live (events year-round on Buddhism, mindfulness, meditation, and culture)
Come meditate with us online six days a week!
Theme music by Ackport! Used with kind permission. -
Our guests this week come together for a thoughtful, provocative conversation occasioned by Vishvapani‘s recent article for Tricycle Buddhist review looking at the arresting, perhaps astonishing, fact that one of the most powerful people in the UK – Home Secretary Suella Braverman - is also faithfully involved as a Buddhist practitioner within the context of the Triratna Buddhist Community.
Candradasa is joined by Lokabandhu, deputy mayor of Glastonbury, UK, Vajratara from Tiratanaloka Buddhist Retreat Centre for Women, and Vishvapani, writer and broadcaster, to explore the perspectives and frameworks within which we see and experience the world and discuss how Buddhism and politics relate.
Buddhism offers a deeply transformative path of ethical practice that does not engage at the level of specific politics. Instead it calls for the radical re-orientation of our being in light of a recognition of the roles impermanence, deeply complex conditionality, and interdependence play in our sense of personal and societal happiness. So how does such a broadly environmental approach to the mind and reality itself sit in relation to political views that often tend to individual and collective rigidity, polarization, and the fragmentation of community?
The panel evokes what we as Buddhists have to contribute in the face of diverse dangers that threaten society as we know it: challenges to liberal democracy, consequences of current responses to climate change, and a growing mental health crisis afflicting millions around the world.
We open up the idea of Buddhists as a potential force for good, an active body within the wider community made up of people who live and act as examples of compassion and sanity in the world. Members of a ‘new society’ who might take leading roles without being compromised by division and the application of personal or group-based power. Is it all a pipe dream, or is this a tantalising, achievable possibility? At the very least, how can Buddhist approaches to life that actively envision the wellbeing of people and communities influence our personal engagement with political culture in ways that are of broad benefit?
Join us for a podcast of ideas, values, and considered reflection on the most tricky of areas. This is how we can harmoniously talk about politics with each other - as full members of society spanning different cultures, perspectives and views.
Show notes
Suella Braverman Is the UK’s Buddhist Home Secretary and a Right-Wing Culture Warrior by Vishvapani (Tricycle Buddhist Review)
Vishvapani’s episodes of the BBC’s ‘Thought for the Day’
Mindful Cities Initiative
Buddhism, World Peace, and Nuclear War by Sangharakshita (Free Buddhist Audio)
The Nucleus of a New Society by Sangharakshita (Free Buddhist Audio)
What Is Buddhist Activism? (The Buddhist Centre Podcast)
Sangharakshita, Dr. Rewatta Dhamma, Sogyal Rimpoche, and Thich Nhat Hanh in conversation (Clear Vision Archive)
Doctor Bhimrao Ambedkar as a Buddhist social activist (The Buddhist Centre Online)
The Rest Is Politics podcast episodes with Yuval Noah Harari: Crisis and Tragedy in IsraelThe Dangers of AI and the Future of Humanity
This week’s guests
Lokabandhu as Deputy Mayor of Glastonbury
Vajratara at Tiratanaloka Buddhist Retreat Centre for Women
Wise Attention by Vishvapani (website)
Mindfulness In Action (website)
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Visit The Buddhist Centre Live (events year-round on Buddhism, mindfulness, meditation, and culture)
Come meditate with us online six days a week!
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Alfoxton House in Somerset, England has a long and rich history stretching back over 1000 years. It was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, and is where the young William Wordsworth, his sister Dorothy and their great friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge helped birth the radical new Romantic movement during a magical year there in 1797.
In June 2020, a new Triratna Buddhist community received the keys to this astonishing property set within 52 acres of ancient woodland complete with herds of red deer grazing the hillside. This week on the Buddhist Centre podcast we hear from that community - and particularly from film director and Alfoxton community member Hartley Woolf on his affecting and poetic documentary capturing a year in the life of the inspired band of souls who have taken on the ambitious task of renovating a once great estate.
