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Centre Team

Manidhamma - Resilience and Transformation (Full 50voices Interview)

Tue, 21 Mar, 2023 - 15:30

In the latest episode of the Buddhist Voices podcast, we are privileged to hear from Dharmachari Manidhamma. It was during a big procession celebrating Buddha Jayanti (the Buddha’s ‘Awakening’ or ‘Enlightenment’), where a life-sized bronze statue of Dr Ambedkar was installed, and slogans of ‘Jai Bhim’ and ‘Victory to the Great Buddha’ could be heard. 

As a young boy, Manidhamma fondly remembers making friends and playing while also going to the Buddhist temple and taking part in Pali...

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Centre Team

Amritavani - Limitless Potential (Full 50voices Interview)

Fri, 10 Mar, 2023 - 10:08

In this podcast episode, Amritavani shares her journey towards the Dharma, starting from her childhood fascination with something bigger calling her. She talks about her exploration of different spiritual paths, including yoga, Christianity, and the divine feminine, before finally finding her way to the Dharma through a meditation class in Croydon. It was at the Croydon Buddhist Centre that she met two inspiring order members who left a lasting impression on her, Vijayasri and Sucimani, who made her feel accepted...

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Zac

Parami & Sraddhavajri - The Fire Within (Full Interview)

Thu, 23 Feb, 2023 - 17:41

In this latest episode of the Buddhist Voices podcast, Parami and Sraddhavajri engage in a conversation for the Fifty Years, Fifty Voices project. They share their early encounters with the Dharma and its transformative impact on their lives. In particular, Sraddhavajri reminisces about her childhood in Modinagar, India, where her parents were involved with Buddhism and the teachings of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar’s. She fondly remembers Dharmachari Amoghabhadra, who taught her Karate as a young girl, and how the kindness and...

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Centre Team

Fifty Years, Fifty Voices: Aloka & Surata (Highlights)

Thu, 22 Dec, 2022 - 11:36

Aloka’s Annals:

My name is Dharmachari Aloka (long first ‘a’) – born 31 March 1948, London.

In 1968 I was in Maidstone (Kent) in my penultimate year at my third and final Art School, in the midst of my love affair with hallucinogens and narcotics. I spent all of the 60s in various Art Schools starting at the age of 13.

In 1978 I completed six years doing part-time Art teaching - I contacted the movement in 1974 (Wesak) and was Ordained...

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Zac

Buddhadasa - A Life Worth Leading (Full Interview)

Fri, 2 Dec, 2022 - 17:32

On a cold winter’s evening towards the end of 1969, at number 14 Monmouth Street, a small shop named Sakura, accessed via a side entrance through an alleyway, then down a narrow set of stairs into a basement, a meditation class was being held. Seated at the back of the room was Sangharakshita, dressed in robes, with a western pullover underneath, wearing an abundance of rings and long hair. Buddhadasa recalls this first encounter with a clarity as if it...

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Zac

Fifty Years, Fifty Voices: Karmavajra (Highlights)

Wed, 9 Nov, 2022 - 17:00

It’s very difficult to practice without Sangha. Because you can understand things, but you need to transform emotionally. So if you want to transform emotionally, you need to share with your friends and colleagues.

Karmavajra Annals:

In 1968 when Bhante Urgyen Sangharakshita started our movement, I was not aware of it.

In 1978 I was three years old. I was born in 1975 to a Buddhist family near Nagpur, where the mass conversion took place in 1956 by Dr. Ambedkar. I was living in a...

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Zac

Fifty Years, Fifty Voices: Sanghadhara (Highlights)

Tue, 8 Nov, 2022 - 15:51

“Every day I need to communicate, every day get into communication with people… Within that, holding lightly to my own views and sometimes just letting it go and ‘not taking myself so seriously. So that’s an area of explicit practice for me.”

Sanghadhara’s Annals:

In 1968 I was… still in Deva reals of my previous life

In 1978 I was… fading away from lower devalokas

In 1988 I was… born in this human body that year on the 25th of March, right in the centre of Mexico...

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Zac

Fifty Years, Fifty Voices: Amala (Highlights)

Wed, 2 Nov, 2022 - 13:26

“The Heart Sutra was my moment of conversion, when I was 17 years old.”
 

Amala’s Annals:

In 1968 I was 14 years old, attending a Quaker High School in Washington, D.C., USA. I was very aware of the Civil Rights movement and the unrest all around me due to race issues. I was also aware of the growing peace movement(s) and started to be active in anti-Vietnam marches in Washington.

In 1978 I had graduated from university two years before with...

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Zac

Fifty Years, Fifty Voices: Satyadaka & Sarvananda (Highlights)

Thu, 27 Oct, 2022 - 11:26

“I think it’s about 18 years we’ve lived together, in one form or another.”
 

Satyadaka’s Annals:

In 1968 I was eight years old. I was into swimming, had just realised I didn’t like mathematics and loved the Narnia books by C.S.Lewis even more than the Alice books by Lewis Carroll.

In 1978 I was taking my A-Levels but was more interested in the life that seemed to be passing me by. I associated life with the Arts in general and with...

Zac's picture
Zac

Abhaya - Following an Inner Calling (Full Interview)

Thu, 27 Oct, 2022 - 10:28

Growing up in Chorley, Lancashire, in the northwest of England, Abhaya (1936-2022) recalls his early life as the youngest of four siblings, raised by parents who were run off their feet. With Dad away at the war, mum managed a small chip shop in which he and his brothers used to help out. Following in the footsteps of his older brother Jack, Abhaya would later spend several years at a Catholic Seminary, a period he jokingly characterizes as being like...