Manchester Buddhist Centre

Sangharakshita’s Diary, January 2012

Posted 18 hours ago

Vidyaruchi, Sangharakshita’s sec­ret­ary, writes with his usual update on some of Sangharakshita’s activ­it­ies over the past month, say­ing — “As befits the time of the year it has been a quiet month for Bhante, with what may be the last Christmas he spends at Madhyamaloka marked, as usual, only by a meal with the com­munity and a few guests fol­lowed by a chat round the log fire. This year there has been no snowy weather to pre­clude his walks in the garden, nor to check the flow of guests from here and there, which has included a group of women from Paris, on their way back from a retreat at Taraloka.

Bhante is in the thick of the sev­enth instal­ment of his ‘Reveries and Reminiscences’, which is turn­ing into the longest of the series so far, and which should be ready for pub­lic­a­tion in next month’s Shabda (the Triratna Buddhist Order’s monthly news­let­ter). It is on the sub­ject of his five lit­er­ary her­oes. The iden­tit­ies of the five I will leave for read­ers to find out for them­selves, and to spec­u­late about in the mean­time if they are so inclined. Meanwhile, Bhante is enjoy­ing revis­it­ing the lives of these great men, and his memor­ies of their impact upon him.

Literary dis­cov­er­ies of less long stand­ing have been brought to Bhante from the audio book ser­vice, includ­ing Beyond a Boundary by CLR James, a his­tory of cricket in the West Indies and much else; Ugly and Beyond Ugly by Constance Briscoe, a very mov­ing auto­bi­o­graphy by a black woman who, des­pite an awful child­hood at the hands of a sad­istic mother, man­aged to become a bar­ris­ter and a judge; and Man of Wars by Alan Hankinson, a bio­graphy of William Russell, the fam­ous Times war cor­res­pond­ent. Bhante found all these works fas­cin­at­ing, in their vari­ous ways.

As was fore­told in the last diary, on 3rd January Bhante under­went a catar­act oper­a­tion on his left eye. All went smoothly, and, though there has been no dra­matic change in Bhante’s vis­ion, a slight improve­ment is dis­cern­ible — in par­tic­u­lar a greater vivid­ness in his per­cep­tion of blue and white.

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Triratna’s new Buddhistisches Tor Berlin cel­eb­rates ‘topping-out’ cere­mony for new Centre

Posted 33 hours ago

Amogharatna, chair­man of Triratna’s Berlin Buddhist Centre (known as the Buddhistisches Tor Berlin, the Berlin Buddhist Gate) writes with news of the ‘topping-out’ cere­mony for their new Centre — sched­uled to open on September 1st this year. He says -

“On Tuesday 17th January, along with other parties from the build­ing in which our new premises are situ­ated, we cel­eb­rated the top­ping out. The top­ping out cere­mony marks the com­ple­tion of the roof struc­ture when a build­ing is built or, as in our case, ren­ov­ated. It is an occa­sion in which all parties involved in the con­struc­tion work, the prop­erty own­ers, the crafts­men and the archi­tects, express their thanks to each other.

About 50 people atten­ded the cel­eb­ra­tions which began with a speech and a toast from the head car­penter who con­cluded in the tra­di­tional man­ner by throw­ing his cham­pagne glass to the ground from high up on the scaf­fold­ing sur­round­ing the build­ing. There fol­lowed speeches by the archi­tect and a rep­res­ent­at­ive of the own­ers of the build­ing. Those present con­tin­ued in the tra­di­tional way with beer and barbe­que, held in the oppos­ite wing of the build­ing to that in which our rooms are situ­ated. Of course we also ensured that veget­arian and alcohol-free options were avail­able.

In the even­ing, des­pite the cold, a sim­ilar num­ber of people atten­ded our Sangha cel­eb­ra­tion in the space which will become our new centre. This was the third of five rituals planned to mark stages in the renov­a­tion of the premises, and this time we held our reg­u­lar Tuesday Sangha-Evening in what is still actu­ally a build­ing site.

The event was ded­ic­ated to Amitabha, the red Buddha and included a talk by Sabine Fechner (a local mitra) on the sig­ni­fic­ance of the top­ping out, a talk by Dharmapriya on Amitabha, plus man­tra singing and a seven-fold Puja. In addi­tion to Sangha mem­bers we were joined by some Buddhists from other groups in Berlin as well as a few curi­ous neighbours-to-be. Thanks to the gen­er­os­ity of Triratna Essen we had a new centrepiece for the ritual: a beau­ti­ful light-stupa, shown in the pho­to­graphs oppos­ite. There’s a few other pho­tos there too, show­ing the build­ing itself and some of our plans for it.

Due to the mild winter, build­ing work is pro­gress­ing well and the build­ing is due to be handed over around the start of June. This gives us a couple of months to com­plete the interior fur­nish­ings before the centre opens on 1st and 2nd September 2012. Programme details of the open­ing will be avail­able later in the year.

As men­tioned in my last report, the total cost of the new centre will be around 1.3 mil­lion Euros, about half of which we are bor­row­ing. If you would like to con­trib­ute fin­an­cially and thereby help us in our work of mak­ing the Dharma and Sangharakshita’s teach­ing avail­able to even more people, you can do so in the UK via the Berlin Buddhist Gate’s JustGiving page or (for lar­ger and non-tax-deductible dona­tions) simply amogharatna [at] gmx [dot] de (email me).

With metta, Amogharatna. Berlin, January 2012”.

[Link]

Triratna’s new Buddhistisches Tor Berlin cel­eb­rates ‘topping-out’ cere­mony f

Posted 43 hours ago

Amogharatna, chair­man of Triratna’s Berlin Buddhist Centre (known as the Buddhistisches Tor Berlin, the Berlin Buddhist Gate) writes with news of the ‘topping-out’ cere­mony for their new Centre — sched­uled to open on September 1st this year. He says -

“On Tuesday 17th January, along with other parties from the build­ing in which our new premises are situ­ated, we cel­eb­rated the top­ping out. The top­ping out cere­mony marks the com­ple­tion of the roof struc­ture when a build­ing is built or, as in our case, ren­ov­ated. It is an occa­sion in which all parties involved in the con­struc­tion work, the prop­erty own­ers, the crafts­men and the archi­tects, express their thanks to each other.

About 50 people atten­ded the cel­eb­ra­tions which began with a speech and a toast from the head car­penter who con­cluded in the tra­di­tional man­ner by throw­ing his cham­pagne glass to the ground from high up on the scaf­fold­ing sur­round­ing the build­ing. There fol­lowed speeches by the archi­tect and a rep­res­ent­at­ive of the own­ers of the build­ing. Those present con­tin­ued in the tra­di­tional way with beer and barbe­que, held in the oppos­ite wing of the build­ing to that in which our rooms are situ­ated. Of course we also ensured that veget­arian and alcohol-free options were avail­able.

