dhammarati

bhante at the chairs meeting

2009-01-09T21:45:00.003Z

actually, the pic is from the clear vision archive, and is london in the 60s.but a couple of days ago, bhante was at the fwbo chairs meeting at taraloka, talking about how he is insipred by some of the teachers on the refuge tree.the talk should be posted soon on free buddhist audio.

tejananda's system of meditation

2008-09-12T06:37:00.004Z

click pic to enlargean arrangement by tejananda, (well he did the thinking and i did the diagram) after the last meditation teachers colloquium, trying to describe the core meditation practices, and their relationship of basic practices to each other and to 'further developments'.

what i did on my holidays

2008-09-12T05:54:00.000Z

seattle from gas works parki've been absent from these pages for the last few weeks. the blog is meant to be items from my work in the liaison office or the preceptors college that i think will be of interest to a wider readership. these last weeks i’ve been on a going for refuge retreat in the united states, the north american convention, visiting centers in the usa and cananda, and getting a

presidents

2008-06-23T12:24:00.005Z

last couple of days i attended a meeting of presidents of fwbo centres, the first meeting like it for four years.the centre president was intorduced in the eighties as a useful way of plugging a local centre into the wider movement, and of giving the centre the support of an experienced order meember who would develop a real relationship with the chairman, and with people at the centre.when we

ordination statistics 3

2008-06-22T22:11:00.002Z

another graph: numbers ordained, 1968 – 2008.click the graph to enlarge it.

a system of training

2008-06-18T16:40:00.012Z

ceiling mosaic, galla placidia mausoleum, Ravennathis is a talk i gave at the fortieth anniversary of the western buddhist order. it makes a couple of points about our system of practice that i think are important. it's on the long side to read on screen, so if you'd like to read it you might prefer to cut and paste. there's also the audio version now available on freeBuddhistAudio: click HERE if

ordination statistics

2008-06-04T00:19:00.008Z

sunanda has posted some very interesting up to date statistics about the order, and about ordination. for example, there are now 1516 order members: 1010 men and 506 women, almost exactly two thirds and a third .the average age at ordination in 1975 was 25: in 1985, 33; in '95, it was 41; and in '05, 44.of the 1516 order members, 807 live in the uk, and 376 in india.here's a selection of the

'If you care about world hunger, eat less meat...'

2008-06-04T00:05:00.000Z

while the world food summit is taking place, wanted to repost this on the economics of eating meat.quoted from george monbiot in the guardian. the full article can be read here.'Never mind the economic crisis. Focus for a moment on a more urgent threat: the great food recession that is sweeping the world faster than the credit crunch. You have probably seen the figures by now: the price of rice

vegetables + american buddhists

2008-06-03T09:11:00.011Z

from my admittedly limited personal experience, more american buddhists than europeans seem to have qualms on health grounds about becoming vegetarian. are americans so much less healthy than europeans? this from kathy freston in the huffington post:When I tell people that I'm vegan, the most popular question, by far, inevitably follows: "But, how do you get enough protein?"There it is again, I

going for refuge retreat jikoji, 08

2008-05-29T15:01:00.006Z

had a couple of enquiries about the theme of this year's going for refuge retreat. i hadn't meant to be mysterious about the theme: it will be on the acceptance verse, for the benefit of all beings.nagabodhi and i had originally intended to do the 'transcendental principle' retreat, but nagabodhi won't be attending the retreat. i'd like to do that topic when he's on the retreat, so maybe next

bhante beats a drum

2008-05-27T12:00:00.010Z

just back from the 'beating the drum of the dharma' event at taraloka, where about 400 of us met under buddhafield canvas for 4 days. bhante gave a talk on the conditions for the stability of the sangha. delightful, poignant even, to see him there. here's a couple of pics: click to enlarge them.one of the most interesting developments for a few years, i think: people from all over europe, from

bodhicitta

2008-05-27T11:44:00.001Z

and before the taraloka event, on retreat at vajrakuta, looking at how formless practice, guru yoga and tonglen practice traditionally provide the meditation context for bodhicitta practice.