Following the seasons, Hartley’s film reveals the changes in the land and the travails of this huge building project, weaving connections between the poetry of the Romantics, physical work and spiritual practice. We hear how in the midst of knocking down walls and rebuilding foundational structures, Hartley treaded the sometimes difficult path between being both a member of his community and a filmmaker. And catch a glimpse of the shared wonder that emerges as relationships are forged in a project based on the deepest values of awareness, love and a common quest for the truth of reality.
Triratna has long posited a deep connection between Buddhist spiritual life and the Arts, ever since Sangharakshita first began to articulate a fresh vision of contemporary western practice in the 1960s. In the spirit of that tradition, the Alfoxton community has been working to restore the house, tend to the land and provide opportunities to go deeper into both Buddhist practice and the practice of music, poetry and philosophy. Their inspiring program of retreats and events sees them welcome hundreds of volunteers and visitors each year, bringing the electric thrill of the great English Romantics back to life for new generations of seekers.
Join us in the great oak-panelled room at Alfoxton, where Coleridge first recited 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', for this wonderful conversation! We’ll be hosting the online premier of ‘A Renovating Virtue’ by Hartley Woolf on The Buddhist Centre Online in September 2023.
Show notes
Watch the trailer for ‘A Renovating Virtue’
Visit Alfoxton House!
Support the community and the restoration of Alfoxton
+ Follow the Alfoxton Diaries on YouTube
'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' (text of 1834) by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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There are in our existence, spots of time,
That with distinct pre-eminence retain
A renovating virtue, whence – depressed
By false opinion and contentious thought,
Or aught of heavier or more deadly weight,
In trivial occupations, and the round
Of ordinary intercourse – our minds
Are nourished and invisibly repaired…
William Wordsworth, The Prelude
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Come meditate with us online six days a week!
Theme music by Ackport! Used with kind permission. -
If you enjoy this conversation, come explore the theme online on our Home Retreat with Vidyamala and Vishvapani!
“Imagine an enormous subterranean chamber all lit up from within. We are living in a tiny chamber next to – indeed, part of – the larger one. We can see nothing at all of what’s going on in the large chamber. In fact, we have no idea that the large chamber is even there.”
Sangharakshita
This week we’re opening portals to awareness and the wonders that can arise when we really start to pay attention to everything that’s going on in the world around us. What would it be like to experience yourself without restrictive concepts? What dimensions might open up in your life as you engage with myths and symbols? Awareness, or mindfulness, is an essential foundation for all spiritual growth. And through knowing experience directly we can transform difficulties and become happier, calmer and more fulfilled. But awareness offers much more: it also provides a doorway to other dimensions in the large chamber of our being. Awareness of the body, heart and mind can blossom into awareness of boundlessness, love and mystery, as Buddhist teachers have taught down the millennia.
Imagination is a key to this opening. When our minds are clear and we’re alive to what’s within us and around us, our imaginations wake up to new possibilities. Kusaladevi joins Vidyamala and Vishvapani in a conversation exploring the theme of their upcoming Home Retreat, Entering the Mandala: Mindfulness and Imagination.
This Home Retreat is an opportunity to live for a week with mindfulness, kindness, poetry and creativity, even in the midst of our daily lives. An exploration of mindfulness and imagination through talks, meditation, creative activities, discussion and shared ritual, particularly focused on the richly evocative symbol of the mandala. Come join us in the vastness of the present moment!
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Show notes
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)
Urgyen Sangharakshita
Dharma talks by Vidyamala | Dharma talks by Vishvapani
More about the Five Buddha mandala
Listen to 'Vidyamala, OBE! - A Platinum Jubilee Honour for Breathworks'
From Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798 by William Wordsworth
—And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
William Wordsworth
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Vidyamala was ordained into the Triratna Buddhist Order in 1995 and is co-founder of Breathworks, a leading mindfulness organisation and she focuses particularly on using awareness and kindness training to work with pain and illness. This draws on her own experience of managing spinal pain and disability. She is an award-winning author of three books and was awarded an OBE in 2022 for her services to pain management and well-being. She regularly leads retreats and workshops, and speaks at international summits, events and webinars.
