Tag: triratna50

Buddhist Voices

A Life Worth Leading

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...

Buddhist 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...

Buddhist 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...

Buddhist 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...

Buddhist 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 Voices

Following an Inner Calling

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...

Buddhist 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...

Buddhist Voices

Amoghasiddhi: The Power of Sangha (Full Interview)

By Zac on Sun, 25 Sep, 2022 - 14:44

Many people in the Triratna Buddhist Community know Amoghasiddhi for his kind and welcoming smile, as well as his tireless Dharma work for our sangha in Nagpur, India. Now part of the ordination team in India, as well as a member of Indian Public Preceptors Kula, Amoghasiddhi has been ordained for over 30 years.

In this moving interview with Candradasa, originally recorded back in 2018 for the Fifty Years, Fifty Voices Project, the pair cover a lot of...

Buddhist Voices

Fifty Years, Fifty Voices: Sobhanandi (Highlights)

By Zac on Thu, 15 Sep, 2022 - 11:58

You come to a bridge. You look down. You see fish swimming in the water. But the fish don’t know you’re there, because that’s not their world. So the fish, their world is the water… You are conscious of the fish, seeing them, but it’s not your world. If you put the fish on the bridge, they’ll die. If you’re in the water, they die. That’s the world you live in, but it’s not the only world, because for the
...

Buddhist Voices

Fifty Years, Fifty Voices: Jyotipala (Highlights)

By Zac on Fri, 26 Aug, 2022 - 08:54

I must say, a couple of years before that, I’d actually – in one of my sober moments – not alcoholically, but… emotionally. I’d realised what an idiot I’d been in resigning.

Jyotipala’s Annals

In 1968 I was married and living in Brighton, working as a house painter.

In 1978 I left my wife, got ordained, and moved into the Aryatara community in Purley (not in that order).

In 1988 I was in India as an Anagarika [in robes], where I had been since 1981. I spent most...

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