on retreat

2008-05-10T10:51:00.003Z

off on retreat with prakasha till may 20

a joined up meeting

2008-05-06T13:09:00.010Z

bluebells in north walesa visit to tiratanaloka on sunday, to talk about my proposal for a 'joined up meeting'. in the last few years, there have been a lot of structural changes in the order and movement. the general direction of them has been towards decentralisation and local autonomy, of centres and of ordination training. this was something we set in motion in the early 2000s, the intention

mahamudra

2008-04-24T11:42:00.023Z

the third karmapa, jetsun rangjung dorjejust finished an event with lama lhundrup and lama djangchub, from dagpo kagyu mandala in the auvergne. i know lhundrup from the european buddhist union, enjoy his company, and been very interested in the experience of his community.in particular i've been impressed by their three year retreats. at the minute they have something like 80 men and women,

a system of training

2008-04-04T00:35:00.015Z

6th century mosaic, San Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy. a good order weekend at wymondham college, marking the fortieth birthday of the order.a series of talks looked at the order, our practices, our relation with the world around us and the buddhist world.my talk was on ‘a system of training’, looks at the system of practices current in the western buddhist order, how they relate to going for

meditation seems to work

2008-03-18T23:44:00.009Z

...according to the guardian:Neuroscientist Shanida Nataraja has proved meditation does more than clear your head, it can put both halves of your brain to work, improving your concentration, memory and decision-making. She tells Andy Darling how it works here.

whitehall and westminster

2008-02-26T10:49:00.014Z

statues outside westminster abbey, of 'modern martyrs' including dietrich bonhoeffer, martin luther king and george romero. click to enlarge.inclusion and exclusiona few days in london. first of all assisting vajrasara, who was leading two days of nvc training at the british government's department of international development. the training was organised by zoe stevens, who works with dfid,

seeing the future

2008-02-02T17:14:00.001Z

loch lubnaig, near dhanakosa. click to enlargethis is a paper I prepared for the fwbo chairs at their meeting at dhanakosa this january.it outlines the history of madhyamaloka, and gives some idea of the proposed new sangharakshita library. I thought it might be of wider interest.In March 06, fwbo Central recruited some new trustees; Parami, Ratnadharini and Ratnagosha joined Cittapala, Srimala,

wildernesses of the heart

2008-02-02T17:12:00.000Z

surlingham, the home of padmaloka. click to enlargeI saw in the new year on corstorphine hill with edinburgh's spectacular firework display.for the rest of january, i was inolved in discussion with the chairs at dhanakosa, with new private preceptors and with the mitra convenors, both at padmaloka, and with bhante, subhuti and mahamati at madhyamaloka.I was at the chairs meeting to talk about the

private preceptors training

2007-12-04T20:53:00.000Z

a meeting at madhyamaloka, with dhammadinna, ratnadharini and maitreyi, to discuss the training of private preceptors.this came out of a discussion in august at the preceptors college meeting. as the group of private preceptors grows, we're recognising what an influential group it is, probably the single most influential group in the shape of the next generation of the order. till recently,

buddhism + the bomb

2007-11-24T00:48:00.002Z

a meeting of the network of buddhist organisations, at taplow court, the spectacular elizabethan headquarters of sokka gakai internation uk, who were hosting the meeting.the meeting is very enjoyable. the activities committee has had the same core of people for some years now, serious practitioners, who know each other well, and work together easily and harmoniously.one of the perennial problems

order forums

2007-11-21T19:21:00.000Z

Bhikkhus, that any bhikkhus who has not abandoned five wildernesses in the heart and not severed five shackles in the heart should come to growth, increase, and fulfilment in the Dhamma and Discipline – that is impossible.(Majjhima Nikaya, Sutta 16) order forum at the north london centre on saturday, then a slightly melodramatic rush to the scottish forum in glenfecchie, near aviemore, on

guhyaloka 1

2007-08-02T12:54:00.000Z

the valley. click to enlargeIt’s more than 20 years since I did a retreat as long as this four month ordination course. I came straight to the retreat from an intense set of meetings, with the public preceptors for 10 days, then the private preceptors, with bhante, for a weekend. The private preceptors meeting finished on Sunday evening, and by Tuesday morning I was on a plane heading for

as i was saying...