Vidyamala has long had an interest in the creative mind and heart and how to access this through myth, ritual and non-conceptual approaches and looks forward to deepening this even more on this online retreat.
www.vidyamala-burch.com
www.breathworks-mindfulness.org.uk
Vishvapani has practised meditation and Buddhism for over 40 years. He’s a writer, best known for Gautama Buddha: the Life and Teachings of the Awakened One and as the Buddhist contributor to Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4. He’s a prominent figure in the UK’s mindfulness world and has taught over 150 mindfulness courses.
He loves to explore poetry, myth and imagination, along with Buddhism, in his writing, teaching and practice.
www.vishvapani.org
www.mindfulnessinaction.co.uk
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Visit The Buddhist Centre Live (events year-round on Buddhism, mindfulness, meditation, and culture)
Come meditate with us online six days a week!
Theme music by Ackport! Used with kind permission. -
We’re coursing this week in the heady, fascinating realm of generative and assistive AI, already seemingly omnipresent in our lives via undeniably productive next gen software tools like ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion. How do our not-computer-generated guests from different walks of Buddhist life engage with this rapidly evolving area of tech in their own work - as humans, as Dharma practitioners? Here we discuss the genuinely cutting edge world of large language models and the advances they enable, exploring AI’s impact on our understanding of consciousness and Buddhism’s quest for a transformative freedom of heart and mind.
Given the limitations of language itself in expressing the depth and breadth of human experience, are companies like OpenAi claiming a level of intelligence for their technology that it simply does not have? And what do we even mean by intelligence anyway…? Our guests consider the foundational critique of AI thinkers like Professor Emily M Bender, a computational linguist at the University of Washington, and sci-fi writer Ted Chiang, who both argue persuasively that the big questions underlying all this are not so much about computers as about us.
The AI bots are coming! Join us for a thought-provoking conversation that challenges our understanding of ourselves at the apparent dawn of a new technological age.
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Show notes
Professor Emily Bender (on Twitter and Mastodon)
On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big 🦜? (Original PDF) | eBook and other formats
Recode Media with Peter Kafka: How worried—or excited—should we be about AI? (podcast)
You Are Not a Parrot, And a chatbot is not a human (Intelligencer)
Ted Chiang
‘Sci-fi writer Ted Chiang: The machines we have now are not conscious’ by Madhumita Murgia
ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web (The New Yorker)
Silicon Valley Is Turning Into Its Own Worst Fear by Ted Chiang (Buzzfeed News)
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Stable Diffusion
ChatGPT
The Measure of a Man (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick
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Visit The Buddhist Centre Live (events year-round on Buddhism, mindfulness, meditation, and culture)
Come meditate with us online six days a week!
Theme music by Ackport! Used with kind permission. -
The construct of race is an integral part of Western society’s DNA and if we are to address the social injustice of racism, we need to have the race conversation. Yet all too often, attempts at such a dialogue are met with silence, denial, anger or hate.
Is it possible to navigate diverse conversations about race without confusion? Can we authentically create a culture capable of responding to the pain and discomfort caused by racism for both people of colour and white people? These questions lie at the heart of this heartfelt conversation between Bodhilila, Chair of the West London Buddhist Centre and Eugene Ellis, acclaimed author of 'The Race Conversation: An essential guide to creating life-changing dialogue’.
Eugene’s work encompasses trauma theory and the vital need to resource inner conditions in engaging with others. Exploring the Buddhist perspective of conditionality, he emphasizes the significance of intention and working with discomfort within our conversations. As Bodhilila brings to bear her own profound experiences around race, intersectionality and Dharma practice, the discussion delves deep into the race construct, examining the profound impact of prejudice, colonialism, and slavery on individuals of all races.
The creation of safe environments where people can openly share their experiences is vital, allowing us to acknowledge the fear that can arise when engaging in these conversations. This, in turn, enables us to move past blame towards repairing relationships and alleviating the more negative forms of shame. What emerges is a passionate advocacy for personal introspection and doing the work to understand our own racial conditioning and perspectives. Only then can we take responsibility and actively seek avenues for redress and healing.
Recorded live in London, November 2022.