In the even­ing, des­pite the cold, a sim­ilar num­ber of people atten­ded our Sangha cel­eb­ra­tion in the space which will become our new centre. This was the third of five rituals planned to mark stages in the renov­a­tion of the premises, and this time we held our reg­u­lar Tuesday Sangha-Evening in what is still actu­ally a build­ing site.

The event was ded­ic­ated to Amitabha, the red Buddha and included a talk by Sabine Fechner (a local mitra) on the sig­ni­fic­ance of the top­ping out, a talk by Dharmapriya on Amitabha, plus man­tra singing and a seven-fold Puja. In addi­tion to Sangha mem­bers we were joined by some Buddhists from other groups in Berlin as well as a few curi­ous neighbours-to-be. Thanks to the gen­er­os­ity of Triratna Essen we had a new centrepiece for the ritual: a beau­ti­ful light-stupa, shown in the pho­to­graphs oppos­ite. There’s a few other pho­tos there too, show­ing the build­ing itself and some of our plans for it.

Due to the mild winter, build­ing work is pro­gress­ing well and the build­ing is due to be handed over around the start of June. This gives us a couple of months to com­plete the interior fur­nish­ings before the centre opens on 1st and 2nd September 2012. Programme details of the open­ing will be avail­able later in the year.

As men­tioned in my last report, the total cost of the new centre will be around 1.3 mil­lion Euros, about half of which we are bor­row­ing. If you would like to con­trib­ute fin­an­cially and thereby help us in our work of mak­ing the Dharma and Sangharakshita’s teach­ing avail­able to even more people, you can do so in the UK via the Berlin Buddhist Gate’s JustGiving page or (for lar­ger and non-tax-deductible dona­tions) simply amogharatna [at] gmx [dot] de (email me).

With metta, Amogharatna. Berlin, January 2012”.

[Link]

Karuna sup­port ground-breaking legal case in India

Posted 3 days ago

Andrea writes from Triratna’s Karuna Trust with news of a ground-breaking legal vic­tory won by one of Karuna’s Indian pro­ject part­ners, the Human Rights Law Network (HRLN). The case was the first time per­pet­rat­ors of a caste atro­city — still com­mon in India — have been brought to justice by receiv­ing life impris­on­ment under the Prevention of Atrocities Act (1989). She says -

“The Mirchpur Dalit atro­city case con­cerns a Dalit father and daugh­ter, 70 year old Tara Chand and his dis­abled daugh­ter Suman, both burnt alive when arson­ists from the dom­in­ant ‘Jat’ com­munity looted the houses of people from the Dalit ‘Balmiki’ com­munity in an act of viol­ence ori­gin­at­ing in an argu­ment over a dog. The case was taken up by India’s HRLN who Karuna sup­por­ted to pur­sue the case.

And in an unpre­ced­en­ted legal mile­stone, late last year the ver­dict of the Supreme Court of India con­victed 15 of the 98 accused, three of whom now face life impris­on­ment. A high num­ber of other accused per­sons were acquit­ted on account of lack of evid­ence, due to sys­tem­atic fail­ures of the Haryana police.

Karuna wel­comes this ver­dict and val­ues the strength, skill and ded­ic­a­tion with which the Balmiki com­munity, our part­ner Human Rights Law Network (HRLN), and other grass­roots act­iv­ists have pur­sued this case. It is hoped that the break­through in rela­tion to the use of the Prevention of Atrocities Act will serve as a pre­ced­ent in future cases of viol­ent atro­cit­ies against Dalits. The rel­at­ively short length of this trial of 6 months is unique as the Indian legal sys­tem is riddled with years-long delays which add greatly to the bur­den of suf­fer­ing of Dalits and to a loss of faith in legal justice. Although this ver­dict is highly sig­ni­fic­ant, HRLN are expect­ing a pro­trac­ted legal battle ahead as the con­victed people appeal the sen­tences they have received. In the mean­time HRLN are in the pro­cess of fil­ing cases for a secure and com­pre­hens­ive rehab­il­it­a­tion pack­age for the vic­tim com­munity, includ­ing the right to food, secure accom­mod­a­tion and edu­ca­tion for those affected.

Recent grants by Karuna have helped to cre­ate four much needed new Dalit Rights Networks in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar. In Bihar in par­tic­u­lar, long recog­nised as the most law­less state in India, the pres­ence of the new centre is hav­ing a pro­found effect.

The embed­ded video shows Colin Gonsalves of HRLN talk­ing about the sig­ni­fic­ance of the ver­dict in the Mirchpur Dalit atro­city case. If it is not vis­ible you can access it dir­ectly at vimeo.com/35261067”.

Would you like to raise funds to sup­port Karuna’s work? Check their 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.

[Link]

First Indian Buddhist Artists’ Retreat

Posted 5 days ago

Samuel Rawlings, Subhuti’s sec­ret­ary, writes from India with news of an excit­ing new Triratna ven­ture: the first-ever Indian Buddhist Artists’ Retreat. He says -

“The event was the first of its kind to take place in India, with artists com­ing from all corners of the sub-continent to explore the rela­tion­ship between Art and the Buddha-Dhamma. Most of the par­ti­cipants were from a Dalit back­ground, and it was very mov­ing to hear how deeply they had all struggled to pro­duce their work — largely due to the crip­pling eco­nomic con­di­tions and ideo­lo­gical abuse they had endured, often simply because they had chosen to be artists rather than fol­low more tra­di­tional (ie, pre­scribed) occu­pa­tions. Modern Indian artists clearly have to struggle under the heavy mantle of the rig­or­ous ortho­dox aes­thetic of tra­di­tional Brahmin cul­ture — a syn­drome which reminded me of a Karl Marx’s com­ment; ‘tra­di­tion from all the dead gen­er­a­tions weighs like a night­mare on the brain of the liv­ing’. Being cre­at­ive on can­vas here is an imme­di­ate social pro­voca­tion and bound to soli­cit abuse in the media and in the ‘estab­lish­ment’ at large. .

The ini­ti­at­ive was skil­fully orches­trated by Dharmachari Maitriveer-Nagarjuna, an Indian Order Member and led by Dharmachari Subhuti. The con­tri­bu­tion of the inter­na­tion­ally acclaimed artist Savi Savarkar was par­tic­u­larly spe­cial and worthy of note. His exper­i­ence and advice was inspir­a­tional to many of the younger novice artists attend­ing the retreat, some of whom he sub­sequently invited to come and share his stu­dio space in Delhi; this being an example of the spon­tan­eous phos­phor­es­cence of Kalyana Mitrata which really illu­min­ated the 4 spe­cial days shared we all together. The oppor­tun­ity to share struggles and suc­cesses with like-minded Buddhist prac­ti­tion­ers was clearly invalu­able. Friendships were developed and sparked off anew, and there are eager plans to repeat and develop the event in years to come.

