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The Community Toolkit for Uncertain Times

The Travellers from Orissa – Countdown to #buddhaday – 5 days to go...

By akasajoti on Mon, 4 May, 2020 - 22:01

The Travellers from Orissa – Countdown to #buddhaday – 5 days to go...

By akasajoti on Mon, 4 May, 2020 - 22:01

As a special treat for you all this week as we countdown to #buddhaday we will be releasing a series of dharma reflections each day…⠀

Here, Maitreyabandhu reads us a poem from his second collection called Yarn.

According to tradition, two travellers met the Buddha just after his enlightenment and became his first disciples, Tapussa and Bhallika. They disappear from literature after that point, and the Travellers from Orissa is a long dramatic monologue, written by Maitreyabandhu, imagining their story.

Make some space and sit comfortably...

Bump elbows, say hello!
The Community Toolkit for Uncertain Times

Countdown to #buddhaday - 10 days to go...

By akasajoti on Wed, 29 Apr, 2020 - 11:35

Countdown to #buddhaday - 10 days to go...

By akasajoti on Wed, 29 Apr, 2020 - 11:35

Countdown to #buddhaday!

“A thousand brilliant hues arise,⠀
More lovely than the evening skies,⠀
And pictures paint before our eyes…”

During this day of recollection and celebration of the many beautiful qualities of Enlightenment, Saddhanandi and Saddhaloka will offer a special Buddha Day Q&A live-streamed from Adhisthana.

🎧 “The Poetry Interviews – Saddhanandi + Sangharakshita” 

thebuddhistcentre.com/buddha-day for the full programme and to connect⠀ 

Bump elbows, say hello!
The Community Toolkit for Uncertain Times

The Triratna Haiku Challenge

By padmacandra on Tue, 14 Apr, 2020 - 11:24

The Triratna Haiku Challenge

By padmacandra on Tue, 14 Apr, 2020 - 11:24

What is it?
An invitation to pause, open to all the senses, and notice… write the noticing down in three short lines as a “haiku”. Write a few in turn, see what occurs to you. Then if you wish, send your favourite/s to me (details on how to submit them below) so I can post them on the triratnaarts* Instagram or facebook page where the challenge began. (Perhaps at the end we can post a selection...

Community Highlights
The Community Toolkit for Uncertain Times

The Blue Sky at the Heart of the Body (The Dharma Toolkit Daily, Episode 7)

By Centre Team on Tue, 31 Mar, 2020 - 11:04

A crucial and rather beautiful conversation about how we relate to our bodies in relative isolation. Some down-to-earth, open-hearted sharing of experience about things physical: the signs and symptoms and weathers of our bodies; the beneficial effect on our mental health of imaginative connection with other embodied beings; and the kindly wisdom in learning to see and name our actual physical experience instead of becoming lost in speculation.

We’re joined for an all Southern Hemisphere affair by Suvarnadhi from Auckland, NZ...

Windhorse Publications
Windhorse Publications

Get 15% off 'Poems and Short Stories'

By Windhorse Publi... on Tue, 25 Feb, 2020 - 16:00

Get 15% off 'Poems and Short Stories'

By Windhorse Publi... on Tue, 25 Feb, 2020 - 16:00

Here at Windhorse Publications we’re busy preparing for the release in April of the next three volumes of The Complete Works of Sangharakshita. One of these is Volume 25, Poems and Short Stories, now available for pre-order.

You may already be familiar with Sangharakshita’s Complete Poems, published in 1994. Even if you already have a copy, this new volume is worth buying, as it contains over one hundred pages of extra material:

  • all the poems Sangharakshita wrote after 1994
  • previously unpublished poems from his early years 
  • six short stories, some of them previously unpublished
  • a foreword by Padmavajra
  • a guide for the new
  • ...
Free Buddhist Audio
Free Buddhist Audio

FBA Podcast: Sangharakshita Foresees His Death In 'Padmaloka'

By Sadayasihi on Sat, 1 Feb, 2020 - 09:00

Vishvapani beautifully explores Sangharakshita’s poem ‘Padmaloka’ in which he looks forward to his own death.

It’s a poem about death, rebirth and nature, and Vishvapani connects it to other poetry which it echoes.

This talk was given a week after Sangharakshita’s death in November 2018 at Cardiff Buddhist Centre.

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Free Buddhist Audio
Free Buddhist Audio

Dharmabyte: A Measuring Worm

By Sadayasihi on Thu, 30 Jan, 2020 - 14:00

Maitreyabandhu draws out the deeper meaning and finer detail of the poem entitled A Measuring Worm, by Richard Wilbur. In the full talk entitled A New Knowledge of Reality-Buddhism and Poetry, Maitreyabandhu discusses five different poems, each around the theme of death, with the final poem focusing on spiritual rebirth.

By discussing the background of the poems and poets, the intricacies of their structure, and bringing in a Buddhist interpretation of the themes raised in...

Free Buddhist Audio
Free Buddhist Audio

Dharmabyte: Poems On Impermanence

By Sadayasihi on Mon, 27 Jan, 2020 - 14:00

A well read poem can help us deepen our understanding of Buddhist principles. Achala shares his practice of reflecting on impermanence through poetry. In this Dharmabyte we hear two poems. The first is entitled “Life” by Sangharakshita, the second entitled “Letter to a Nobleman in Kyoto” by Kukai, (774-835 CE), Japanese poet, scholar, painter, engineer, and great Buddhist teacher.

Translated into Marathi by Amitayush. Excerpted from the talk entitled Poems On...

Free Buddhist Audio
Free Buddhist Audio

Dharmabyte: Cracks in the Ice

By Sadayasihi on Thu, 26 Dec, 2019 - 14:00

This is a gem of a talk, with a wintery theme.

Parami starts by singing ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ by Christina Rossetti. She then goes on to bring out the underlying meaning of some of the imagery in the poem.

The first metaphors are about bleakness, with the earth as hard as iron and water like a stone, times when we struggle and it seems as if no growth is possible. She talks about her early experience of doing the metta bhavana and...

Western Buddhist Review
Western Buddhist Review

Harold Bloom: the Embattled Canon and the Experiential Critic

By Vishvapani on Sat, 19 Oct, 2019 - 20:26

Harold Bloom: the Embattled Canon and the Experiential Critic

By Vishvapani on Sat, 19 Oct, 2019 - 20:26

This is a guest post by Vishvapani, re-published here from an early issue of The Western Buddhist Review


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The Western Canon
By Harold Bloom
Macmillan, London 1994, pp. 567


1. Introduction: contemporary criticism’s questions and answers
What should be our central question in approaching literature? The celebrated American literary critic Harold Bloom proposes one: What is literature for? This question may sound obvious, but it is not one with...

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