2007-07-26T19:33:00.000Z

apologies for my long absence from these pages; for the last 4 months, i've been in guhyaloka on retreat, and just got back.i'll write something about it over the next few days.the pic is of manjuvajra reading from his memoir of his time in the usa. you can see a bigger image by clicking on it.

2007-04-01T21:08:00.000Z

more incovenient truth

2007-02-01T01:13:00.001Z

from the BBC's newsnight blog,information, amazingly and perfectly seriously, that gases from livestock do as much damage to the atmosphere as long haul flights do :At a conference last week the environment secretary David Milliband pointed out that "the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions than transport". Agriculture is reckoned to account for 7% of all greenhouse gas

preceptors college working practices

2007-01-30T15:04:00.000Z

my visit to the nkt, and the discussion about their constitution had me thinking about our own structures.my own specialist area of responsibility is the preceptors college, and its working practices.these are quite influential, on the training and selection of people for ordination, and on the selection of public and private preceptors. but they are not well know in the movement.i realise that

a visit to the nkt

2007-01-25T09:32:00.000Z

conishead priory in 1880lokabandhu, vajragupta and I visited the nkt headquarters at the manjusri institute on the edge of the lake district. vishvapani and i had been here a few years before, visiting jim belither who we knew through the uk network of buddhist organisations. lokabandhu and vajragupta are the new core of the fwbo chairs' meeting's development team, and they were interested to

bodhisattva samvara-sila

2007-01-21T13:30:00.000Z

above: asangathe bodhisattva-samvarasila is a set of bodhisattva ‘precepts’. a version can be found in asanga’s bodhisattvabhumi. through tsongkhapa they came into the gelugpa tradition and, from that tradition, they were given to bhante by dhardo rimpoche.like so much of the bodhisattva training, the precepts put a lot of emphasis on the effect of our actions on others, and so they seemed a good

training private preceptors

2007-01-19T14:26:00.000Z

one of the important changes in the order and movement in the last few years has been in the preparation of ordination. in the past, most people who had asked for ordination were asked to attend a series of six going for refuge retreats, for men at padmaloka, and for women at tiratanaloka. these retreats were followed by a longer ordination retreat: in the case of the men, a four month retreat at

criteria for private preceptors

2007-01-19T14:02:00.000Z

the preceptors retreat had two main components: a discussion of the criteria that each private preceptor is asked to fulifil: and the bodhisattva-samvarasila, the ‘precepts’ of the bodhisattva.We want to make sure that, when public and private preceptors are appointed, they have as wide a basis of agreement and support as possible within the Order and beyond. Before we recommend someone to the

more strategy

2007-01-12T23:24:00.000Z

from goodbye leninstage two of the chairmen's strategy discussion at the chairmen's meeting at vimaladhatu, the retreat centre of fwbo essen. amaraketu took the chairmen thorugh a fourfold process from appreciative enquiry, iusing our own experience of connection to discover what elelments of an organisation give it its vitality; iiextrapolating from that to think about what organisational

growing pains

2007-01-04T17:42:00.001Z

the fwbo has been through some pretty fundamental organisational and cultural changes in the last few years, some of them still not really understood by many people involved in the movement. the fullest account of the changes to the fwbo, and the reasons for them, is by vishvapani on his well written and well informed blog

dalai lama and dr ambedkar

2006-12-23T12:05:00.000Z

dalai lama at ineb conference at nagaloka in nagpurthe network of buddhist organisations ran a conference in the autumn, bringing the situation of india’s ‘ambedkarite’ buddhist to the attention of british buddhists.in october, subhuti spoke at a conference organised by lokamitra at nagaloka, bringing together buddhists from the different buddhist communities in india, who traditionally have had

chatrul rimpoche on meat eating

2006-12-18T00:00:00.000Z

chatrul rimpoche: click image to enlargebhante has quoted the strong opinions of chatrul rimpoche, one of his own teachers, on meat eating. ('it's more important to practice vegetarianism than to practice dzogchen', is one of the more striking).came across a link to some of chatrul rimpoche's own writing on this.