Hopefully the short video, made by myself, gives you a more vivid idea of the fla­vour of our time together. If it’s not vis­ible in the embed­ded player you can find it at vimeo.com/34848417. For more inform­a­tion and links to some of recor­ded talks, you can also check Subhuti’s web­site”.

[Link]

Two ordin­a­tions in Australia

Posted 8 days ago

Sona writes from Australia with news of the first ordin­a­tions of 2012, saying -

“On Saturday 21 Jan 2012 at Triratna’s Vijayaloka Retreat Centre, Sydney, Australia, David Spotswood and Guy Holden had their pub­lic ordin­a­tions atten­ded by about 120 fam­ily, friends and sangha. This was the last day of a 2 week men’s ‘Going For Refuge’ retreat and the begin­ning of the 4-day Australasian Triratna Buddhist Order Convention.

The cere­mony was con­duc­ted out­doors and the aus­pi­cious event was espe­cially mem­or­able as there was a tor­ren­tial down­pour just after the chant­ing of the refuges and pre­cepts. When it became appar­ent that the rain was going to con­tinue and all of us — pre­ceptor, ordin­ands and pub­lic — all star­ted to get very wet, I made the decision to re-locate the gath­er­ing to the indoor shrine room to con­clude the ceremony!

Guy Holden, from Sydney, has become Shuddha, a Sanskrit name mean­ing “Genuine and True”.

David Spotswood, from Melbourne, has become Viryasiddhi, also a Sanskrit name mean­ing “Accomplished in Energy and Valour”.

Both had Khemadhamma for their Private Preceptor and myself as their Public Preceptor.

With metta, Sona”.

This brings the total size of the Order to a little over 1,700 men and women spread across 30 coun­tries. For more inform­a­tion on what it means to be a mem­ber of the Triratna Buddhist Order, please see our Introduction to the Order else­where on this site.

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News from Kerala and Jai Bhim International

Posted 10 days ago

Dayamudra, an American Order Member with strong links to India, writes from Kerala, where she’s recently com­pleted her third tour and retreat in south India with the grow­ing Triratna team there, where they are known as ‘Jai Bhim Kerala’. She says -

“Dear Friends– Our team has just con­cluded our 6-day Communicative English and Basic Buddhism Retreat in Kollam, Kerala, in south­w­est India. It was our 3rd annual col­lab­or­a­tion with the Jai Bhim Kerala team and we all felt it was our best effort yet. We left feel­ing inspired, ener­gized and satisfied.

Our core team con­sisted of Dhammamitras Rejimon, Arun and myself. We offered a train­ing based in the Dhamma, with med­it­a­tion and puja at the begin­ning and end of each day, skill­fully led by Rejimon. In the morn­ing ses­sions there were ‘Communicative English’ ses­sions, draw­ing on inter­act­ive student-centered activ­it­ies which developed stu­dents’ con­fid­ence in the areas of speak­ing, listen­ing, read­ing and writ­ing. Basic yoga stretches were a part of this ses­sion as were some team-building games which the stu­dents really enjoyed. This was fol­lowed by ses­sions where we explored the qual­it­ies of a Master Student — these included goal-setting and time man­age­ment. In the early after­noon ses­sion we stud­ied The 8 Worldly Winds (theme of Triratna’s recent world­wide ‘Urban Retreat’), as well as Stress Management and Mindfulness Development. All this cul­min­ated in indi­vidu­als pro­du­cing a “Self-Care Action Plan”. In the late after­noon Arun led some very thought-provoking present­a­tions and debates on the his­tory of the caste sys­tem, Indian Buddhism and Ambedkarism.

One of the sur­prises of this retreat were the younger broth­ers and sis­ters of our par­ti­cipants who came for our inaug­ur­a­tion cere­mony and then insisted on stay­ing! We hadn’t anti­cip­ated hav­ing stu­dents as young as 8 years old, but we cre­ated a “Juniors” group for them, and they engaged in all the study with curi­os­ity and dili­gence, and they charmed us all with their help­ful­ness; gath­er­ing tea­cups and wash­ing them, straight­en­ing the shoes out­side the shrine room, per­form­ing dra­mas every even­ing, rising before every­one else and get­ting them­selves ready for the day’s pro­gram. We are inspired to cre­ate a spe­cial children’s pro­gram for them in the next few months.

Another joy was the par­ti­cip­a­tion of many Nagaloka gradu­ates. The matur­ity and lead­er­ship of these youth were exem­plary, and sev­eral stu­dents expressed an interest in attend­ing the Nagaloka course them­selves. It was clear how life-changing the NTI pro­gram is for the Indian Buddhist com­munity, and we feel very for­tu­nate to have this con­nec­tion with the NTI team.

We were also very lucky to have the sup­port of the local Kollam com­munity, thanks to the pre­par­a­tion done by our friend Babu-ji, who atten­ded our retreat last year and took the lead arran­ging all the details of this year’s pro­gram. He set us up with an all-star sup­port team so we were well-fed and well-supported in all areas for 6 straight days.

I rejoice in the har­mony of our entire team, and in the hard work and pro­gress of our stu­dents. In their reporting-out they told us of how their self-confidence had increased, how their vis­ion for their own lives had expan­ded, and how sup­por­ted they felt thanks to the new friend­ships they had made.

We all shed a few tears as we depar­ted. It was a won­der­ful exper­i­ence and I feel very grate­ful for the way we cre­ated a sangha com­munity and lived together for 6 days, inspired by the Buddha and by the vis­ion of Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar.

Jai Bhim!”
Dh. Dayamudra, San Francisco
Creative Director, Jai Bhim International www.jaibhiminternational.org

Jai Bhim International is a US–based not-for-profit, part of the Triratna Buddhist Community. Check their web­site for more inform­a­tion on their great work in India. You can also find them on Facebook.

[Link]

News fol­low­ing a three-year retreat…

Posted 12 days ago

Vessantara, ordained in 1974 and recently returned from a three-year retreat, writes with news of his return, a brief glimpse of what it was like to be on retreat for three years — and what he plans to do next… He says -“In the sum­mer of 2008 FWBO News (as it was then) repor­ted that Vijayamala and I were going to France to do a 3-year retreat in a couple of old wooden cir­cus wag­ons in the Auvergne. I’m happy to say that we man­aged to com­plete it suc­cess­fully. It was a very valu­able time, and we both felt extremely for­tu­nate to be able to focus so intens­ively on med­it­a­tion, and to deepen our prac­tice with very few external distractions.

