Fifty Years, Fifty Voices
Fifty Years, Fifty Voices

Amritavani - Limitless Potential (Full 50voices Interview)

By Centre Team on 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...

Triratna Highlights
Fifty Years, Fifty Voices

Parami & Sraddhavajri - The Fire Within (Full Interview)

By Zac on 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...

Fifty Years, Fifty Voices
Fifty Years, Fifty Voices

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

By Centre Team on 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...

Fifty Years, Fifty Voices
Fifty Years, Fifty Voices

Buddhadasa - A Life Worth Leading (Full Interview)

By Zac on 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...

Fifty Years, Fifty Voices
Fifty Years, Fifty Voices

Fifty Years, Fifty Voices: Karmavajra (Highlights)

By Zac on 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...

Fifty Years, Fifty Voices
Fifty Years, Fifty Voices

Fifty Years, Fifty Voices: Sanghadhara (Highlights)

By Zac on 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...

Fifty Years, Fifty Voices
Fifty Years, Fifty Voices

Fifty Years, Fifty Voices: Amala (Highlights)

By Zac on 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...

Fifty Years, Fifty Voices
Fifty Years, Fifty Voices

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

By Zac on 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...

Buddhist Centre Features
Fifty Years, Fifty Voices

Abhaya - Following an Inner Calling (Full Interview)

By Zac on 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...

Fifty Years, Fifty Voices
Fifty Years, Fifty Voices

Fifty Years, Fifty Voices: Khemajoti (Highlights)

By Zac on Wed, 5 Oct, 2022 - 17:03

“We used to do rituals in the basement of the shop, invoking Padmasambhava while we made egg sandwiches”

Khemajoti’s Annals:

In 1968 I was living in my birthplace, Swindon UK, with my parents and younger brother in the house we’d moved into in 1960. I was finishing primary school where I’d been a bright, happy child (top of the class) and moving to secondary school where I met children who were more of a match for me. I was moving into the...

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