Triratna International Retreat coming up soon: five reasons not to miss it!

Vajragupta writes from Triratna’s Development Team to remind everyone of the upcoming Triratna International Retreat - starting four weeks today - and to give us five reasons not to miss it!  They are…

1) It is the only big event for both the Triratna Buddhist Order and Community in theUK. It is a unique gathering, open to everyone, from those newest to our community right through to some of our most experienced Order members teaching and leading…
2) The emphasis is on us practising together: on big rituals – chanting and circumambulating the Buddha shrine, on imagining the Buddha through storytelling, writing workshops, chanting, meditating and more. Down below I’ve listed some of the talks and groups that will be on offer…
3) The event has a unique international flavour – you’ll meet members of our community from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Poland, Spain, as well as theUK.
4) The event is family friendly and we’ve got both indoor and outdoor accommodation (though mostly people camp).
5) It is a unique collaboration between Buddhafield, Taraloka, and Buddhist Centres across Europe, and has something of the style and flavour of all of them.

Do come along and be part of the major gathering of the Triratna Buddhist Community in Europe. 
You can book online or by using the brochures at Buddhist Centres.
See you there!

With good wishes,  Vajragupta

P.S. There will be talks from Dhammadinna, Ratnaguna, and Kamalasila. Dhammadinna’s will talk about Shakyamuni as the “richly endowed” – the generous, abundant, golden, noble, aspect of the Buddha. The topic of Ratnaguna’s talk is intriguing – he will be trying to imagine the voice of the Buddha. Kamalashila’s title is “the mandala of the historical Buddha” – linking some of the imagery and symbolism of the five-Buddha mandala back to the historical Buddha and the practices he taught.

In addition, we’ve got groups and activities led by Akasati (creating rituals), Dhammadinna, Mahasukha (chanting and singing), Kamalasila, Ratnaguna (on reflecting on the Buddha), Saddhanandi, Sona and Vidyamala, Vajradaka (on imagining the Buddha in meditation), Vishvapani (suttas of the Buddha’s life), and one or two others to be confirmed…

Buddha Festival coming up - and a report from India

Triratna’s annual Buddha Festival day is coming up, falling this year on the Full Moon of May 6th.  Over in India, however, they’ve already celebrated a major Buddha festival at Nagpur’s Diksha Bhumi - right on the site of the historic mass conversions of 1956 which kick-started the Buddhist revival in India. Ritayush sends us this report: 

“Jai Bhim brothers and sisters. Encouraged by the success of our Buddha Festival last year, Nagpur Buddhist Centre organised a 2012 Buddha Festival from 26 to 29 January at the Diksha Bhumi, Nagpur. Actually, it was grand and beautiful: the focal point was a 30-foot high Buddha which created calm & enthusiasm at the same time. Two domes, huts, and an art gallery with a Stupa in the background made the scene more beautiful. Thousands thronged to attend various events for all four days of the festival.  

It was a great success and satisfaction for us, especially because it created such confidence among Buddhists in Nagpur. People from outside our movement supported it in large numbers and expressed their wish to do so in future also. Everything - the lectures, meditation sessions, Dhamma talks, art gallery, exhibition stalls and cultural programs were full with people. Everyone came with the desire to know, to be part of the festival. We could experience the joy, satisfaction & happiness of the people who entered the campus we had created.

Many organizations, Vihar committees, and individuals supported us to make it such a success. Doctors, Engineers, Architects, Advocates, Businessmen, Professionals, Artists, & Social Activists all involved themselves. The beauty, grandness, discipline and quality of the program made lasting impression on them.

The festival was inaugurated on the evening of 26th January 2012 by the well known Bollywood actress, poet & writer Deepti Naval. The audience was impressed  by her simplicity and candid inaugural speech. It was a fitting event to celebrate the Republic Day of India: we did this by reading the preamble of Indian constitution in our inauguration ceremony. The people were moved with patriotism in front of the Buddha and Stupa: it sounded like strengthening India with the wisdom and compassion of Buddha.

We are very much satisfied by the response and success of our Buddha festival. We wish Nagpur to be known for it - it has given large exposure to our movement, and Buddhist and non-Buddhist people alike wish to be part of it. We wish to make more efforts to continue the promotion of Buddhist art, culture & heritage in India - and we appeal to the brothers and sisters in our international Sangha to be part of it.