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Bodhilila has been meditating and practising mindfulness for over 25 years. She is a fully accredited Breathworks mindfulness trainer as well as a qualified counsellor, teacher and massage therapist. She also worked for many years as a classical musician and as a nursery manager. She is currently Chair of the West London Buddhist Centre, where she has been teaching meditation, mindfulness and Buddhism, as well as helping to run the Centre, since 2012. She regularly leads retreats for the WLBC and at Taraloka women’s retreat centre.
Eugene Ellis is an activist, writer and public speaker on issues of race, difference and intersectionality. He is also the founder and director of The Black, African and Asian Therapy Network (BAATN), a network of therapists committed, passionate and actively engaged in addressing the psychological needs of Black, African and South Asian people in the UK.
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Show notes
'The Race Conversation: An essential guide to creating life-changing dialogue’ by Eugene Eliis
The Black, African and Asian Therapy Network
Events in London and Online for People of Colour
More conversations about race in Triratna
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Visit The Buddhist Centre Live (events year-round on Buddhism, mindfulness, meditation, and culture)
Come meditate with us online six days a week!
Theme music by Ackport! Used with kind permission. -
We're delighted to share a special Triratna Day 2023 podcast episode with you, recorded earlier this week and hosted by our friend Jnanadhara. He's joined by Saddhanandi and Nagabodhi to discuss the upcoming online gathering of the Triratna Buddhist community on the 8th of April, which celebrates its founding in April 1967.
Saddhanandi and Nagabodhi reminisce about past Triratna Day celebrations, recalling the excitement of travelling in large groups from Glasgow to London or Birmingham for the day or weekend. These events were like big festivals, with talks, book stalls, and the opportunity to meet people from the wider movement who might only have known through their books. Whilst often the talks given at events such as these, shaped the discourse of our community as a whole. Sangharakshita, the founder of the Triratna Buddhist community, emphasized the importance of celebrating Buddhist festivals such as Buddha Day and Dharmachakra Day etc but also wanted the community to have its own traditions. Heeding the Buddha's famous call to come together in large numbers.
We also discuss Sangharakshita’s place within our tradition. Explored through the perspective of Is a Guru Necessary? A talk he gave in 1970.
The theme of the day and the podcast is "Roots in the Earth, Roots in the Sky." Since its founding, Triratna has become a truly international sangha, with special - even sacred - spaces. Collaborating in the creation of these spaces has been crucial to our individual and collective growth. This Triratna Day, we celebrate the significance of such spaces in our history and the work being done to establish roots in new places today.
From Bhante's early work in England to the current efforts of Order Members in countries as diverse as New Zealand, Finland, Poland, Mexico, India, and Brazil, our community recognizes the importance of establishing and nurturing new ground for practice. As Bhante once said, for our Sangha to thrive, we need really deep roots - roots in the sky! This way of speaking about bodhichitta is embodied in the image of the cosmic Refuge Tree.
Show notes:
View the full programme of events and Join us April 08 online for a truly international gathering
The day is a collaboration between Adhisthana, FutureDharma Fund, and The Buddhist Centre online.
Nagabodhi’s new book: Sangharakshita: The Boy, the Monk, the Man
Check out photos from the early days of the movement at Triratna Picture Library
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Visit The Buddhist Centre Live (events year-round on Buddhism, mindfulness, meditation, and culture)
Come meditate with us online six days a week!
Theme music by Ackport! Used with kind permission. -
A wonderful conversation highlighting the themes of a brand new Home Retreat – the latest addition to our growing archive of in-depth, beautifully resourced online spaces to help take your practice of meditation and Buddhism deeper.
Balajit, Singhashri and Viveka join us to discuss the opportunities and challenges of engaging with the gnarlier bits of our emotional lives, amid so much pressure of so many kinds in the world. A sparkling exchange about ways into integrating embodied practice where our guests collectively flip the script on how we might habitually relate to some emotions as more valuable than others in the process of getting to know ourselves. What if we could uncover the potential for integrity at the heart of emotions like fear, grief, and anger?