birthdays

2006-12-17T23:38:00.000Z

shenpen and rigdzin shikpowent straight from the strategy meeting, to euston and on to shenpen hookham's birthday celebration.the meal was part of a two day event that included dharma talks and practice. i made it only for dinner, in a delightful tudor hall (timbers, minstrel gallery) in stanmore on the north edge of london.the highlight for me was shenpen's little speech: a short one, that

strategy for the fwbo

2006-12-17T21:30:00.000Z

three days of meetings at madhyamaloka to discuss strategy in the fwbo. this is a new meeting. it comes from the 'separation of powers' set in motion a couple of years ago, when the preceptors college and council took a step back, and we suggested 'the movement should run the movement'. it's taken some time for the chairmen's meeting to build the structures to do that effectively, but this year

moonlighting

2006-11-30T19:59:00.000Z

every now and again i miss design, and i like to keep my hand in.here's a recent programme i did for tiratanaloka, which i thought was fun.click the picture for a larger image.tags: dhammarati, tiratanaloka

velasquez + buddhanature

2006-11-28T22:56:00.000Z

on the way back from the preceptors gathering at padmaloka, i took a couple of hours to visit the velasquez exhibition at the national gallery. i preferred the earlier paintings of everyday life to the later court paintings. one painting in particular moved me, christ in the house of martha and mary painted, unbelievably, when velasquez was nineteen.a young woman prepares a meal in the kitchen,

five great stages of the spiritual life

2006-11-28T21:35:00.002Z

at the college meeting, and again at the private preceptors weekend,padmavajra gave a presentation on bhante's 'five great stages'. this is the extract his presentation was based on.The Precious Garland SeminarSession 9, Chapter 3, verses 201-218from the unedited, unchecked seminar by Sangharakshita,on Nagarjuna's 'Precious Garland'I was just thinking this morning before we actually go into the

private preceptors and bhante

2006-11-28T17:47:00.000Z

a very good meeting of private preceptors, at padmaloka.about 40 people attended. the main theme of the weekend was meditation. padmavajra gave a presentation on the 'five great stages of spiritual life', and in the shrine room, padmasuri, prakasha and vessantara taught the 'old' vesions of the green tara, vajrasattva and manjusri saddhanas.on sunday afternoon padmavajra and i presented some of

chaplaincy in manchester

2006-11-23T11:33:00.000Z

a inter-movement chaplaincy meeting in manchester, to move the discussion on and prepare for a bigger 'launch' meeting in london in march.after a 4 hour drive up the M6 from birmingham (and a slightly botched rendezvous with prasada at star city mall off the motorway) we arrived late for the meeting at the manchester buddhist centre. it's a place the fwbo can be proud of, the brick work, the

preceptor's college

2006-11-17T13:07:00.000Z

just returned from the college meeting at tiratanaloka.i'd guess not everyone knows who the public preceptors are these days. in case you were wondering, at the time of writing there are 30. they are (in the order they happened to be sitting in the last meeting)AbhayaSaddhaloka,Mahamati,Dharmanandi,Suvajra,Ratnadharini,Maitreyi,Sona,Ratnaghosha,Manjuvajra,SurataDhammarati,Padmavajra,Nagabodhi,

the value of a monastic

2006-11-01T09:53:00.000Z

a brief exchange with lhundrup on the teachers meeting that stuck with me:he was talking about the raw cost efficiency of the monastic lifestyle, saying that he could concentrate on studying and teaching the dharma, and that it cost around 3000 euros a year to support him to do that.it was another argument that made me think that we need to re-emphasise that simpler, more renunciant, 'full-timer'