Thanks - Ritayush”

Will you be at a Buddha Day event at a Triratna centre?  Our new social network on thebuddhistcentre.com has a new section dedicated to celebrating our festivals. To launch it we invite you to post your photographs of Buddhas, shrines, and festival Sanghas around the world. 

Karuna awarded £250,000 by UK Government

Andrea writes from Triratna’s Karuna Trust with great news of their latest fundraising success - a major grant from the UK Government’s DFID.  She says - “We are delighted to announce that we have been awarded a £250,000 grant from the Department for International Development.  This grant will enable 10,000 children living in rural Maharashtra, in central/western India to access education, and to escape child labour and poverty. In addition 800 young people will be able to undertake skills development training to boost their chances of gaining work, and 200 self-help group women leaders will be trained in financial and literacy skills.

The project, which is run by Karuna’s project partner the National Institute for Sustainable Development (NISD), will address the problems of poor school enrolment and high drop-out rates among the Dalit ‘bidi-rolling’ community in Sangamner in rural Maharashtra.  The cheapest tobacco available in India is a rolled leaf, dried and tied with thread – called a bidi. A pack of 50 costs a few rupees – literally a matter of pennies. Bidis are considered to be a low-cost ‘treat’, but those engaged in bidi-rolling work are often from the poorest communities such as the Dalits in Sangamner. To find out more about Karuna’s work with bidi-rolling workers click here.  

Within this community 65% of children attend primary school, with only 35% finishing, and many of them end up as child labourers or bidi-rollers.  The situation for girls, who often find themselves confined as domestic labourers or forced into child marriage, is bleaker still. Only 45% of them enrol in primary education, with only 25% completion.  The wider consequences of poor education and illiteracy are extreme poverty amongst the bidi-rolling community with 65% living on less than £1 a day.

Although the major focus of this project is to improve education, it will also focus on issues related to poverty, health and sanitation. Some of the activities will include:
Encouraging parents to enroll their children at school through activities such as street plays, home visits and rallies Books and uniforms will be distributed to the poorest children. Training will be provided to 230 pre-school teachers on nutrition and child development. 200 teachers from 30 government schools will be trained in using innovative educational material and child psychology. 

Karuna has worked with NISD since 2003 helping displaced tribal communities and wage labouring families, all of which are socially and economically disadvantaged.

Would you like to raise funds to support Karuna’s work? Check our Appeals website www.appeals.karuna.org and book on one now! Karuna have built up a network of over 7,000 regular donors all across the UK using volunteer door-knocking appeal teams; the £1.5m they fundraise every year allows them to support this and many other initiatives - click to see an interactive map of Karuna projects and project partners in India.

Sangharakshita’s Diary, April 2012

Vidyaruchi, Sangharakshita’s secretary, sends us his monthly update on Sangharakshita’s health and activities, saying - 

“For the first two weeks of April Bhante had a break from seeing visitors - the first such break that I have known him take. For the first week of this he was without his usual secretarial support, as I was away in Norfolk. Bhante was not idle, however, and by the time I returned he had finished the eighth instalment of ‘Reveries and Reminiscences’, and we managed to get it typed up and edited to his satisfaction in time for publication in the May Shabda. The theme, which was suggested by Mangala, is music, and Bhante’s experience of it throughout his life.

While I was away Paramartha read to Bhante The Tibetan Book of the Dead: A Biography by Donald S Lopez Jr. Bhante found it very interesting, and recommends it to others. He was turned on to the book by Paul Weeks, who contacted Bhante regarding Lama Govinda, about whom (among others) Paul is writing a dissertation, and who is mentioned in Lopez’s book. Otherwise, Bhante and I finished In the Sign of the Golden Wheel, and we have nearly come to the end of Vishvapani’s biography of the Buddha.

Bhante’s health remains good. He has started trying to have two walks each day when possible, and is enjoying the Madhyamaloka garden even more than usual now that so many of the spring flowers are out. One of Bhante’s fillings came out a few weeks ago, and he went to a new dentist to have the filling fixed as well as a general check-up. The treatment went well, and he is pleased with the new dentist”. 