The con­di­tions were very sup­port­ive. Our shop­ping was all done for us, so we didn’t have to con­cern ourselves with that level of things, and there were very long stretches of time dur­ing which we only saw people sup­port­ing our retreat, or the occa­sional farmer when we went for walks. Our retreat was guided by Lama Sonam Lhundrup, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher who had done 3 long retreats him­self and then spent 15 years guid­ing oth­ers in long retreats. He was a tre­mend­ous help in enabling us to take our prac­tice deeper, and over the course of the three years he also became a good friend.

It was very help­ful to live so close to nature and the ele­ments. In sum­mer we spent most of our time med­it­at­ing out­doors. The win­ters were very cold, as we were about 2,000 feet (700 metres) up in the foot­hills of the Massif Central. We had wood-burning stoves, but in the first couple of win­ters it could be below freez­ing inside our wag­ons first thing in the morn­ing. As well as being very close to the ele­ments there was a pro­fu­sion of wild­life around. Being close to the ele­ments and sur­roun­ded by many anim­als, birds and insects is very good for prac­tice. Incidentally, the retreat was also a very ecologically-friendly way to live: simple, with a very low car­bon footprint.

We fin­ished in November, and returned to the UK in time to be ritu­ally wel­comed back into the Triratna Community on Sangha Day at the Cambridge Buddhist Centre.

It was great to have a ritual wel­come back, and to mark the fact that we had suc­cess­fully com­pleted our retreat, but in a way it was unne­ces­sary, as neither of us felt as if we had ever been ‘away’ from Triratna. Being at the heart of Triratna isn’t about geo­graph­ical prox­im­ity to a centre, or even to other Order mem­bers, mitras and Friends. Wherever Triratna people are prac­tising deeply and whole­heartedly, they are at the heart of our com­munity. Throughout our time ‘away’, our hearts were very much involved with Triratna, and on a long med­it­a­tion retreat you become very aware of how we are all con­nec­ted on a men­tal level.

It is impossible to sum up over three years of med­it­a­tion retreat, although I plan to write some­thing about it after a while, once I have assim­il­ated it to some extent, and have some per­spect­ive on it. In early January Vijayamala and I talked about our retreat and answered ques­tions at a Practice Evening at the Bristol Buddhist Centre. The ses­sion was recor­ded, and you can listen to it on free­buddhistau­dio. (The record­ing is a bit quiet, so if you play it on a laptop you may like to listen through head­phones or speakers.)

Now that we’re back we have two aims: to keep deep­en­ing our prac­tice and to share as much as pos­sible of what we learned dur­ing our retreat with oth­ers in Triratna. During the next few months we’ll be explor­ing how best to do this. It could be by doing events at Centres, lead­ing retreats, writ­ing books or art­icles, or put­ting together some online courses. (As well as the course mater­ial we could also offer ment­or­ing via phone, email, or Skype.) Details will appear on my web­site at www.vessantara.net as they become clear.

So far I have agreed to lead a course and a week­end after Easter for the Cambridge Centre, and we are both part of the team guid­ing this year’s month-long Total Immersion Retreat at Buddhafield in June – July. We are look­ing for­ward to spend­ing those four weeks back in nature, prac­tising med­it­a­tion, and learn­ing from and shar­ing our exper­i­ence with others.

Best wishes, Vessantara”

[Link]

News from EcoDharma’s UK “Dharma and Society” tour

Posted 16 days ago

Back in 2010 Triratna’s European Chairs Assembly set a series of pri­or­it­ies for their work over the next period of years. Joint top of their list was the wish to “Re-emphasise the Power of Dharma to Transform Society” — their inten­tion being to bring back into focus part of Triratna’s found­ing vis­ion, namely “the insepar­ab­il­ity of trans­form­ing self and world”. Amidst grow­ing aware­ness of eco­lo­gical fra­gil­ity and eco­nomic instabil­ity, never before has this emphasis been so needed.

As part of this, and to help explore the con­tri­bu­tion Dharma prac­tice and val­ues can make to pos­it­ive social change, a team from Triratna’s EcoDharma Centre set out from their base high in the moun­tains of the Spanish Pyrenees on a tour of UK Buddhist Centres dur­ing November and December 2011, run­ning, in total, 14 workshops.

Guhyapati, Maitrisara, Alex Swain and Caspar Brown made up the skilled facil­it­a­tion team, run­ning par­ti­cip­at­ory work­shops with local Sanghas. They began by pla­cing con­tem­por­ary Dharma prac­tice in the social and eco­lo­gical con­text of our times. “A simple way to get a sense of how we view the cur­rent con­text is expressed in a phrase bor­rowed from The Earth Charter,” explains Guhyapati, EcoDharma’s dir­ector. The phrase reads:

“We stand at a crit­ical moment in Earth’s his­tory, a time when human­ity must choose its future. As the world becomes increas­ingly inter­de­pend­ent and fra­gile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise.”

“Having explored this premise,” says Maitrisara, who’s also sec­ret­ary of the UK’s Network of Engaged Buddhists, “we asked three questions:

1) What does this con­text mean for con­tem­por­ary Dharma prac­tice?
2) In what way is Dharma prac­tice rel­ev­ant to this situ­ation?
And 3) How can Sangha sup­port a shift towards a cul­ture of com­pas­sion and awakening?”

The work­shops helped par­ti­cipants to explore these ques­tions both in terms of their per­sonal prac­tice and in rela­tion to their local Sangha’s col­lect­ive expres­sion of the Dharma. “We were par­tic­u­larly keen,” says Guhyapati, “to look at the role that Sangha can have in social change. While indi­vidual prac­tice is obvi­ously cru­cial, sig­ni­fic­ant social agency lies with com­munit­ies, groups and organ­isa­tions. We live in a time where the role of civil soci­ety has been greatly reduced. Individuals often exper­i­ence a sense of dis­em­power­ment and ali­en­a­tion in rela­tion to over­arch­ing national and inter­na­tional insti­tu­tions and cor­por­a­tions. Re-vitalising the power of com­munity meets many of our basic human needs, such as offer­ing a sense of shared val­ues and vis­ion, as well as being an import­ant source of empowerment.”

The work­shops helped to emphas­ise the social rel­ev­ance of what centres and Sanghas are already doing, which in many cases proved to be con­sid­er­able. They also opened up space to explore the oppor­tun­it­ies and resources that exist within local Sanghas for yet more effect­ive engage­ment with the social and eco­lo­gical issues of our times.