It’s a strong invitation, one to be met at your own pace. And a chance to get curious about where challenging emotions come from as parts of us–and what they might need to liberate the energy usually bound up in them in some direct relationship to the wish for a more liberated world.
We also get an excellent practical sense of this kind of heart work. How do you do an online retreat? Will I find a genuine sense of community? Will it be too hard to let difficult emotions in? These and other excellent questions are engaged with in a beautifully thoughtful way, from Dharma teachers holding the experience of many years of Buddhist practice, including online-first contexts.
The most important thing to know is: you are trusted, you are welcome! Come take part and be with whatever arises in a kindly, gracious space, looking at what it is to be simply a human being with a body and an emotional life.
This podcast ends with a short guided practice to help us imagine what it is like to be truly supported.
🧘♀️ 🧘♂️ Listen and join us for seven days of meditation, soulful exploration, and strong, supportive friendship!
Find out more: Forces for Good – Challenging Emotions as Portals to Liberation
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Visit The Buddhist Centre Live (events year-round on Buddhism, mindfulness, meditation, and culture)
Come meditate with us online six days a week!
Theme music by Ackport! Used with kind permission. -
Dharmachakra has been a going concern since Dharmachari Ananda first strapped a reel-to-reel tape recorder on his back in London in 1967 to record the first public lectures by Urgyen Sangharakshita under the auspices of the then Friends of the Western Buddhist Order. It has evolved over the decades to become an amazing Triratna Right Livelihood team – most importantly, a team of friends, working online together across the globe to bring the world the best of Buddhism and meditation from our new Buddhist Community.
We hear from the team in Mexico City, the United Kingdom and the United States about their work on the brand new Free Buddhist Audio, recently relaunched in its third major version for mobile devices with an archive that has swelled in 15+ years from 450 titles to over 5,500. Some magic recommendations follow (see the prodigious show notes below) – but also an evocation of the importance of working together, of taking part in a lineage of practice, and of passing on to the next generation the many treasures of the Dharma. At its best, the new FBA is just this: a chest of jewels, rich and surprising, whose light illuminates not just our history as modern Buddhists and how far we have come, but shows the way to the future of Buddhism as it adapts to new contexts, countries, languages and cultures.
Take a deep dive with us into a world of outstanding generosity, amazing technology, and beautiful collective effort over many years to bring the words of the Buddha and the voices of diverse community to life online. Dharmachakra may already be a great Triratna institution – and Free Buddhist Audio a much loved resource and space online – but it’s just getting started.
Try the new Free Buddhist Audio
Donate to Dharmachakra and support the future of Free Buddhist Audio
Show Notes
David has now been ordained as… Dayaketu! Which means, ‘Comet of Kindness or Compassion’ ☺️
Kusaladevi’s picks
The Transitoriness of Life and the Certainty of Death by Vajradarshini
Rambles Around Reality by Subhuti
Rambles Around Consciousness by Subhuti
Rambles Around the Yogachara by Subhuti
Talks on White Tara
Talks by Vajrashura
Talks by Vajratara
Dayaketu’s (David’s) picks
Seminar texts on Life and Liberation of Padmasambhava (1987): Cantos 37 & 39
Seminar texts on Life and Liberation of Padmasambhava (1987): Canto 38
Sevenfold Puja by Sangharakshita (1968)
Sangharakshita’s poetry
Talks from Cuernavaca Buddhist Centre, Mexico
Talks in Spanish
Kamalavajra’s picks
Mind Reactive and Creative by Sangharakshita (1967)
The Inconceivable Emancipation - Themes from the Vimalakirti Nirdesha by Sangharakshita (1979)
Sangharakshita’s Memoirs (audiobooks) | Sangharakshita’s Memoirs (books from Windhorse Publications)
Viriyalila’s picks
Talks on The White Lotus Sutra
Ritual and Devotion in Buddhism by Sangharakshita (1967)
Readings from the Pali Canon by Sangharakshita (2000)
Mind and Mental Events - A Series by Subhuti
Seven-Point Mind Training - A Series by Dhammadinna
Brahma Viharas and the Key Moment by Kulaprabha
Becoming a Citizen of the Present by Srivati
Early talks by Sangharakshita
Late talks by Sangharakshita
Sophe’s picks
Recordings of Mantras and Chanting
Vidyamala’s guided meditations and Dharma talks
Zac’s picks
The ‘Lost’ Padmasambhava Talk by Sangharakshita (1979)
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A real beauty of a ‘lost’ episode from our archives! Recorded in a very lovely garden in Mexico in 2019, with nature sounds all around, Bodhikamala and Sanghadhara, who’ve been soul mates of a sort since before the age of 10, explore with us their long history of friendship as young people. A shared love of the arts, of musicals, and Harry Potter brought them together in summer camp and, eventually, led them to explore Buddhism together. Now as ordained members of the Triratna Buddhist Order they discuss their strange routes to the Dharma life, taking in auras, fear of aliens and the apocalypse, and early struggles with social despair that found only limited expression in other kinds of activism.