Triratna in Russia: a report from Suvannavira

Slowly but steadily, Suvannavira, a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order, is establishing a sangha and Dharma classes in Moscow.  It’s been quite a journey, still in process, and he sends us this report:

“I was born in Dubna, a small town near Moscow, in 1967, but left what was then the Soviet Union at the age of four, with my mother and her new American husband, to start a new life in England.  I paid my last childhood visit to Russia when I was nine.  In 1991, I started working for Windhorse Trading, Triratna’s Right Livelihood business in Cambridge, where I was to stay for eleven years.  During this time I was ordained.  

The return journey East started with a week-long retreat led by Kamalashila, at Oranienbaum, near St Petersburg, in 2000, and continued with my arrival in Paris in 2002 to work and teach for the ‘Centre Bouddhiste Triratna de Paris’.   In the summer of 2009, I left Paris and started making  longer and longer visits to Moscow.  Although I arrived in Moscow for the first time in August 2009, I waited until March 2010 before being ready to start regular Dharma Classes.  Activities were held at Открытый Мир, or Open World, a Centre for Spiritual Development, where we hired one of their rooms.  A weekly introduction to Meditation and Buddhism a week became twice-weekly, an English language class was added, as was a study group at a friend’s apartment, catering to our new regulars.

Attendance at classes varies between two and seven people, most of whom are still in their twenties, and some who are coming regularly.  With some, the practise of the Dharma is starting to change their lives more deeply, and who form the nucleus, here in Moscow, of a new Triratna Sangha.  A few are planning (and others are at least thinking about) to explore Triratna beyond Moscow, - either by attending a retreat with the Krakow Sangha in late June, or by visiting Odessa in August, when Saddhaloka will be leading Dharma activities”.

Suvannavira is building on many years of patient preparation by others, and he says - “Order members have been visiting Russia since the days of Glasnost, even before the fall of the Soviet Union. Visitors have included Kamalashila, Nagabodhi, Sarvamitra, Nagadakini and Saddhaloka - who has made visits to St Petersburg for over ten years, and Odessa, in the Ukraine, where we have three Mitras. 

Out of contacts made through these visits we have set up a translation project that has seen four books published in Russia, “The Guide to the Buddhist Path“, “Who is the Buddha?”, Kamalashila’s “Meditation” and “The Noble Eightfold Path”. We now also have an excellent Russian language web-site that includes the first year of the Mitra Study Course, Pujas and readings, articles, several of Bhante’s poems, paintings by Aloka and Chintamani, along with all the books that have been translated. “What is the Dharma?” was translated last year and is now available on the website and “What is the Sangha?” is in preparation.  You’ll find all these on our website buddhayana.ru.”

He ends with an appeal:  “Up until now, I have been almost fully self-financing, but can afford to live in Moscow only by living in a hostel, and sharing a room with up to four other people (and up to six cats!)  I’m seeking help to rent a room in an apartment, or small flat, where I can live, which I can use for people to visit for our Dharma activities.  I would ideally like to raise £500 per month, or £6,000 per year, to help me get established and move things on to another level.  However, any donation, large or small, will be much appreciated.  Donations can be made on my ‘Suvannavira 2012’ Just Giving page. Whether or not you are able to help, thank you for reading this.  Yours in the Dharma, Suvannavira”.

There’s more on Suvannavira’s personal blog, subtitled “Adventures of a Modern Buddhist in the Country of his Birth”.  And for his very latest updates, find him on VKontakte (a Russian social networking site).

Padmasambhava celebrated at Stonehenge

April’s full moon saw the Buddhafield 2012 Yatra ending with a dawn celebration of Padmasambhava in the midst of the ancient stones of Stonehenge - after a week-long 70-mile walk along Britain’s Ridgeway track.  Buddhafield have been running Yatras (a Sanskrit word simply meaning ‘walk’) for some years now and they have grown and grown - this one had some 35 people including the team of 6.  They are a retreat, but a retreat with a difference, being held entirely out-of-doors and in the midst of the elements - and with a continuously changing backdrop.  Everyone walking in silence and in single file, starting and ending in a circle with a bow plus morning and evening meditations and ceremonies.  

