The Buddhist Centre

We're on the road this week with a festive episode of the podcast to celebrate Vidyamala: the extraordinary inspiration behind Breathworks who has just been made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen’s Birthday 2022 Honours List. She has been honoured for her Services to Wellbeing and Pain Management as Co-founder of Breathworks, an organisation which teaches mindfulness...

When tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees began to cross the border with Poland, the Triratna community at Krakow Buddhist Centre got involved with the same great generosity that has marked the Polish people's response to war flaring up uncomfortably close to home. In this episode we hear from Saddhajala and Nityabandhu on the ground in Krakow—not just about the war in Ukraine but about how Bud...

Some of the team at the Urgyen Sangharakshita Trust join us for a deep dive into the art of digital storytelling and biographical work online, as we hear about the ongoing creative challenges involved in helping a spiritual community hold the legacy of their teacher across generations. Sangharakshita was a brilliant, complex, sometimes provocative and controversial figure. He was also a friend, a...

This week's episode is a wonderful conversation from our archive of live events here on The Buddhist Centre Online, featuring our host Paramananda and his guest Maitridevi, Chair of Taraloka Buddhist Retreat Centre for Women in Wales. Starting from a poem by W.S. Merwin, an initial conversation about gratitude for life despite all our knowledge of sorrows blooms into a shared set of reflections on...

Sometimes a new Dharma book turns up that manages to seem both effortlessly profound and very funny. Of course, Satyadasa's The Sound of One Hand is actually the product of hard-won experience, and we're delighted to welcome him to the podcast to talk about his wonderful memoir as a tale of struggle, inspiration and the meeting of twin lineages in his life: Dharma practice and family. We hear Saty...

To mark Earth Day 2022, we’re joined by four friends who, one way or another, are involved with Buddhist activism. From the Buddhafield project to XR Buddhists to Silent Rebellion, we hear tales from the edge of socially engaged Buddhist practice, exploring what, if anything, Buddhists have to offer the world of protests, disruptions and often polarized issue-based politics.  Amaragita, Katja Behr...

Karuna USA believes that every individual deserves a decent life and the opportunity to achieve their potential, regardless of caste, race or ethnicity. Social and economic systems with high levels of inequality hurt everyone’s progress. That’s a fact. Working together we can challenge these systems and ensure access to a fair and decent life for all. Karuna USA stands in solidarity with those com...

We're joined this week by Buddhist teacher and mentor, Danapriya, author of 'It’s Not Out There'. Most of us constantly look outside ourselves for something: happiness, love, contentment. But this something is not out there. ‘It’ is within us. We are full of these qualities: happiness, love, contentment and more. In 'It’s Not Out There', Danapriya, helps us to look inside ourselves in such a way t...

We are delighted to announce a new episode of The Buddhist Centre Podcast, marking the start of a new season of curated conversations. We begin the new season with some role reversal! Instead of his usual place hosting guests, Dhammamegha from Windhorse Publications puts Candradasa in the hot seat to talk about his new book, 'Buddhism for Teens' , just published by Rockridge Press. Download a samp...

A full Dharma life: you can come to it from anywhere, and it will lead you in unimagined ways... From the investment banking hothouses of the City of London, to visionary experiences in a field with Green Tara and the Chemical Brothers at the Glastonbury Festival, here are stories told by a team of people dedicating their work to setting up conditions for a future where the great hope of the Buddh...

Join us for a deep dive into the relationship between art, aesthetics, the environment, and the inner life of people, objects and houses! In this episode we discuss the current ecological and biodiversity crises with an artist and a poet, asking how an appreciation and fuller understanding of beauty itself can help us take action in our own lives. Be prepared to have your notions of "the beautiful...

A conversation exploring the central role of strong personal friendships in creating a culture that encourages women and girls in India to take seriously their own aspirations - whether in Buddhist training or life in general. Abhayanavita and Tarahridaya are wonderful leaders and exemplars in this work, speaking across generations, across gender, and across caste to help inspire the new Buddhists...