A magic story of how intuitive philosophy and a feeling for truth developed from a sense that while pain is inevitable in life, suffering is optional. Early insights turn into a meaningful, lived experience of Buddhist practice where mind is seen and felt as primary, and it makes all the difference. Our two “Cookie Searchers” take us from Plato’s Cave to yoga retreats with grandmothers and, eventually, across continents. What is constant – through challenges with acceptance by parents and all questioning and doubts – is a friendship where love and vital interest are irrepressible. Join us for laughter, sparkling reflection, and an uncommonly strong, easy evocation of friendship as a path that can transcend even time itself.
Recorded at Chintamani Retreat Centre, Mexico 2019.
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What do you get when you invite a set of experienced American Dharma teachers and friends from different Buddhist traditions to gather together post-Covid and share their practice and experience of American Buddhism? Well, something like this! The bright joy and sense of common tradition is palpable. Hear four Gen-X Triratna Order members with deep connections to our community, both in the UK and US, in a round-table conversation with other Dharma farers from Vajrayana, Vipassana, and Zen traditions.
We explore kaleidoscopic difference and beautiful sameness in our various approaches to Dharma practice – and are united in grappling with being the “middle generation” of Buddhists in some of the new lineages of the West. Perhaps the central image from this conversation is of people needing to make sure they are carrying their culture with them, which allows us to be truly radical and ensure the revolutionary change we strive for as Buddhists is a genuine possibility for everyone in future.
It’s genuinely inspiring to hear the voices of “future ancestors” openly embracing the reality that long, deep change may not happen in their own lifetime, yet persisting with delight in Dharma practice. Gratitude for what we have inherited is key to that, and shines through in this fascinating meeting recorded at the end of a long, hot summer near the Catskills in New York State.
Featuring Ananta, Candradasa, Claire Villareal, Tenzen David Zimmerman, Singhashri, Stephanie Tait, Vimalasara, Upayadhi, Lama Zangmo.
Recorded at the Won Dharma Center, NY, USA.
Show notes
Gen-x 2019 Podcast
Be the Refuge: Raising the Voices of Asian American Buddhists by Chenxing Han
Sankofa (pronounced SAHN-koh-fah): a word in the Twi language of Ghana meaning “go back and get"
My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem
The Wisdom of Uncertainty by Kurt Spellmeyer (Tricycle)
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The Triratna International Council has been a going concern for 11+ years–but in many ways it's just getting started. Meeting again in person for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic, it's undergoing something of a renaissance; renewing itself through the work of Buddhists from around the world, all united in their heart wish to work together to help exemplify a path of everyday practice for a planet that really needs a humane path out of suffering.
We meet friends from India, Latin America, Oceania, Europe and the UK–as well as the hard-working team who help pull such an ambitious endeavor together every couple of years; convening interim gatherings at regional and national level to make sure we get the best out of this great assembly. We hear why it all matters–what relevance such meetings have for our own community and for anyone interested in genuinely consensual ways to approach questions of leadership, strategy and direction. Perhaps most importantly of all, we hear evoked what it means to share a common interest and work with each other based on something other than power.
