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The Vajrayana, or Tantric Buddhism, is a path of radical transformation that harnesses the energy of life's deepest and strongest experiences. Falling in love is one such experience that can provide great masses of energy to power our spiritual development. Vadanya reveals how in the Vajrayana we fall in love not with other people but with the person who we can become - with the ideal of the Enlig...

Love (compassion and practising for others) and liberation (wisdom and practising for ourselves) are both essential aspects of the Dharma life. With stories of the Buddha, anecdotes from   Maitrisiddhi's own life, and suggestions around how to respond creatively to the planets' ecological crisis. From the talk Love, Liberation and the Bodhisattva Ideal given on a weekend retreat for local sangha m...

Rumi on Finding the Barriers Dharmashalin offers his reflections in the first in a three talk series exploring the Rumi quote: 'Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.' Excerpted from the talk entitled Love Past the Barriers 1: Rumi and Our Stories About What Love Should Look Like given at Birmingham Buddhist C...

Paraga discusses the importance of connecting with both Myth and Kalyana Mitrata as key aspects to help translate Dhardo Rimpoche's aspect of 'Radiate Love' into our Dharma life. Excerpted from the talk entitled Radiate Love given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre during the ' A Living Bodhisattva' retreat in March 2019. *** Subscribe to our Free Buddhist Audio podcast - a full Dharma talk every week! F...

Subhadramati explores integration as a process of meeting Mara in her life and in scenes in the life of the Buddha, and the fulfillment of integration during the Buddha's last days of exquisite love. Excerpted from the talk entitled Lion's Roar: Why Integration = Love given at Bristol Buddhist Centre , 2018. *** Subscribe to our Free Buddhist Audio podcast - a full Dharma talk every week! Follow o...

Here we have Padmavajra talking about the importance of bhavana in our metta practice –  the growing of friendly feelings, friendly responses, slowly, gently, like a garden. What you attend to, you become. It is vital that we engage with the practice honestly, starting where we actually are and gradually moving towards non-dual loving kindness, maha maitri, the Great Love that has dissolved the di...

Amitasuri explores what can happen when faced with well-being, illness, ageing and death, and looks at how the Dharma might influence our response. Amitasuri takes her Dharma practice to her work as a Buddhist Hospital Chaplain, where she supports health and well-being through pastoral, religious and spiritual care for staff, patients and their families in a number of hospitals in Greater Manchest...

Upayavira has been exploring, often through necessity, ways to meditate with children since 2000 when shortly after his ordination he became a parent. He takes the aim of demonstrating that practicing with your young children present is not just possible, there can be some huge benefits in this form of practice. Excerpted from the talk entitled Meditating with Your Child which includes a led medit...

Lilapa talks openly about how the Brahma Viharas inspired and challenged him as a father. Parenting can be very hard, a connection with the Brahma Viharas, also known as The Immeasurables, can support infinitely expansive and positive states of mind. Excerpted from the talk entitled Parenting and the Brahma Viharas , part of the series  Talks from Adhisthana's Weekend Retreat for Parents , given a...

A Tibetan Story shared by Vessantara about a young boy and his family and the uncertainty of the course of our lives. Excerpted from the talk entitled Positive Emotion as part of the series  The Mandala of Spiritual Practice: Positive Emotion Retreat given on a retreat called The Mandala of Spiritual Practice: Positive Emotion at Adhisthana , 2015.   *** Subscribe to our Free Buddhist Audio podcas...

What if our children are seen as aspects of our mind – this moment greed, this moment hatred. The Buddha advises us to 'be with' whatever arises, just allowing and then seeing what happens. Amaragita takes a look at Buddhist practice in the light of parenting. Excerpted from the talk entitled Staying at Home, Dancing with the Universe given at the Buddhafield Festival , 2006. *** Subscribe to our...

Nagapriya talks via zoom on Buddhist practice as a path towards the transcendence of our egocentric tendencies and motivations, which are the cause of our suffering, and the obstacles to our compassionate response to others. Transcendence is what is beyond our self clinging will, and by connecting with it we can begin to live our lives on the basis of a new logic. One motivated by the aspiration t...

Nagabodhi explores a common misconception about how we're supposed to stop all thought in meditation. Thought more generally can be very useful and could even be said to be one of the things that makes us human, but it becomes a problem when it runs away with itself and we start living in a 'secondary reality' most of the time.  From the talk entitled Direct Experience , part of the series  The Tw...