They also have a strong mythic quality, and Lokabandhu, who led the 2012 Yatra, reports: “For me Yatras are very much part of bringing Buddhism to the West and to Britain in particular, though they do this on a very non-rational level.  We were seeking to replicate in some sense what Padmasambhava did in Tibet, when he met the local gods and spirits and transformed them into Protectors of the Dharma.  Twice - on Uffington’s Dragon Hill and at Stonehenge itself - with the aid of our 8-foot-long Tibetan horn we invoked the Celtic pantheon and introduced them to Padmasambhava; we were also seeking to capture for ourselves the reverence for the natural world found in the Pali Canon, and again and again as we went along we recited a specially-adapted version of the Ratana Sutta as a way of contacting the local spirits and expressing our wish to work in harmony with them.  

“This was our best Yatra yet, and also our largest.  It was a wonderful group, with a wide range of experience of both Buddhism and the outdoors - but marvellously harmonious and ‘up for it’, though I think it challenged everyone in one way or another!  We had a succession of amazing campsites, but ancient barrows, hillforts, and stones, including Avebury and of course Stonehenge itself.  Our last morning saw us rising at 4.30am to walk the final couple of miles where we’d arranged an hour’s access to the stone circle itself at sunrise.  Of course we didn’t know until the last minute what the weather would be, but it was a perfect clear dawn, freezing cold of course - we felt blessed!

“There’s photos of the Yatra on Triratna’s Flickr page, and also a series of ‘audioboos’  - short on-the-spot audio reports I made as we went along.  Enjoy!  With metta, Lokabandhu”.  

Vishvapani’s ‘Thought for the Day’ on Aung San Suu Kyi

Vishvapani writes with news of his latest broadcast for BBC Radio 4’s popular ‘Thought for the Day’, plus links to a number of fascinating articles exploring Buddhism in the modern world from a Triratna perspective, all recently published on his blog ‘Wise Attention’.  He says -

“On Saturday April 14th I did another Thought for the Day broadcast on BBC Radio 4 prompted by David Cameron’s meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi the previous day: Burma’s struggle isn’t between Buddhists and their opponents but between different kinds of Buddhists. The monastic establishment’s complicity in the generals’ Buddhist dictatorship  shows the need to reform Buddhism, freeing it from practices that oppose its essential teachings. You can read the full script here  and listen to the audio here. 

“I’ll be doing more Thought for the Day broadcasts on Thursday 26th April and Saturday 5 May (Buddha Day). I’ll also be doing Pause for Thought on BBC Radio 2 on 5 and 6 May and Weekend Word on BBC Radio Wales on May 25.  I’ll post the scripts and audio (where available) on my Wise Attention blog.

“New articles on the blog include:

Buddhism & the Mindfulness Movement: Friends or Foes? 
Don’t Rely on Lineage 
Kalu Rinpoche’s Confessional Video and the Tulku Fantasy 
The NKT, Succession and ‘The Rules’

New edition of ‘Buddhist Meditation’ classic launches with UK book tour

‘Buddhist Meditation’ is the Triratna Buddhist Community’s classic handbook of meditation theory and practice.  Originally published over 20 years ago, it has now been completely revised and updated by its author, Kamalashila, and republished by Windhorse Publications, Triratna’s publishing house. Hannah writes from Windhorse with news of aUK tour by Kamalashila celebrating and promoting the book, saying -

“Launching a new comprehensive guide to meditation…
Over the next two months, Kamalashila is launching his new edition of Buddhist Meditation at Triratna centres across the UK. He will be giving a talk on ‘Tranquillity, Imagination and Insight’, and there will be time to ask questions and to pick up a signed copy of the new book.

Here’s a list of the dates and venues:
Tuesday 17th April - West London Buddhist Centre
Wednesday 18th April - Birmingham Buddhist Centre
Saturday 21st April - Croydon Buddhist Centre
Monday 23rd April - Bristol Buddhist Centre
Wednesday 25th April - Newcastle Buddhist Centre
Thursday 26th April - Leeds Buddhist Centre
Saturday 28th - Sunday 29th April - North London Buddhist Centre
Monday 30th April - East London Buddhist Centre
Tuesday 1st May - Colchester Buddhist Centre
Wednesday 2nd May - Cambridge Buddhist Centre
Monday 7th May - Manchester Buddhist Centre
Tuesday 8th May - Norwich Buddhist Centre

If you can’t make any of these dates, you can still purchase Buddhist Meditation at your local Triratna bookshop or from the book’s page on the Windhorse Publications website”