If you're interested in success stories about human beings coming together to make a difference in all the right ways, this one's for you!
Show Notes
Watch the #IC22 story on Instagram + Follow The International Council channel on The Buddhist Centre OnlineListen to the keynote talk, 'Serving the Bodhisattva' by NagapriyaThat definition: "The International Council brings together the perspectives of those holding key responsibilities across the Triratna community, to develop strategy, provide guidance, and enable collaborative decision-making worldwide."***
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Welcome to a new season of the podcast! ❤️
Since the 1970s Kamalashila has been exploring meditation and, as an author and teacher in the Triratna Buddhist Order, shaping our understanding of meditation in all its practical magic and mystery.
These days he spends much of his time at home in rural England, leading in-depth meditation retreats online for members of the Order. Join us in his garden amongst the summer birds and wildflowers of Suffolk for a conversation about how sadhana – a lifelong, 360º approach to Buddhist meditation and practice – transforms our consciousness and our whole way of experiencing the world.
You can't understand it all rationally, Kamalashila says, and this perspective sits comfortably with his embrace of technology and the Internet as effective, if imperfect, tools with which to pursue a personal and communal exploration of the Dharma. What emerges is a vision of Buddhism that knows to be genuinely learning we must also accept that how we see things is often simply wrong. In giving himself to a relationship with something truly mysterious, Kamalashila invites us to be open to a kind of magic whose roots in Indian and Tibetan tradition are made most meaningful today by our own sustained, faithful practice.
Show Notes
This podcast includes a short closing meditation on the sounds of nature!
Listen to episodes of Kamalashila's Quarterly from the podcast
Visit Kamalashila's website for resources on Buddhist meditation
Buy ‘Buddhist Meditation: Tranquillity, Imagination and Insight’ by Kamalashila
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In this final episode of the current season of the podcast, Bodhilila, Chair of the West London Buddhist Centre, is in conversation with Lama Rod Owens, bestselling author of ‘Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger’.
Their exchange weaves across a number key Dharma threads, beginning with a sense of how being in the body can be a way to step out of systems that stop us reaching our full potential as human beings; a way to reclaim agency and autonomy; and a place for the aspiration to grow beyond our own sufferings and limited self-views.
Diversity in its fullest, most positively abundant sense, is never far away; nor is a sharp awareness of the need to turn aside from hatred towards empathy and compassion, always from a place of being well resourced. “It’s a hard thing to hear,” says Lama Rod. “When you think you’re normal but your normality comes at the expense of large groups of people, to the detriment of other people. But that’s not the same thing as hate.” We hear how vital it remains to continue to see that everyone deserves to be happy.
All this is particularly relevant to conversations about race, power and injustice, of course, but this episode keeps us clearly in the realm of Buddhist practice and the perspectives it has to offer a world both deeply familiar with suffering and simultaneously longing to escape it. Empathy is the key to humanizing people, and here two friends and respected Dharma teachers from different traditions open up the deepest possibilities of that empathy for all of us: liberation of the body, mind and heart.
Show NotesLove and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger by Lama Rod Owens
Watch the full event on YouTube–and subscribe!
West London Buddhist Centre
Lama Rod Owens also featured on 'The Gen-X 2019 Podcast' (Episode 362)
Conversations About Race - A series from The Buddhist Center Online, curated by Vimalasara
Visit Lama Rod Owens' personal website
Get the Buddhist Voices podcast
Follow the Free Buddhist Audio podcast
Follow the Dharmabytes podcast
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#Buddhism #Buddhist #Buddha #Dharma #Triratna #community #sangha #meditation #Dhamma #Triratna #mindfulness #kindness #pain #stress #grief #suffering #race #racism #diversity #power #anger #rage #peace #empathy #body -
We're on the road this week with a festive episode of the podcast to celebrate Vidyamala: the extraordinary inspiration behind Breathworks who has just been made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen’s Birthday 2022 Honours List. She has been honoured for her Services to Wellbeing and Pain Management as Co-founder of Breathworks, an organisation which teaches mindfulness-based approaches to people coping with pain, illness and stress.
