life as a Western Buddhist
Posted in buddhism, everyday life .. on Jul 2nd, 2008
A friend of mine sent me a link to this talk By Dr Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuro-anatomist, talking about her experience of having a stroke ‘from the inside’. It’s fascinating….
She refers to her experience as nirvana. Well maybe it’s not nirvana she’s describing but it’s something that has inspired and moved her deeply… and [...]
My current theme of the Four Reminders continued in February on a retreat with Dhammadassin and Suchitta. I’ve uploaded some of the talks from that retreat - This Precious Human Life - into my Dharma Audio section. And you can get some study notes about them in the Dharma study section.
And ….
… you can do [...]
These discourses came to light recently on a retreat at Taraloka…. I have translated them as best I could. The handwriting they were written in was almost indecipherable. Scholars may yet dispute their authenticity but everyone on the retreat thought they were jolly good!
The Longer Discourse on the Appearance of the Dessertspoon.
Thus is it written: [...]
Posted in buddhism, meditation, retreats on Jan 9th, 2008
I’ve just finished leading a meditation retreat here over the New Year period. I have to admit to having had a slight longing to be celebrating Hogmanay in Scotland instead of being on retreat! But it faded. And in any case we had a very good celebration of Hogmanay and the coming of the New [...]
I really enjoyed leading the Kalyana Mitra ceremony for Irene Maddocks with Padmasara and Saddhanandi. It happened last month during an FWBO sangha night class at Llangollen. Irene is our part-time book-keeper here at Taraloka. Saddhanandi lives here. Padmasara lives nearby in Wrexham. Irene’s first contact with the FWBO was at the Llangollen class which [...]
Posted in buddhism on Nov 30th, 2007
Two weeks ago, I was over in Belmullet, Co Mayo, Eire. I’ve only been to Eire once before and that was a visit to Dublin. Yet driving over to the Atlantic coast from Knock Airport, the landscape and country towns seemed very familiar. The landscape is very like north-west Scotland and the towns are very [...]
Posted in buddhism, everyday life .., meditation, retreats on Oct 23rd, 2007
I’m now back at Taraloka. Thinking about how things went over in Cambridge last week and musing on how I could happily live there, at least that is as it seems to me at present. Who would have thought it!
But mostly thinking about the Urban Retreat..
I’m very impressed by it as a means of helping [...]
Posted in buddhism, everyday life .. on Oct 23rd, 2007
Well last Tuesday was a very busy day for me at the Cambridge Buddhist Centre (CBC)…..
a 7.15am meditation with urban retreatants; a women’s study morning on the Perfume of Reality; talk on the Brahma Vihara meditations for the lunchtime drop-in class; then a very nice late lunch at a local cafe with Judith who [...]
Posted in buddhism, everyday life .., meditation, retreats on Oct 15th, 2007
At the moment I am over in Cambridge being “Teacher in Residence” for a week at the Cambridge Buddhist Centre.
The train journey over on Sat was very relaxing. Last week I was co-leading an week’s intensive meditation retreat. That finished on Friday morning .. then I went out with the retreat team for coffee [...]
Posted in buddhism, everyday life .., retreats on Aug 27th, 2007
The two two previous posts about Dharma Day referred to a retreat at Tiratanaloka. I was there to ordain Fiona Doolan who hails from Leeds, well actually from Shipley. And she’d like me to tell you that she has Scottish ancestors!! Fiona is now Acalamayi - “She whose nature is steadfast, reliant, unswaying”. Here a [...]