In the Dhaniya Sutta, the questions arise: 'how do we move in this world with a freedom to be creative?' and 'how often do we follow the addictive tendency?' Saddhanandi looks at vertical and horizontal nourishment as she explores these questions. Excerpted from the talk The Dhaniya Sutta - Freedom to be Creative , part of the series  Evoking Shakyamuni  given at Adhisthana , 2020. *** Subscribe t...

Saddhaloka reflects on the first Buddhist book he read, The Way of the White Clouds, by Lama Govinda, sharing a verse to Amitabha, the red Buddha of the West who represents and inspires the highest love of all... From the fourth talk in a six-part series on the figures on the Wheel of Life entitled Amitabha , given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre , 1997. *** Subscribe to our Free Buddhist Audio podcas...

Padmasambhava is a potent symbol of transformation. Here, as part of a Padmasambhava Day Festival, Maitreyi shows us how evoke the help, energy and vision we need to change our lives. From the talk entitled Heart Advice From the Lotus-Born: 'Never Be Apart From the Causes For Faith to Arise', given at the London Buddhist Centre , 2016. *** Subscribe to our Free Buddhist Audio podcast - a full Dhar...

Kamalashila takes us into the world of the Abhidharma to investigate how positive mind states emerge. He describes the types of Shraddha (confidence, faith or esteem), and their place in Buddhist practice. Excerpted from the talk entitled Shraddha given for Sangha Night at the West London Buddhist Centre , 2016. *** Subscribe to our Free Buddhist Audio podcast - a full Dharma talk every week! Foll...

Practising Buddhism (so much harder than understanding it) involves breaking the chain of the twelve negative links, or nidanas, by moving onto the spiral path, here described in its twelve stages. What is our usual reaction to things that are pleasant, things that are painful and things that are neutral? Sangharakshita gives us a clear description of the beginning of the Spiral Path, that of our...

Punyamala describes the path of beauty and how we can move from contemplating mundane beauty to the beauty of the enlightened state and in so doing she leads us into an experience of beauty. From the talk entitled 'In Beauty May I Walk' - Beauty As the Fourth Laksana given during the Women's Area Order Weekend at Adhisthana, December 2019. *** Subscribe to our Free Buddhist Audio podcast - a full...

Is kindness possible here? How does clarity help us open up to love? Maitrisiddhi explores the active and receptive aspects of the Metta Bhavana as expressed through the symbolism of Akshobhya, the Buddha of the East. From the talk entitled Metta and Akshobhya's Mirrorlike Wisdom , the first of two talks given on "Living in the Mandala"; a retreat on the Brahma Viharas at Taraloka Retreat Centre ,...

This is a quietly passionate talk by Jinapriya  on the quicksilver nature of the Enlightenment experience - impossible to pin down, utterly transformative. His main theme within the frame of such a big question - 'What is Enlightenment?' - is the struggle to live our lives in the present moment, especially in the face of pain. We are met with a thoughtful series of reflections, stories and images...

Here Vijayasri looks at the culmination of the sevenfold puja by exploring the Transference of merit and self-surrender section. She considers the importance of breaking our individual self view, including the telling of the story of the 1000-armed Avalokitesvara, a symbol of the Triratna Buddhist Order. Excerpt from the talk entitled Transference of Merit and Self-Surrender from the series in our...

How can we be helpful? Do we go beyond ourselves to do things for others? Are we inspired by the ways in which we are helpful? Taravandana explores the meaning of the final verses of the Sevenfold Puja as practiced in the Triratna Buddhist Community. The Transference of Merits verse is based on Chapter 3 of the Bodhicaryavatara, Way of the Bodhisattva by Shantideva. Excerpted from the ninth talk i...

Spiritual practice can be thought of in terms of developing positive qualities within ourselves. But in a very real sense it also consists in creating sufficiently beautiful conditions within our minds so that something from outside us may be invited in. From the talk entitled Inviting the Enlightened Mind given by Vadanya during the third Great Gathering of 2017 at Padmaloka Retreat Centre . ***...

Jayaratna shares his story of about a recent journey to track down his difficulties with the Sevenfold Puja, and what he learned about himself in the process. From the talk entitled Facing the Sevenfold Puja given at the Shrewsbury Sangha, 2018. *** Subscribe to our Free Buddhist Audio podcast - a full Dharma talk every week! Follow our blog for news and new Dharma FBA on Twitter FBA on Facebook F...