In a riot of birdsong, on a beautiful day in early summer, we were delighted to be able to join Vidyamala in her garden just after the news broke, along with her partner Sona, and her friend Aryajaya. As well as marking the occasion, we remember the very hard road travelled through pain that led to the foundation of Breathworks and its vital contribution to the welfare of so many people.
Having passed on her wisdom to over 600 accredited trainers in 35 countries, Vidyamala's work isn't "just mindfulness"—it's now a whole transformative movement capable of reaching deep into society. In Vidyamala's approach the simple application of awareness and kindness becomes an emotionally intelligent and deeply responsive re-imagining of the Buddhist path itself, ready to meet the huge challenges of suffering in the 21st Century. Vidyamala has brought this beautiful work to bear in her own life with great courage, grace and equanimity, opening up portals to freedom in hearts and minds all around the world.
Show notes
Visit Breathworks
See the Breathworks' course on Mindfulness for Managing Long Covid
Read more about Vidyamala's OBE
Listen to Vidyamala on this podcast back in March 2020: The Blue Sky at the Heart of the Body
Visit Vidyamala's personal website
***
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Come meditate with us online six days a week!
Theme music by Ackport! Used with kind permission.
#Buddhism #Buddhist #Buddha #Dharma #Triratna #community #sangha #meditation #Dhamma #Triratna #mindfulness #kindness #Breathworks #pain #stress #grief #suffering -
When tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees began to cross the border with Poland, the Triratna community at Krakow Buddhist Centre got involved with the same great generosity that has marked the Polish people's response to war flaring up uncomfortably close to home.
In this episode we hear from Saddhajala and Nityabandhu on the ground in Krakow—not just about the war in Ukraine but about how Buddhist practice has enabled them to meet the crisis and try to bring to life "a blueprint for a new world". By turning their Centre into a place of refuge they have been able to help with families seeking shelter and live out their own ideals. It has made a difference.
A moving conversation about practical love and a community of friends finding new cultural expression for Buddhism in their own language as a way to get ready to meet the worst of the world with the best of it. And save Simon the bulldog!
Show notes
Sanghaloka - Buddhism in Krakow and Warsaw (Polish)
Sanghaloka - Buddhism in Krakow and Warsaw (English)
Gallery from the creation of a Buddhist Centre for Krakow
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Theme music by Ackport! Used with kind permission.
#Ukraine #Poland #war #peace #Krakow #Buddhism #Buddhist #Buddha #Dharma #Triratna #community #sangha #meditation #Dhamma #Triratna #mindfulness #kindness #Sangharakshita -
Some of the team at the Urgyen Sangharakshita Trust join us for a deep dive into the art of digital storytelling and biographical work online, as we hear about the ongoing creative challenges involved in helping a spiritual community hold the legacy of their teacher across generations.
Sangharakshita was a brilliant, complex, sometimes provocative and controversial figure. He was also a friend, a thinker, a writer, and a hundred other things besides. Prajnaketu and Suryanaga discuss with us the making and remaking involved in creating a new web-based life of the founder of the Triratna Buddhist Community and Order. The conversations steers between reverence for what has been given and experimentation around what's ahead as we plot a course through the digital landscape of Tik Tok, dank memes, and new social media.
The modern web opens up new possibilities for carrying the learnings and lessons of the past. This is a great collective reflection on lineage, history, and possibility as we continue Sangharakshita's great work of renewing an approach to the Dharma for the modern world.
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Show Notes
Visit the new Sangharakshita.org
Explore and subscribe to the new online life of Sangharakshita
The archive project at Urgyen House
Triratna Picture Library (Sangharakshita's photograph archives)
Sangharakshita's essay reflecting on gratitude in the Garava Sutta
***
Visit The Buddhist Centre Live (events year-round on Buddhism, mindfulness, meditation, and culture)
Come meditate with us online six days a week!
Theme music by Ackport! Used with kind permission.
#Sangharakshita #Buddhism #Buddhist #Buddha #Dharma #Triratna #community #sangha #meditation #Dhamma #Triratna #mindfulness #kindness #biography #storytelling - Show more
