Our FBA Podcast is by Padmasuri entitled The Buddha Was a Friend As We Can Be a Friend . The fourth and final in our series of talks to mark the Year of Kalyana Mitrata at the Cambridge Buddhist Centre.
In this weeks FBA Podcast we offer In Conversation with Subhuti . Suryagupta converses with Subhuti about his life and practice. Subhuti has been the President of the London Buddhist Centre for over 30 years and was part of the original team who built the LBC in the 1970s.
Our FBA Podcast this week is by Maitreyi entitled Spiritual Friendship and the Heart's Release . Our teacher Sangharakshita has said: "It is in friendship (maitri) that we may find the emotional equivalent of the intellectual understanding of the doctrine of 'no self'". The gift of these teachings can help us move beyond self-clinging into a deeper and far more mysterious connection with one another; a Greater Love. This was the keynote talk given at Taraloka for the 2018 Great Gathering (Order ...
This week's FBA Podcast by Danadasa is entitled Faith and Wisdom . In this Buddhist path of transformation, how we relate to practice has a profound effect upon that which unfolds. How do we relate to the idea of path and goal? How do we relate to effort? How do we relate to not knowing? During this 4-week Sangha Night series, Danadasa will explore what is meant by a wise relationship to practice through the perspective of the 5 spiritual faculties, which are mindfulness, conviction, energy, med...
This week's FBA Podcast by Sangharakshita a is entitled The Conscious Evolution of Man: Right Effort . Discussing the evolution of consciousness, this lecture explains that at the stage of reflexive consciousness, deliberate effort is required for any further progress. Right Effort is fourfold: preventing and eradicating the unskilful, and cultivating and maintaining the skilful. Talk given in 1968 as part of the series The Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path ....
This week's FBA Podcast by Dayasagara is entitled Quietly Revering the Unfathomable – Reflections On Guhyaloka . In the sparkling and wonderful talk, Dayasagara evokes the magic and mystery around his ordination, his time in 'the secret valley', and his new Dharma name.
In this week's FBA Podcast entitled Urban Metta Bodhilila talks about how city life offers constant opportunities for practising metta in quite challenging situations and can provide a crucible for our spiritual practice, particularly our ethical practice.
Our FBA Podcast , this week is called A Field of Kindness by Sona. A talk on kindness, the quality of caring and the Bodhisattva Ideal, given at the Stockholm Buddhist Center, on 5 September 2005.
Our FBA Podcast , this week is called The Richly Endowed Buddha of the Southern Realm by Dhammadinna. Third in a series of talks given on the 2012 Triratna International Retreat. For more talks, videos, photos etc from the retreat see www.thebuddhistcentre.com and navigate to page 'internationalretreat'
Our FBA Podcast , this week is called Self Compassion For the Sake of All Beings . Munisha gave this talk in English to a Swedish audience, 5th March 2016, Dhammagiri Retreat Center, Sweden.
Our FBA Podcast this week is entitled The Sevenfold Puja: Worship by Maniraja. The Sevenfold Puja – drawn from the Bodhicaryavatara – is the main devotional ceremony of the Triratna Buddhist Community. This talk is the second in the series on the Puja, given Manchester Buddhist Centre.
Can ritual help us put the conditions in place through which bodhicitta may arise? In this week's FBA Podcast Using Ritual to Cultivate Bodhicitta Vijayasri explores our reactions to the idea of ritual and how rituals can become meaningless. We then look at the concept of ritual as "entering into a realm of the imagination where we encounter Buddhas and Bodhisattvas". This talk was given at the Croydon Buddhist Centre in April 2016 as part of our regular Saturday morning sangha class, the first ...
This week's FBA Podcast is the first talk in a sparkling, wide-ranging, thoroughly comprehensive ten talk series by Padmavajra on 'The Diamond Sutra' entitled Taking Mind to its Limits . We are taken through the work stage by stage, and here we begin with the opening scenes and the text itself as a revelation of Reality… Talks given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, 2004 This talk is part of the series The Diamond Sutra – Taking Mind to its Limits ....
In this week's FBA Podcast , Bhadra introduces the archetypal magician, Padmasambhava, in a talk called The Art of Ritual and Descent , given at a day for men in Bristol, UK. He uses episodes from the magician's life to illustrate how engaging the imagination through ritual and being willing to make the journey of descent are key elements of a fruitful practice....
Our FBA Podcast this week is entitled The Disappearing Buddha by Sangharakshita. The Buddha adopted the appearance and speech of his different audiences, and gave discourses on the Dharma which instructed, inspired, fired, and delighted. Then he would just disappear and leave them wondering, 'Who is the Buddha?' Talk given in 1994.
Our FBA Podcast this week is called Bright Blue Sky, Deep Blue Sea by Suryadarshini. Amitabha is one of the most well-known archetypal Buddhas, whose qualities of love and compassion attract myriad practitioners and devotees. Suryadarshini shares her personal connections with Amitabha, from superheroes to phoenixes, and also explores traditional symbols and imagery of the red Buddha of the West....