“For us this series of work­shops is a first step in help­ing to re-emphasise that all Dharma prac­tice takes place in a social and eco­lo­gical con­text,” says Maitrisara. “This emphasis seems to inspire many people. Social and eco­lo­gical crises sur­round us. When we ignore that state of affairs as prac­ti­tion­ers, our prac­tice can tend to become just a kind of cop­ing mech­an­ism which fails to actu­al­ise the truly trans­form­at­ive power the Dharma con­tains. When we name and turn towards these crises, it seems that this really begins to address the deep needs people are exper­i­en­cing at this time.”

The team will be devel­op­ing web based mater­ial to sup­port this work, and plan to tour more Triratna Centres dur­ing 2012. You can find out about other aspects of their work at www.ecodharma.com. They are also devel­op­ing the Sila Network, as pre­vi­ously repor­ted on Triratna News. This seeks to sup­port insti­tu­tions through­out the Triratna Community to exem­plify eth­ical ideals, espe­cially those con­nec­ted to eco­lo­gical sus­tain­ab­il­ity and social justice issues. More info on this from silanetwork [at] ecodharma [dot] com (subject: Sila%20Network%20enquiry)

[Link]

Naganaga Womens Vihara cel­eb­rates their first ten years

Posted 17 days ago

Akasamati writes from Triratna’s Naganaga Vihara, a women’s’ retreat centre in New South Wales, Australia, with news of the cel­eb­ra­tions of their tenth anniversary — and a little his­tory! She says -

“It’s been an unusu­ally wet start to the sum­mer here in the Macleay Valley, in the north-east of Australia’s New South Wales, but that didn’t dampen the spirit of cel­eb­ra­tion as com­munity mem­bers and sup­port­ers gathered on the week­end of 11/12 December, to mark 10 years since the found­ing of Naganaga Vihara.

Naganaga was estab­lished in 2001 by Satyagandhi and Megha as a place where a com­mit­ment to envir­on­ment­ally sus­tain­able liv­ing and care for the land and its inhab­it­ants would provide the con­text for a com­munity of women Order Members to live and work together, offer­ing small group retreats and sol­it­ary retreat facilities.

Soon after the 150 acre prop­erty was pur­chased, a dev­ast­at­ing fire swept through and all but des­troyed the place. Although water tanks and cara­vans were reduced to pools of mol­ten plastic and alu­minium, and most of the gar­dens were charred bey­ond recov­ery, mira­cu­lously the small dwell­ing some­how sur­vived, even though ver­anda poles and nearby trees caught alight.

This puri­fic­a­tion by fire was the begin­ning of a long phase of devel­op­ment – of fruit­ful gar­dens, of a beau­ti­ful med­it­a­tion space (a Mongolian yurt), of sol­it­ary retreat facil­it­ies, of a retreat programe that caters for the needs of small group retreats, and a com­munity of Dharmacharinis to live and work here.

So much has been achieved, but in this tenth anniversary year, we are approach­ing the com­ple­tion of the most ambi­tious devel­op­ment pro­ject yet – the build­ing of a large new multi-purpose liv­ing room; liv­ing spaces for Vajrasuri (who cur­rently divides her time between Naganaga and her work for the move­ment in India) and Viryadana (a com­munity mem­ber of four years). An ablu­tion block incor­por­at­ing laun­dry, bath­room and com­post­ing toi­lets will be added to com­plete the devel­op­ment, along with land­scap­ing and a re-organisation of the garden areas.

That’s quite a lot to cel­eb­rate, and we were joined for this delight­ful occa­sion by sangha mem­bers from Sydney and Brisbane, and for part of the week­end by some of our local friends. The high­light was an after­noon tea and the telling of the story of Naganaga, which included much rejoicing in all who have con­trib­uted over the years.

As we listened and par­ti­cip­ated we were encircled by a huge Rainbow Serpent, the totemic creature of the ori­ginal guard­i­ans of this land, that snaked it’s way around the walls of the room. Dotted along its body were the names of land­mark events, retreats and the many, many people who have been here as retreatants, vis­it­ors, work­ers, com­munity mem­bers or volunteers.

Out in the work­shop another creature of sig­ni­fic­ance to this land was tak­ing shape – a Water Dragon, com­ing together out of jew­els and stones that people had brought along or sent, and pieces of tile. This mosaic liz­ard, with its ten-coloured body, ten-striped tail, and spine of pre­cious things, will even­tu­ally hang as a com­mem­or­ative art work to remind us of the first ten years of Naganaga and to watch over us in the dec­ades to come.”

There’s more pho­tos of NagaNaga on their Flickr set. Besides being a Buddhist retreat centre, NagaNaga act­ively pro­motes wild­life con­ser­va­tion — they’re act­ively involved in the rehab­il­it­a­tion and care of orphaned walla­bies, and wild­life spe­cies known to be present on the prop­erty include brush-tailed pos­sums, red-necked walla­bies, wal­laroos, ban­di­coots, fly­ing foxes, sugar gliders, ech­id­nas, din­gos, quolls, long-necked tor­toises, goan­nas, micro bats, pademel­ons and a wide vari­ety of frogs, snakes and birds includ­ing sea eagles, wedge-tailed eagles, tawny frog­mouths, black cock­a­toos and rain­bow lorikeets!

[Link]

‘Meditating with Character’ — new book by Kamalamani

Posted 3 weeks ago

Kamalamani, from Triratna’s UK Bristol Buddhist Centre, writes with news of her just-published book, ‘Meditating with Character’, a new and unusual approach to per­sonal med­it­a­tion prac­tice. She says — “This book breaks new ground in weav­ing together import­ant threads from med­it­a­tion, body psy­cho­ther­apy, and Buddhism, encour­aging the reader to be more present with their exper­i­ence of being an integ­rated body-mind. The book invites the reader to get really curi­ous about what goes on in their med­it­a­tion prac­tice, through under­stand­ing their embody­ing and dis­em­body­ing habits. These habits and pat­terns are explored through the lens of char­ac­ter pos­i­tions, a body of know­ledge taken from post-Reichian psychotherapy.

“The tone is warm, imme­di­ate and access­ible, reflect­ing my enthu­si­asm for med­it­a­tion and life. Reflection exer­cises are included, sup­port­ing the reader to make sense of their unique approach to being a body with their par­tic­u­lar his­tory and life strategies. These reflec­tions can help both new and seasoned med­it­at­ors to either deepen or revive their con­nec­tion with their practice.

“Meditating with Character is highly recom­men­ded for any­one who is inter­ested in med­it­a­tion or being more at home in their own skin, both on and off the med­it­a­tion cushion”.