pune

2006-10-25T22:19:00.000Z

i went to pune to take part in a meeting between lokamitra and the indian public preceptors.the three indian public preceptors for men, suvajra, sudarshan and chandrasil, are responsible for the training of hundreds of indian men who have asked for ordination.lokamitra had set up two independent projects: the manuski centre, in pune, and nagloka, in nagpur. one of intentions of these projects

meeting of buddhist teachers in europe

2006-10-01T13:23:00.000Z

immediately after the ebu meeting came the rather grandly titled 'meeting of buddhist teachers in europe'.this meeting shares a venue and much of its personnel with the ebu meeting, but it is independent of it. where the ebu is more of a practical and organisational meeting, the teacher's meeting is an attempt to bring people together to talk about the teaching and practice of the dharma.this

european buddhist union 06

2006-09-28T09:40:00.000Z

sakya tashi ling, abovethe 06 agm of the european buddhist union was held at sakya tashi ling, near barcelona.my first experience of the ebu was the agm in 2000. the meeting that year was scheduled to be held at rivendell in the uk, but the organisation was so confused that none of the members knew the place and the date of the meeting: the only people who turned up were the three crestfallen

hospital chaplaincy

2006-09-10T18:00:00.000Z

a little less exotic than the visit to croizet, but an interesting meeting.the gist of it is that the government have instructed health authorities to establish multi- faith chaplaincy services in hospitals. and they want a way of assessing the competence of the chaplains from each faith group.this raises a very interesting issue. is it possible for british buddhist groups to find a way to train

the jewel ornament

2006-08-01T22:17:00.000Z

the jewel ornament of liberation is gampopa’s synthesis of his training as a kadampa monk with the mahamudra meditation teaching of milarepa. it’s a systematic manual of dharma practice, from the first stirrings of our motive, through going for refuge, the precepts, the arising of the bodhicitta and the practice of the paramitas, to the spontaneous action of the mind after enlightenment.in the

le croizet

2006-08-01T18:56:00.000Z

le croizet is part of a kagyu community, dhagpo kundreul ling, in the auvergne in central france. there were a couple of reasons i wanted to visit. i had met lama lhundrup, one of the directors of their three year retreat programme here, at the european buddhist union. i liked him, and was impressed by him: he seemed perceptive, constructive and outspoken in the meeting, friendly and approachable

liaisons

2006-08-01T09:00:00.000Z

above: temple detail, dagpo kundreul lingthis has been a particularly busy and interesting time for my work in the liaison office. it has seemed to me, in a number of different meetings, that buddhist are getting beyond the getting-to-know-each-other stage, and beginning to practically, tentatively, co-operate. in the pages that follow, i’ll write up some of the events of the last few months in

meeting bhante

2006-04-22T19:08:00.000Z

writing this in the middle of the college meeting. perhaps i’ll write more about the other topics that we discussed, but one of the highlights of the meeting was an afternoon with bhante, with him answering questions.i’ll summarise a couple of the points: (the disclaimer: remember that these are my brief notes, not his language: they don’t reflect bhante’s usual precision)on visiting other

deaths and births

2006-01-02T09:46:00.001Z

alasdair, aboveOn July 22 2003, I arrived at Heathrow from San Francisco. I cleared customs and as usual switched on my mobile phone. There was a message asking me to call home. When I did, my mother told me my thirty-eight year old brother Alasdair died the day before.My brother’s girlfriend, Gail, arrived at my family’s home next day, half an hour before I did. In the intense grief it was

my sister

2004-05-19T00:22:00.000Z

on friday my father died.on monday we buried him.today my sister had a cesarian section. the placenta had merged with scartissue from a previous operation, and at the time of writing she is in high dependency, after 14 pints of blood.

my father

2004-05-15T00:44:00.000Z

my father died today at 10.45am

calendar

2004-04-01T15:14:00.000Z