Our FBA Podcast this week is by Kulaprabha entitled Her Two Hands Are the Two Truths. This is the second in a four-part series by Kulaprabha on Nagarjuna's 'Lines Written to Tara.'
Our FBA Podcast this week is a cracking and wonderfully detailed talk called Vajrapani – Energy Unlimited by Vessantara, author of 'Meeting the Buddhas'. He is the ideal person to introduce us to the complex and fascinating Tantric figure of Vajrapani – 'Lord of Secrets', embodiment of "virya' (Energy in Pursuit of the Good). Vessantara's style is familiar and well-earthed, and therefore eminently well suited to material that bristles with electricity and is not always so easy to communicate. We...
Our FBA Podcast this week is a talk by Padmavajra entitled The Motive . This is the first talk in an eight part series by Padmavajra exploring a great classic of Tibetan Buddhism – Gampopa's 'Jewel Ornament of Liberation'. The work, inspired by devotion to Manjusri, is one of the key texts in the development of the Tibetan Lam Rim teachings. And Gampopa, being one of the two principle disciples of the yogi Milarepa, presents both the monastic Lam Rim approach of Atisha and the Mahamudra meditati...
Our FBA Podcast this week is a talk by Mahamati entitled Actualizing the 1000 Armed Avalokiteshvara . The third of four talks given on the Padmaloka May National Order weekend- Mahamati talks on actualizing the myth of the Order- symbolised in the 1000 armed Avalokiteshvara.
Our FBA Podcast this week is a talk by Vajratara entitled The Power of the Archetypal Realm given at Sheffield Buddhist Centre on 29th May 2007 as part of a series of talks on Buddhist Symbols.
Our FBA Podcast this week is a talk by Padmavajra entitled The Bodhicitta – A supra-personal spiritual force . This is the second in a series of five talks given on a Going for Refuge retreat at Padmaloka called Living From The Bodhicitta. Padmavajra explores some aspects of Sangharakshita's insights into the Bodhicitta, as well as how we might live a life devoted to living from the Bodhicitta....
Our FBA Podcast this week is a talk by Ratnaprabha entitled Sowing Seeds In the Soil of the Mind – The Alaya . The alaya, or storehouse consciousness, is the Buddhist equivalent of the unconscious mind. It is like a garden, in which every experience and action sows a seed which may later sprout and create our unfolding life. This talk describes how this relates to the six sense awarenesses, the mind as a sense, and the contaminated mind which reads everything in terms of self and not self. Mindf...
Our FBA Podcast this week is called Mind and Mental Events by Subhuti. These five omnipresent mental events (sarvatragas) constitute the basic mechanics of the mind; if you are conscious, they are present. 1. Feeling-tone (vedana) 2. Recognition (or conceptualisation) (samjna) 3. Directionality of mind (cetana) 4. Contact (sparsa) 5. Egocentric demanding (manaskara) From this we can conclude that: 1. All our experience is feeling-toned. The more conscious we are of this, the less we will react a...
Our FBA Podcast this week is called The Buddha Beyond Siddhartha by Dassini. The first half of the talk looks at the Buddha's early life and his battle with and the defeat of Mara. Then Dassini looks at the traditional Buddhist concept of time, and the division of time into Kalpas, inconceivably lengthy periods of time. The talk concludes by looking at the Dharma niyama, the order of conditionality through which the attainment of Enlightenment is possible. Please not that as this talk progresses...
Our FBA Podcast this week is called Anapanasati – Contemplation of Feelings given by Guhyavajra during the 2016 Anapanasati retreat at Padmaloka. The Anapanasati meditation practice and Four Foundations of Mindfulness are woven into a system of practice which when developed and cultivated is of great fruit and great benefit. Based on the Buddha's principal discourse on the subject found in the Anapanasati sutta of the Pali Canon, we explore our human experience rooted in the six senses; from the...
Our FBA Podcast this week is called The Sangha Context of the Anapanasati Teaching , a talk given by Shubha at the London Buddhist Centre's Women's Night Class, Nov 21st 2013. Drawing out the full sutra where the Anapanasati teaching is given speaks to the sangha context as a condition for insight.
Our FBA Podcast this week is called Inquisitive Mind, Thinking and Awakening . Here Yashobodhi talks about the relationship between thinking and insight. As long as we have a brain, we will have thoughts. Some of these thoughts are helpful. Some not so much. Becoming aware of thoughts is a good start. Whatever next?
Our FBA Podcast this week is called From View to No View by Jnanavaca on views and the need for a positive emotional engagement with those views. London Buddhist Centre in 2007
Our FBA Podcast this week is called Training in the Six Paramitas: Shila – The Essence of Ethics by Padmavajra. This is the fifth talk in a six-part series by Padmavajra exploring the Perfection of Wisdom and specifically the practice of the Six Perfections. The usual order of the practices is reversed, so here we turn to the key issue of "Ethics". Talk given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, 2004 as part of the series Training in the Six Paramitas ....
