Closing the Being Divine Online home retreat

The Community Toolkit for Uncertain Times

Closing the Being Divine Online home retreat

On Fri, 1 May, 2020 - 17:01

kusaladevi

We hope you have enjoyed Being Divine Online with us this week!

The retreat ended with this beautiful song by Ratnavandana, which retreatants sing together at the end of her Brahma Viharas retreats.

Thank you so much to Ratnavandana for supplying us with these fantastic resources around the Brahma Viharas, for sharing her practice and experience so fully and for her wonderful evocation and explanation of the Divine Abodes in the Q & A where 138 of us gathered together.

Look out too for a Special Podcast edition with Ratnavandana, out soon!

We’ve had some great feedback throughout the week from people who have benefited from the wonderful resources from Ratnavandana on the Being Divine Online Home Retreat and the Additional resources on the Community Toolkit.

I’m struggling to articulate just how much I feel I’ve gained from the practice and resources this week. The Brahma Viharas have been an area of practice that I’ve often come across but never delved into, this week has been a perfect introduction and a wonderful foundation for me to build on. Many, many thanks.

A big thanks to Taraloka for their generous contributions - it has been beautiful seeing Maitrisiddhi in the surrounding environment of Taraloka sharing her reflections and inspiration around practising the Brahma Viharas.

We know that many of you have been joining in with your Sanghas, from places such as Cambridge, Bristol and Nottingham and that many more of you have been joining the community here online to connect in that way. Read the reflections from the Cambridge Sangha on their experience of the week.

Really loving these talks and reflections from Ratnavandana. What an incredible resource to have at this time. Thank you!

However you have used the resources this week, we really hope that dwelling in love and having a sense of community online have benefited your Dharma practice at this time. Please do let us know here how you have found the week, we’d love to hear from you.

We would love it if more and more people could access these home retreats and experience the online Sangha we can create together.

If you have benefited too from this week and would like to donate, so that we may offer more retreats to more people in the future, then please do!

If you’re able to and you would enjoy doing it, you could give regularly, or a one off gift, to help us to keep bringing the Dharma to more people in their homes at this time.

Of course, we understand that some people are unable to give, especially at this uncertain time and that is fine. We want to be able to offer our resources freely and ask those who can to support us to continue this.

Thank you! 🙏🏻

Our next retreat, Turning Arrows into Flowers (On the Seven-Point Mind Training), will begin on May 15th. Keep an eye on the Home Retreat section on the Dharma Toolkit

If you can, donate and help us reach more people like you.

Make a regular gift and we can build a Toolkit Team for the future.

***

Visit the Being Divine Online Home Retreat page

Read all posts on Being Divine Online

Listen to the daily podcast, connecting you with your community around the world.

Get the Living With Kindness Ebook from Windhorse Publications

Get the Complete Audio for the Brahma Viharas Retreat

***

Tags:

Being Divine Online, Ratnavandana, brahma viharas, Maitrisiddhi, Taraloka, generosity, dana, Love, donate, home retreat

view our community guidelines for promoting good conversation

Community Guidelines

Here are key excerpts from our community content guidelines, which are designed to help create a positive environment for everyone:

1. Please be courteous at all times. If you’re engaged in any kind of discussion, be as prepared to listen as you are to express yourself. Remember that there’s always a real person behind a computer/device screen, and they are likely quite different from you.

2. Think twice before posting anything that’s likely to give offence or be inflammatory. That doesn’t promote good conversation. If you’re upset at something you see here, perhaps let a little time pass before responding. Bear in mind this isn’t a space to vent our views, it’s about exploring respectfully with others what it means to be a Buddhist within our community and in the modern world generally.

3. We may remove posts or comments that are considered off-topic.

4. Everyone has off-moments, and we’ll always try to be in friendly dialogue with you if a problem arises with one of your contributions. But we reserve the right to remove posts and comments (or even suspend user accounts) when we feel these guidelines are not observed.

5. Our current editorial policy around Safeguarding is aligned with the advice given by those tasked with developing Triratna’s approach to this important area of ethical life. If anyone breaches current policy by posting in ways that mean The Buddhist Centre Online potentially break the law by hosting the material, then we will have to remove their posts or comments. We respectfully request that all users bear this in mind when posting. If in doubt, please feel free to ask first before posting. It will save time, energy, and lead to less potential polarisation in these spaces, even if there is disagreement.

Whatever you contribute we very much encourage you to think about it in the light of the Buddhist ethical precepts around 'Right Speech'. These encourage communication that is: truthful, kindly and gracious, helpful and harmonious. We look forward to all you have to bring to the site!

Moderation

We try to keep things light when it comes to moderation of posts and comments within this shared space. And we ask the community itself to lead with this. If you have seen something that concerns you, please feel free to contact us. However, we do ask that you bear in mind the following guidelines, which will help preserve a harmonious atmosphere throughout the site:

Remember there is always a person behind the post or comment you’re objecting to. They may just be having a bad day… If you’re upset, perhaps let a little time pass before responding to them or us. Try contacting the person first in a spirit of open, courteous engagement to see if hearing their perspective changes your own view of things, or if hearing yours changes theirs. Take care to make sure what you are asking us to look at is actually against the spirit of the group or the site itself, rather than simply a difference of view or of personal taste. If in doubt, ask a friend and/or the administrator of the group.

The most important things about this is the first bit: we ask the community to lead with this. That means you! Thanks for helping us promote good conversations on The Buddhist Centre Online.

Read the full set of Community Guidelines