Kulaprabha

This is me, Kulaprabha, which is my Buddhist name, given to me when I was ordained into the Western Buddhist Order. I am one of the retreat leaders who live and work at Taraloka, a Buddhist Retreat Centre for women in the UK. I’m on retreat for about four or five months of the year.. mostly a week or two at a time with a week or two between one retreat and the next. That probably seems like an odd kind of life-style? It’s certainly very different than my life was in Glasgow where I lived before I came here… on the other hand I get to know a great many people as they come on retreat with me. So it’s a strange and sometimes not easy set of transitions between being in the community (currently with 8 of us living in it), being on retreat usually with around 20 retreatants, and heading off elsewhere to visit friends or teach in Buddhist Centres in elsewhere in the UK, usually in cities like Sheffield, Edinburgh or Cambridge.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

The picture above is of myself with Parami (left) just after we’d ordained Sraddhamani (centre) on a long ordination retreat in Scotland in the summer of 2006. Twenty-eight women were ordained on the retreat by eighteen women preceptors.

So why this website? I’m hoping it might be interesting for you, wherever you are, to hear about my life and work as an ordained Buddhist in the West. It gives me an easy way of passing on notes and study material to the people who come on retreat with me. And it’ll make me think about what I’m doing with my life in this very, very broad context of worldwideweb blogging!

You may be thinking - “For goodness sake why is she spend her time sitting meditating when there’s all that suffering out in the world?” Or you may be thinking - “Well, I wouldn’t mind having that sort of quiet, calm, reflective lifestyle”. Hmm, I can understand those questions arising in your mind. At times though I see a lot of suffering here, or at least the consequences of it, when I am on retreat; and at times I go away elsewhere to get a bit of peace and quiet - Glasgow for instance! From the Buddhist point of view, meditation and compassionate action are not separate; and both are difficult.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

This is me in the front with Sharon, a guest in the community, behind. Sanghajivani is the one up on the scoffolding. She a good friend of mine and also lives here. This was taken last year when three of us spent a couple of days decorating one of the retreat centre bedrooms. Nice dungarees, eh?