In Triratna, learning to understand what is truly beautiful is seen as a path to Enlightenment itself. In this episode we find ourselves exploring this in an unexpected and extraordinary way at the seat of all Buddhist paths and myths, Bodh Gaya in India. Not far from the bodhi tree, where the Buddha’s great achievement is said to have taken place, you’ll find us deep in conversation with visitiing leaders from the Dublin Buddhist Centre about their vision of building a Buddhist retreat centre in Eire: a realm of beauty and a fitting home for distinctively Irish Dharma practice in the heart of County Clare.

We hear about the retreat centre’s name Shubha Vihara—The Place of Beauty—and how it sits alongside the legendary mythic names, spaces and stories of Ireland, before and after St. Patrick. We meet Brigid, Cuchulain (Setanta), and Fionn mac Cumhail as he catches the Salmon of Knowledge; and visit in our imagination Lough Derg, the ancient passage tomb of Newgrange, and the Hill of Tara—crowning place for the High Kings of Ireland. All while exploring aspects of Christianity’s impact on the country’s pagan spiritual history, and the role of positive warrior culture as it manifests and is transformed in both Buddhist and Irish contexts. 

It’s hard work building magic spaces and the team give us a glimpse into what’s involved on the ground trying to transmute spreadsheets and fundraising calls into the magic of genuine community, alive with deep possibilities, where practice is—somehow—palpably rooted in the native earth and energies of a specific land and a society ready for change.

Join us for an inspiring episode for the ages about a distinctively Buddhist contirbution to Irish culture. 

As a bonus, we close this conversation with a recitation of the traditional Buddhist ethical precepts rendered into Gaelic. Beautiful indeed!

Show Notes

Support the creation of Shubha Vihara, the Irish Triratna Retreat Centre 

Explore key stories from Irish mythology

Dublin Buddhist Centre

The Windhorse Trust

FutureDharma Fund

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News, event coverage, mantras and rituals, Dharma discussion with diverse guests from the Triratna Buddhist Community around the world, keeping you up-to-date with the latest in our sangha. 

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Our long form podcast, featuring great in-depth conversations with Buddhists from around the world. Inspiring stories that illuminate for modern times the Buddha's example of how to live and find true freedom.

This month's letter is written by Vajrashura, who first came across Triratna in Ireland, in 1999, at the age of 22. He was ordained in 2007 in Guhyaloka by Kulananda, and since 2009 has been the men’s Mitra Convenor for Dublin where he lives in a men's community. He now also works for the Sikkha Project on a part-time basis and joined the College in 2020.

Hear more from Vajrashura in a talk he gave on Sadhana, White Tara and Compassion at Padmaloka in 2022, in which he explores the nature of sadhana by sharing his personal relationship with his yidam White Tara. 

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Dear Order members and friends,

On our recent Men’s Private Preceptors retreat, one of the discussion groups was dwelling upon the question ‘how do we know our system of practice will lead to results?’ Amoghavamsa, hitherto relatively quiet in the group, told a story. He had been visiting the Newcastle Sangha a couple of years earlier, and while there had started to feel very unwell, to the point of blacking out as he was being brought to the local hospital. It subsequently turned out he was having a major heart attack. 

When he regained consciousness, he found himself floating a good distance above his body, and felt suffused with bliss and light. After a time, looking down he could see the doctor and nurse frantically working on his physical body, attempting to bring him back to (normal) life. Noticing that they looked rather stressed, he found himself feeling a great compassion for them. The next thing he knew he woke up in the ward with the thought ‘here we go again’ and a wry smile.

‘So’, he said on the Private Preceptors retreat two years later and still not fully recovered physically, ‘I am completely confident that our system of practice leads to results’.

It's no easy thing to explain our confidence in the Dharma or in a particular system of training. Confidence, śraddhā, trust in practice and fruits of practice – they are generally subtler and quieter threads woven into the life of a Dharma farer, and easily lost in the louder and brasher needs and demands of life.  Quantifying them, we risk falling too much back on the rational mind, which is not equipped to carry out such analysis. Perhaps it’s only at extreme times, such as Amoghavamsa experienced, that we can really see how much we have progressed. 

Though we can get glimpses! On that same Private Preceptors retreat, you could see the magic and fruits of a life in the Order manifesting. The Order is at its best when it serves something beyond itself, and on this retreat, we were 68 men particularly concerned with and responsible for helping men deepen their practice to the point of being effective, conducting their ordinations into the Order, and then helping them to live an effective Dharma life in the Order. 

Harmony, like śraddhā, can also be difficult to quantify. Yet it was clear that on this retreat, a deeper harmony emerged – not just harmony in the sense of getting on well or friendliness (important as those are), but a harmony of vision and method: a harmony based upon serving a shared vision within a shared understanding of Dharma practice, and with a shared sense of our precious teacher Urgyen Sangharakshita. 