On Kamalamani’s web­site there’s a blog post offer­ing her more per­sonal thoughts on the ‘Birth of a book’, where she says “‘Meditating with Character’ star­ted life as a sud­den and imme­di­ate wak­ing urge to write about med­it­a­tion and embod­i­ment — on the last morn­ing of the last ses­sion of a train­ing I was doing in Embodied-Relational Therapy. Almost three years on I’m close to hold­ing a book in my hand. It’s strange and exciting”.

Kamalamani’s been prac­tising Buddhism since fall­ing in love with med­it­a­tion and the Dharma in her early twen­ties, and was ordained in 2005. She enjoys med­it­at­ing, lead­ing prac­tice, facil­it­at­ing Buddhist study and reflect­ing upon the rel­ev­ance of an age-old faith for life in the 21st cen­tury, par­tic­u­larly in the areas of eco-Dharma and the inter­face with eco­psy­cho­ther­apy. Prior to train­ing as a ther­ap­ist and healer, she worked with small busi­nesses on sus­tain­able devel­op­ment pro­jects through­out sub Saharan Africa. During the same period she also lec­tured at the University of Bristol and worked as a fam­ily busi­ness con­sult­ant. She con­tin­ues to work at the coal­face of small busi­ness through work­ing with her brother as an act­ive dir­ector in their fam­ily business.

Meditating with Character should be avail­able soon from Triratna Centre book­shops, or if neces­sary via Amazon.

[Link]

Sangharakshita’s Diary, December 2011

Posted 4 weeks ago

Vidyaruci, Sangharakshita’s sec­ret­ary, writes with his monthly update on Sangharakshita’s activ­it­ies, saying -

“December saw Bhante giv­ing a talk in Birmingham, at the launch of his new book Dear Dinoo: Letters to a Friend. It was his first pub­lic talk for more than a year, and his first time speak­ing at the Birmingham Buddhist Centre for around five years. Preceding him at the lectern was Kalyanaprabha, who spoke mov­ingly about her exper­i­ence of enga­ging with the pro­ject — edit­ing the let­ters that form the sub­stance of the book, and writ­ing extens­ive notes and an intro­duc­tion. Then Bhante addressed the assembly, and sur­prised many — per­haps includ­ing him­self! — by speak­ing for nearly an hour. The uni­fy­ing theme of the talk was around letter-writing of vari­ous kinds and at vari­ous points in his­tory, which allowed enough scope for Bhante to touch on top­ics as diverse as the illus­ory nature of money, the con­trast between the teach­ings of Jesus and St Paul’s ver­sion of Christianity, and even Bhante’s next rebirth. We were also, of course, intro­duced to Dinoo, the Parsee lady to whom the let­ters of the book are addressed.

“The talk was filmed by the good people of Clear Vision, and I expect will be avail­able online at VideoSangha by the time you read this. Bhante was pleased with how the launch went, and pleased that so many people showed up includ­ing Sangha mem­bers from Nottingham, Cardiff and Manchester.

A couple of weeks before the book launch, Bhante enjoyed a brief visit from Nityabandhu, who had been to Padmaloka with Wojtek, one of the Krakow centre’s pos­tu­lants. Among his many other vis­it­ors has been a group of women from London — two English, one German, one Dutch — who have just star­ted a new women’s community.

Bhante’s audio book con­sump­tion has included Norse Myths by R I Page, which he found inter­est­ing but not nearly so beau­ti­ful as the Greek myths, and Persuasion by Jane Austen, which he had read many years ago and enjoyed even more this time. He and I fin­ished Facing Mount Kanchenjunga, and Bhante com­men­ted that he was sur­prised how much he remembered of the events the book describes.

Early in January Bhante will have a catar­act oper­a­tion on his left eye, and he went to the hos­pital a few weeks ago to do the pre­lim­in­ary paper­work. It is hoped that the oper­a­tion will bring about some improve­ment in his vision.

Vidyaruchi”

[Link]

Gautama Buddha — now avail­able in paperback

Posted 4 weeks ago

Following yesterday’s story about Vishvapani’s recent and forth­com­ing appear­ances on BBC Radio 4, he writes to say — “Dear Friends, I’m writ­ing to let you know that my book, ‘Gautama Buddha: the Life and Teachings of the Awakened One’ will be out in paper­back on January 6th priced £8.99. The pub­lisher is Quercus and it is avail­able from the usual out­lets — and it’s now avail­able in the Commonwealth ter­rit­or­ies.
There’s also a new web­site for the book at www.gautamabuddha.info which fea­tures all the reviews, talks, inter­views and art­icles asso­ci­ated with the book. It’s gathered a few reviews and endorse­ments — here’s a taste:

‘Master of clar­ity and sim­pli­city, Vishvapani presents through the life of Buddha an under­stand­ing of Buddhism of immense rel­ev­ance to the way we live now’
Dorothy Rowe, Psychologist & author of Beyond Fear

‘This is a highly access­ible study of Gautama’s life and teach­ings which gives a very strong impres­sion of him as a per­son through his encoun­ters, teach­ings, frus­tra­tions and suc­cesses. Thorough, care­fully researched and well-written … this is a very read­able and impress­ive account of one of the world’s most import­ant reli­gious lead­ers’
Dr Joyce Miller, Vice Chair of the Religious Education Council of England and Wales (AREIAC Newsleter)

‘(Vishvapani) extracts the bio­graph­ical inform­a­tion in ways that leave you free to come to your own con­clu­sion. That makes the book emin­ently read­able. His atten­tion to detail and lucid prose make it a pleas­ure … Undoubtedly, it won’t be the last Buddha Biography. Others will shine their own lights on the fig­ure of Gautama Buddha. This one does so with great integ­rity. I highly recom­mend it.’
Stephen Schettini, author of The Naked Monk (The Secular Buddhist)

‘Clear and very access­ible … stu­dents will find this book both use­ful and inspir­ing’
Bruce Gill, Chair of the National Association of Standing Committees on Religious Education (NASACRE Journal)

You can read the full reviews on the Gautama Buddha website.