A special episode of the podcast to invite you to Alive In Nature! - a series of live meditations and Dharma adventures from the Scottish Highlands! Find our more and reserve your space on Alive In Nature! For three Saturdays in spring or autumn - whichever hemisphere you are in, whatever state of lockdown you're living through - you're invited to sit with us and the amazing team from the Dhanakos...

Live from Forest House near Rivendell Retreat Centre in the UK - we're not sure a podcast setting gets any more mythic than that! Our friends Mandarava and Nagasiddhi are running an online Home Retreat for us - with amazing puppets, original artwork for the event, and an abundance of magic images illustrating tales from the life of the Buddha. And you are invited! Register for a space on 'In the F...

Forty years of friendship around meditation, the Dharma, and a common interest in the workings of the 'psyche' - the human 'soul' - mark out this first pilot episode for a new series of live podcasts. Join Paramananada in conversation with a set of friends to explore and share together their 'Sources of Inspiration'. Our first guest is Atula (Richard Hudson), psychosynthesist and good friend to ma...

This episode was recorded in October 2020 when the project to bring online learning to kids from Nagpur's poorest communities was just getting started. Please support this vital work now if you can: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/aryaloka *** Aryaketu is amazing. For 20 years he has been forging a life of extraordinary service in India with the Buddhist 'Bodhisattva Path' as the main conte...

Happy New Year! May 2021 prove a kinder, more hopeful year for all. In this first podcast of the year we turn to the magic of inner transformation, with a special episode to mark our forthcoming Home Retreat: 'The Alchemical Heart' with Paramananda . In our conversation around the work involved with an "alchemical" approach to meditation Paramananda explores the relationship between Buddhist persp...

A bonus episode with extra material from last episode’s wonderful conversation with Vaddhaka, author of ‘The Buddha On Wall Street’. In part 2 of our discussion about the contribution Buddhism may have to make to all matters economic, we turn to the post-pandemic realities now faced around the world. The times prompt a reconsideration of the “attention economy” and its relationship to social inequ...

We're back with the first episode in a two-part conversation about what Buddhism has to say to 21st C. economics in the wake of populist political tides, globalization and, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic. Vaddhaka is the author of The Buddha On Wall Street , a Buddhist critique of Neo-Liberal notions of capitalism. Expect a stirring, provocative discussion around the state of western democracies...

Hello again! We're back for a new season of The Dharma Toolkit podcast from The Buddhist Centre Online. We've had a wee break, passed through fleeting summer, and are turning towards the first fall/autumn of these strange, pandemic times ready to renew our own sense of connection through community with you. Welcome aboard! We begin again by following up and extending our previous mini-series 'The...

What is it to be fully aware, fully alive? Here is a great conversation with the retreat team from Taraloka , who are about to lead our online Home Retreat around the relief and ease of being in the present moment – whatever that present moment looks like. Join in with Alive, Aware, Awake - a Home Retreat for everyone! Experience can be an adventure in awareness. How can we taste the deep exciteme...

Join us for a walk into the forest of the unknown. Enchantments await. Groves of images. Bridges to the unseen. A path that wanders lost until some deeper magic happens... We are back in the realm of art and the making of images, the making of things, the making of meaning. Nagasiddhi's trainings in technical sculpture, prop design and building, the rituals of puppetry, and carpentry with wood lef...

To mark our latest Home Retreat, led by Tejananda , an excellent conversation and primer on meditation from a body-focussed perspective. Tejananda's key image is of the dynamic mandala. Dharma practice is itself dynamic and transformative. And the transformation lies in gradually discovering how both we and the world are not at all what we originally supposed! Seeing this, we can begin to uproot t...

For Nothing Is Fixed For nothing is fixed, forever, forever, forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment...

This year's Buddhist Action Month (BAM!) - happening around the world throughout June - is about to kick off. The theme is "For the Earth" - and here on the Dharma Toolkit we'll be looking at the intersection between urgent human issues like climate change, economic inequality and social justice. The poetic version of this, rooted in personal and community practice, is that we have a perfect oppor...