All three main talks from the International Retreat are now available to view on VideoSangha.net, thanks to the Clear Vision team's hard work.

Watch them here:
Vajragupta: "The Bodhisattva's reply" (53 mins)
Vaddhaka: "Going beyond capitalism: a Buddhist perspective" (1 hour)
Mokshini: "Altruism, actually: Getting out and doing It" (57 mins)

VideoSangha.net is a mine of Triratna/FWBO video old and new, provided for us by Clear Vision, Triratna's audio-visual media project. They also look after Sangharakshita's photographic archive and provide or create enormous quantities of free Dharma materials for children and teenagers at home and school worldwide.

Please help support Clear Vision with a donation.

For most of us the International Retreat is long over, but the doughty clear-up team have only just left, after a further week's work dismantling the marquees, showers, toilets and kitchen.

Happily we can know something of their playtime too, with this great little recording from Suvajra. It's Sumana's folk setting of Sangharakshita's poem, "Secret Wings" about our resistance to acknowleding our own spiritual potential.

Sumana main voice and banjo; guitar Joe Richardson: backing vocals Joe Hill and Shantikara.

Mariana Hermoso is a young film-maker from Mexico City. She's also one of the eight women taking part in the Young Women's Dharma Life Course at Adhisthana and doing a huge amount of work on the International Retreat. She offers her impressions of last weekend.

After a week of hard organisational work led by the Buddhafield and Adhisthana teams, the fourth Triratna International Retreat took place at Adhisthana.

Between 6 and 6:30 in the morning, the cuckoo awakens us to attend the first meditation of the day. At 7am the enormous shrine room tent shelters 300 hundred people from many countries.

The green field looks alive. Smiles, hugs and shaking hands give a flavour of deep friendship. Children play and enjoy while learning some Dharma teachings.

At 11am Order members give talks about the main topic, "The Bodhisattva's Reply", on individual and social initiatives. In the afternoons there are different workshops to learn skills and give tools to spread the Dharma.

Lots of volunteers are cooking, organizing and tidying the whole retreat centre, a good opportunity to make new friends and hang around. The young Order members and the Karuna Appeal Team give us a taste of a energetic and inspired new generation.

In the evenings, beautiful pujas are led by the members of the Adhisthana community. In the late afternoons, we've seen Bhante sitting in his conservatory looking at the green field where the retreat takes place. His presence drives us to a deep dimension, a cosmic dimension. He is our reminder that everything can be possible. As long as we all continue practising the Dharma together there will be a context for the arising of the Bodhicitta.

Watch Mariana's short film about the Young Women's Dharma LIfe course members.

It's been wonderful to have such a great flow of high quality photographs stream through this space over the past 5 days - they really capture the joy of the event and our community at its best. 

As ever, our sincere thanks to Ivan, Munisha, Suvajra, Suvannamani, Vajrashura, Vidyatara and anyone else whose pictures we were able to use!

We post great images of Buddhist events and Triratna sangha members all year round! Follow our picture galleries on Instagram, Pinterest and Flickr.

The last section of the closing ritual (puja) from the 2014 Triratna International Retreat, including some inspiring verses and mantra chanting.

Follow us on Soundcloud and subscribe to our podcast for more like this.

A round-up of some pictures from day 4 that we didn't get earlier. Including some more great portraits (of Lee from Sheffield and friend, spoon carving!) by Suvajra and the quite lovely batiks made during the retreat under the hand and guiding eye of Sarah Jones. 

Thanks to Suvajra, Vajrashura, and Vidyatara.

Follow our picture galleries on Instagram, Pinterest and Flickr.

Some beautiful harmonized chanting from Monday evening on the International Retreat...

Follow us on Soundcloud and subscribe to our podcast for more like this.

Mokshini talks about how we can tie our precepts to our everyday actions. How do we practise the precepts as consumers? As she pointed out, every purchase we make is a vote for the kind of world we want to live in.

Follow Free Buddhist Audio on Soundlcoud

Support Free Buddhist Audio - and help keep it free!

Here's a lively Polish contribution to the children's evening entertainments.

We seem to have more children than we started with (certainly better than the other way round). About 20 children ranging from about 1-13 years have enjoyed own activity tent full of things to do and play with, and they've been a delight to have around, splashing in puddles, sleeping in their parents' laps in pujas, making offerings and, every night before the puja, enjoying storytelling with Jayaraja and most of the adults.

Last night, the final evening, featured a long story about the Buddha and his disciples, with musical interludes from the band, "Mara and the Hindrances", alias the Polish sangha group present here. As Jayaraja said, it was probably the only time you'd see Pole Dancing on a Buddhist retreat.

It's a good thing the retreat isn't any longer because the children are clearly completely exhausted with just too much fun! Here's what two parents have said.

"My children are soaking up the atmosphere - of positivity and whatever else they can't articulate yet but may be able to later in life."
"My children will probably remember this weekend as very signficant for the rest of their lives."