Metta, Vishvapani”

[Link]

Vishvapani broad­casts ‘Thought for the Day’ on BBC Radio 4

Posted 4 weeks ago

Vishvapani, a mem­ber of the Triratna Buddhist Order prob­ably best-known for his bio­graphy of Gautama Buddhia: the Life and Teachings of the Awakened One’, writes to say -

“I’m cur­rently doing a series of ‘Thought for the Day’ broad­casts on BBC Radio 4. The one this week was on the theme of ‘The Dharma of Dickens’, and you should find both text and audio ver­sions here. I will be doing two more which you can listen to live on January 17 & 24 at 7.47am UK time on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

With metta, Vishvapani

[Link]

Urthona 28: the psy­cho­geo­graphy issue, out now

Posted 4 weeks ago

Urthona is a Triratna magazine devoted to the explor­a­tion of Buddhism and the Arts. Issue 28 has just been pub­lished, on the theme of ‘psy­cho­geo­graphy’, and their editor, Ratnagarbha, intro­duces it thus:

“Our focus is the some­what mys­ter­i­ous theme of psy­cho­geo­graphy. Here we explore the ima­gin­at­ive response to land­scape, espe­cially urban land­scape — the inter­woven tex­tures of past and present on the streets, alley­ways, river-shores, even the motor­way verges, of the world that lies on our door­steps. My art­icle intro­duces the work of psy­cho­geo­grapher par excel­lence lain Sinclair, amongst oth­ers. We also fea­ture an inter­view with nature writer Robert Macfarlane, whose book The Wild Places is an intensely felt explor­a­tion of the wil­der­ness that remains close by on these islands”.

Urthona is well-known for its poetry, and Issue 28 con­tains an abund­ance of poems, reviews, and excerpts from inter­views with prom­in­ent con­tem­por­ary poets. Many of these are taken from the very suc­cess­ful Poetry East events held at Triratna’s London Buddhist Centre.

Urthona is avail­able at Triratna Buddhist Centres or via the Urthona web­site.

[Link]

Lankan Lessons: a report from Triratna in Sri Lanka

Posted 5 weeks ago

Ujukarin, a Dutch mem­ber of the Triratna Buddhist Order, writes with news of his latest trip to Sri Lanka and the small Triratna sangha there. He says -

“I’m recently back from a visit our small sangha in Sri Lanka, and thought the ups and downs of our activ­it­ies there (about 20 mitras and a call­ing list of 100) may be of use to oth­ers too…

As if organ­ising Triratna in the coun­try was not already dif­fi­cult enough, this time we got an unpleas­ant sur­prise: Saddhavira, for the last dec­ade our main act­ive Sri Lankan Order Member, has had to move back to New Zealand for med­ical treat­ment and we’ll have to con­sider him semi-retired for the fore­see­able future. Still, the visit was suc­cess­ful and gave some boost to the Sangha. Most import­antly, we got clear on the model for our organ­isa­tion we’ll explore for the next years. We decided on a com­mon three-pronged approach, which I’ll describe in case it’s use­ful to other Triratna outposts.

1] Decentralise. Instead of rely­ing on one cent­ral ‘sangha centre’, we’ll work with local gath­er­ings and groups, to extend the sangha. In Lanka, we focus on our two main areas (Colombo and South). In Colombo area we had a day retreat at the yoga centre of Dharmamitra Maitri in Horana, a sub­urb. Also, for our female Dharmamitras our just-returned-from-abroad Daisy will start gatherings.

2] Network. The mail­ing list (actu­ally, more of a call­ing list!) held by Saddhavira proved essen­tial; when the day before a planned Unawatuna day retreat the attend­ance list had fallen back to 2, just four phonecalls from Ujukarin gave no less than 7 new attend­ants spread over the day. The photo shows a pic­ture of the group, in a very pro­vi­sional shrine room; Dharmamitra Renuka’s South Ceylon restaurant/guesthouse – now rechristened as the ‘Koola Koola Bhar’ – is under reconstruction.

3] Cooperate with the wider Triratna move­ment. This will espe­cially help for Unawatuna. They’re expect­ing to get another 10-week ‘winter escape visit’ by UK mitras Anne and Ian, and most likely also a few UK Dharmacharinis for a shorter time between January-February. But also Indian Order Members are in reg­u­lar con­tact, and in 2012 some more Lankans hope to con­tinue their ordin­a­tion train­ing in India.

All in all the visit was just a step­ping stone in the long road ahead, but prob­ably an import­ant one. Next year there’ll be more to report for sure!

With metta, Ujukarin”

[Link]

News from India: Subhuti and the National Network of Buddhist Youth convention

Posted 5 weeks ago

First Triratna News story for 2012 comes from India, where Sam Rawlings writes with news of Subhuti and NNBY — India’s ‘National Network of Buddhist Youth’. He says — “Subhuti is cur­rently in the middle of 400 young Buddhists at our National Network of Buddhist Youth Convention 2012 here at Bordharan Retreat Centre in Maharashtra. They’re gath­er­ing for their 6th con­sec­ut­ive year to study, frat­ern­ize, and organ­ise them­selves facing global chal­lenges of the new cen­tury under the aus­pices of the NNBY. In his cur­rent lec­ture series, Subhuti is con­sid­er­ing the con­cepts of evol­u­tion — lower and higher — as inspir­a­tion behind the devel­op­ment of the Dhammakranti: the Dhamma Revolution in India.

Actually, we’ve been here a month, spend­ing the first 10 days with the Ordination Preparation Team in Nagpur, and lead­ing study and giv­ing pub­lic talks around the city, after which Subhuti led the ten-day Order retreat, also here at Bordharan, focus­ing on Sangharakshita’s sys­tem of med­it­a­tion amidst 8 days of silence.

Following the Order retreat there was a retreat for Artists, the first of its kind in India. Painters, dram­at­ists, musi­cians. and ‘appre­ci­at­ors’ all gathered, inspired by Dr. Ambedkar’s vis­ion of the New Society. They trav­elled from all corners of India to engage in the ground break­ing endeav­our. Participants included the inter­na­tion­ally acclaimed artist Savi Savarkar.

Hot on the heels of the suc­cess of the Artists’ Retreat, came the arrival of some 400 young Indian Buddhists and the NNBY con­ven­tion — where we are now!”

The embed­ded video shows Subhuti speak­ing to an assembly of hun­dreds of Buddhists gathered at Triratna’s South Nagpur Centre on the eve of the 55th anniversary of Dr. Ambedkar’s passing. To com­mem­or­ate the occa­sion Subhuti evokes him, his life and leg­acy, as well as explor­ing what great­ness truly is — call­ing upon the teach­ing of the ‘the Dhamma Niyama’ to do so. If the video is not shown you can access it dir­ectly here.

[Link]

Giant Triratna retreat in South India draws to a close

Posted 5 weeks ago

One of Triratna’s largest retreats has recently drawn to a close, in Gulbarga, in the south India state of Karnataka. Manimaran, who was there, sends us this report, saying -

“Dear Brothers and Sisters in Dhamma, I just came back after attend­ing the PRABUDDHABHARAT RETREAT in December 2011 at the won­der­ful Siddhartha Buddha Vihar, at Gulbarga in Karnataka State, South India. More than 600 men and women par­ti­cip­ated in the retreat from all dif­fer­ent states in india, most of them from unpriv­ileged vil­lages and com­munit­ies. We all med­it­ated together three times in a day, prac­ti­cing Anapanasati and Mettabhavana, and every day the pro­gramme ended with the Saptang Puja (Sevenfold Puja).