One of the study groups began with a bit of reporting-in.

"I'm very loved-up. I'm loving the loveliness - and I'm exhausted!"
"Fantastic event. I never thought I could enjoy myself in such ghastly mud, but it just goes to show..."
"I woke up and could hear various kinds of snoring from the tents all round me. I thought, We're like pigs, in the mud. I felt everything was just right."
"This must be the happiest place in the UK right now!"
"My face hurts from smiling so much!"

With thanks, as ever, to Ivan, Munisha, and Suvajra - may the photo merit be theirs...

Follow our picture galleries on Instagram, Pinterest and Flickr.

So, last day... and sunshine has poured down on us, and on the extraordinarily green and beautiful Herefordshire countryside around us. The mud is drying, but remains deep - and lethally slippery - in the dining tent.

The morning's big events on the retreat "fringe": a loud crash as the main crockery table sank into the mud, shedding its load, which all had to be rewashed; and a "wellie amnesty", where everyone who'd lost their boots, or picked up someone else's by mistake, had the opportunity to swap back! Sadly I wasn't there to witness either.

Our day began with meditation, was later blessed by church bells from down the road and then moved on to Amalavajra's short talk on generosity, and his mantra: live more simply; give more. What if we were to take up the practice of tithing, giving 10% of our income away to worthwhile projects?

Mokshini gave the day's main talk, on tying up our precepts with our everyday actions. How do we practise the precepts when shopping? As she pointed out, every purchase we make is a vote for the kind of world we want to live in. Do we consider that buying hothouse-grown tomatoes out of season involves enormous amounts of CO2; that one long-haul flight uses up our CO2 allowance for an entire year? Do we consider the plight of Bangladeshi sweatshop workers when we buy our clothes? And she gave a big plug for the UK's Buddhist Action Month, which begins next week and has attracted the participation of Triratna Centres in other European countries too.

Listen to Mokshini's talk here.

Four people share their experience of the retreat so far. We hear from Sally from Glasgow, Jane from London, Ivan from Cambridge (via Mexico) and Suvajra who currently lives at Adhisthana.

Subscribe to our free podcast to get new episodes delivered automatically and access to our back-catalogue.

(NB: contrary to a comment by one interviewee, there is a large Order presence in the U.S.! And a history of Triratna activity in New York for many years. Listen to voices from Triratna America.)

Some more great photographs from a bumper crop on Day 3 of the retreat... And if you missed them, here are their companion galleries:

Scenes from a Summer Retreat  |  Portraits

Follow our picture galleries on Instagram, Pinterest and Flickr.

Thanks to Munisha, Suvajra, and Vidyatara.

The very English sound of bell ringing, from Coddington parish church, close to Adhisthana...

LIsten to a morning cuckoo waking the retreat.

Subscribe to our free podcast to get new episodes delivered automatically and access to our back-catalogue.

Vaddhaka inspires Triratna Buddhists to learn more about economics and challenge the Neo-liberal economists' notion that individual greed will lead to everyone benefiting. He encourages us to embrace Sangharakshita's vision of a New Society as an alternative way of being for the world. Hear some responses to the talk.

Follow Free Buddhist Audio on Soundlcoud

Support Free Buddhist Audio - and help keep it free!

In the second of our puja evenings Vidyatara led a Dhammapada Puja with a two part Shakyamuni mantra and the Indian Shakyamuni mantra. Here they are, along with the shrine salutation and the Refuges and Precepts.

Subscribe to our free podcast to get new episodes delivered automatically and access to our back-catalogue.

Vajragupta's keynote talk form the first full day of the retreat.

Inspired by Sangharakshita's poem "The Bodhisattva's Reply", Vajragupta outlines ways in which Western religious groups have historically approached engaged with social issues. Vajragupta suggests three ways in which we can work together to transform ourselves and so create a better world.

Follow Free Buddhist Audio on Soundlcoud
Support Free Buddhist Audio - and help keep it free!

There's a choice of workshops each afternoon. Since there's a huge range of experience among us here, they range from introductory talks on Buddhism and meditation all the way to in-depth study of teachings by Atisha.

Vajradaka is running a series of meditation workshops. Yesterday he concentrated on the need for commitment to notice and change our unhelpful habits. "Where will I be in 10 years' time if I leave this tendency unchecked?" is a good question to ask oneself!

And today Dhammarati's little study group (of 28) continued their study of what it might mean to possess "the essence of voidness and compassion". If we truly understood the emptiness of all phenomena of any fixed self, what difference would that make to our relationship to - well - everything and everyone?

I'll leave you with a line from their study material, from The Door of Liberation, by Geshe Wangyal.

"When you realise the correct meaning of voidness - and lose your blind lust for all things material and spiritual - your life becomes one flowing act of transcendent giving."

Sally and her mum, Vidyasuri, talk about painting, zebras, the Buddha and other International Retreat shenanigans.

Subscribe to our free podcast to get new episodes delivered automatically and access to our back-catalogue.