“The retreat was led by Dhammachari Lokamitra, who gave talks every day — about Babasaheb Ambedkar’s vis­ion of the Buddha-Dhamma, about his decision to go for refuge to the Ratnas (Three Jewels, ie the Buddha Dhamma Sangha), about the 22 vows he gave to his fol­low­ers, and about the prac­tising of the Precepts (sila), and finally about the Paramitas or Perfections which help us to develop the qual­it­ies of the Bodhisattva.

“In the even­ing we mainly expressed about the cre­ation of Prabuddhabharat, the dream of Dr. Ambedkar. This was explained by our brother Mangesh, from Triratna’s Manuski pro­ject. Followed his intro­duc­tion, many of our friends shared their exper­i­ence of spread­ing Dhamma and social activ­it­ies — each person’s exper­i­ence was a real inspir­a­tion”. Manimaran

Mangesh goes on to describe the mean­ing of Prabuddhabharat and its sig­ni­fic­ance in Dr. Ambedkar’s thought, say­ing — “Bodhisattva Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar star­ted the Dhamma Revolution in 1956 when he con­ver­ted to Buddhism with mil­lions of his fol­low­ers. All his life he had struggled for an equal soci­ety one based on the prin­ciples of liberty, equal­ity and fra­tern­ity. He saw the ful­fil­ment of India’s aspir­a­tion as a truly demo­cratic coun­try in the teach­ings of the Buddha. Prabuddha Bharat is the word we use for his vis­ion of a caste­less and class­less soci­ety — a new soci­ety based on justice, liberty, equal­ity and fraternity.

The Prabuddha Bharat retreat offers an oppor­tun­ity to under­stand the sig­ni­fic­ance of the Dhamma for indi­vidu­als and soci­et­ies. The reform­a­tion of the mind of man and the mind of the world is the goal of the Buddha Dhamma. This reform­a­tion is pos­sible through our prac­tice of Sila, Samadhi and Prajna — Ethics, Meditation, and Wisdom. To trans­form our own lives and soci­ety, we must fol­low the Buddha Dhamma. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar has given us this highest lib­er­at­ing path. Now it is our duty to walk on it.

Triratna Bauddha Mahasangha has been act­ively sup­port­ing the Dhamma Revolution through reg­u­lar retreats, train­ing and Dhamma classes. Its net­work is now estab­lished in 22 states across India, thereby break­ing many caste and lan­guage barriers”.

[Link]

Imagining the Buddha — the Third Triratna International Retreat at Taraloka

Posted 6 weeks ago

Jnanarakshita writes:

We’re really pleased with the way pre­par­a­tions for the third Triratna International Retreat at Taraloka are going, and online book­ing is now open at triratnainternationalretreat.org. As in pre­vi­ous years, the International Retreat is a col­lab­or­a­tion between the European Chairs’ Assembly, Buddhafield and the Taraloka team. The theme this time is Imagining the Buddha, with talks by Dhammadinna, Ratnaguna and Subhuti. There will also be study/discussion groups with each of them, as well as with Vishvapani, author of Gautama Buddha: The Life and Teachings of the Awakened One. Workshop lead­ers will include Akasati (art and ritual), Satyalila (writ­ing) and Mahasukha (singing and chant­ing). Meditation teach­ing will be by Kamalashila, Vajradaka, Sona and Vidyamala. There will also be a new children’s area, with improved facil­it­ies and activ­it­ies for chil­dren and teen­agers. Vajratara, Jnanadhara and Singhamati will co-ordinate activ­it­ies for sangha mem­bers in their 20s and 30s. The event runs from the even­ing of Friday 1st until just after lunch on Tuesday 5th June 2012. Accommodation will mostly be under can­vas in fields adja­cent to Taraloka, and there will be some dorm­it­ory accom­mod­a­tion avail­able for those trav­el­ling from out­side the UK, for the eld­erly, and for those who have phys­ical dif­fi­culties. Please con­tact us before 1st May and we will do our best to meet your needs. This is the big Triratna sangha gath­er­ing of 2012. Places are lim­ited to 500 and book­ing is pos­sible up until Friday 25th May. Make sure you’re there! [Link]

Concern at loss of basic freedoms in Hungary

Posted 6 weeks ago

Jnanarakshita writes:

“I felt con­cerned by the recent story on Triratna News about the impend­ing loss of relig­ous free­dom in Hungary, so I have writ­ten to my MP, to my MEP, to the UK Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. I hope to report back here again if I get any use­ful replies. In the mean­time, please feel free to use my text to do the same if you’d like to: Dear Rt Hon … MP First of all, I hope you are well. Please can I extend my appre­ci­ation to you for all the hard work you do on behalf of your con­stitu­ents and in Westminster. In spite of all the asso­ci­ated tribu­la­tions, I am aware that in world terms we are for­tu­nate indeed to have account­able people endeav­our­ing to serve the best interests of the nation in such a ded­ic­ated way. I am writ­ing regard­ing an urgent mat­ter con­nec­ted with basic freedoms in the European Community. I under­stand that this year a nation­al­ist gov­ern­ment was elec­ted in Hungary with an over­whelm­ing major­ity. Apparently the new gov­ern­ment has re-written the Hungarian Constitution, effect­ively out­law­ing all but a few Christian and Jewish con­greg­a­tions. In other words, the activ­it­ies of non-Christian/Jewish organ­isa­tions in Hungary will soon be illegal. I gather that the change is due to come into effect on 1st January 2012. Some con­cerned friends have organ­ised an online peti­tion which can be viewed at www .refuge. hu Please can you tell me if you know any­thing about this mat­ter? I would be inter­ested to hear if you think there is reas­on­able cause for con­cern? If there is, please could you advise next appro­pri­ate steps? Please do you know if the new Hungarian con­sti­tu­tion viol­ate in any way basic codes of the European Community? If so, will the European Community tol­er­ate this action by one of its mem­ber states? Can it bring any influ­ence to bear in this mat­ter? Would it be help­ful to also involve the European Court of Human Rights, or the United Nations Commission on Human Rights? If there is reas­on­able cause for con­cern, please could you advise on how best to take this mat­ter for­wards? In eager anti­cip­a­tion of your urgent and con­sid­er­ate atten­tion, Yours sin­cerely etc” [Link]