On a rational level, this blending of wills and vision to the deeper unity might seem like a loss of individuality, but this only further highlights the limitations of the rational mind. That deeper unity and commonality is a truly creative space that we can only touch into together as an Order, and without it we will not be effective in the world. 

This is what I feel Bhante was trying to communicate to us in his paper What is the Western Buddhist Order? And on the retreat, we had wonderful seminar study with Subhuti exploring this vision and paper. I want to rejoice in Subhuti’s clarity and dedication to Bhante’s vision – each day was tour-de-force exploration of the paper, inspiring us with the breadth of Bhante’s vision for our Order, and putting it up to us to ensure that this vision continues long into the future after we are gone. 

Busy as he was, Subhuti also agreed to record a 30-minute talk for an upcoming new Mitra Study module, which we recorded together after lunch one day. Speaking without notes, he gave a wonderfully clear, precise, and yet profound talk on Spiritual Receptivity, which left me rather stunned afterwards. Thank you Subhuti!

Being together on retreats such as this, while I don’t think I come close to Amoghavamsa’s quiet and radiant confidence, I can happily say that our system of practice and our vision as an Order is more than sufficient for me, and I have more than enough to happily continue to give as much as I can to Bhante’s vision of the Order as a manifestation of the 1000-armed Avalokiteśvara. 

What is the Western Buddhist Order? had quite an effect on our community. As well as communicating a clear, coherent vision of the Order, Bhante called for structures to help the liaison of all the different aspects of our community, ‘so that they are not each just going their separate ways or coming into some sort of conflict’. Out of this came, for example, the International Council.  Bhante also, in that paper, gave the College the responsibility for evaluating how new practices would fit into our system of practice.

The Meditation Kula of the Sikkha Project has been asked by the College to work advise it in this commonality work - looking at meditation practices and their development within Triratna, seeing how they might best enhance our system of practice, and navigating potential difficulties or problems which might arise from these new approaches. The kula includes members of the College, including myself, and some of Triratna’s most experienced meditation teachers.

This meeting has been a stimulating and inspiring one. In the last year in particular, at the request of the College, we’ve been looking at Tonglen and its place within the Triratna system of practice. Tonglen isn’t quite a ‘new’ or ‘outside’ practice in Triratna, being already there in, for example, the Bodhicitta practice. But there is also some confusion about how exactly it does fit in, and how it can be used at different levels of experience. Our kula have produced a paper exploring Tonglen, which was presented to and well received by the College in November, and which will be shared and discussed more widely in the Order soon. 

The process is, for me, a good example of Bhante’s Pillar of Experimentation, which he highlighted in his 1991 talk The Five Pillars of the FWBO and reemphasised in What is the Western Buddhist Order? – a planned and sympathetic exploration of a topic to see what is helpful in the approach and what might be a source of confusion or unhelpful divergence. 

Finally, I would like to give an update on Arthapriya, who is a member of our men’s ‘Padma Kula’ in the College. Some of you will know that he has been suffering with painful backache for the last few months. This particularly flared up during a three-week solitary retreat he did over Xmas and the New Year at Adhisthana. After returning home his GP sent him for a battery of tests and scans, and the outcome of this is that he has been diagnosed with advanced (metastatic) prostate cancer. The cancer has spread into his bones, and it is this that is the main cause of the pain. Although the cancer is incurable, they hope to slow its growth and manage the pain. He is being treated with androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). One of the main side effects of the therapy (and the painkillers) is fatigue, but his states of mind remain very positive. 

Because of his tiredness he is asking his friends not to phone or visit him until the pain and fatigue has eased. What he’d really like is for them to write to him by card or letter and update him on their lives. He has been very touched by all the cards, flowers, and well-wishing he has received. 

His friends in Cambridge have set up a special email address you can use which Samamati will be regularly checking: arthapriyahealth@cambridgebuddhistcentre.com 

With mettā,
Vajrashura

>> See February's 'Features from the College' and Subscribe to the Preceptors' College mailing list here

Last year, in the context of the Covid pandemic and the temporary closure of the Dublin Buddhist Centre, six of us got together with the idea to develop an e-zine for women in the Triratna community in Ireland. In doing this we were much inspired by the example set by Alokavira and friends in developing their print zine ‘Born of Fire and the Void’. 

Our e-zine, Karunā­gandha (fragrance of compassion), is published three times per year (January, May and September) and distributed by email. It offers a closed, safe space for members of the women’s sangha to share their experiences and practice, and build connections with others around the country and, hopefully, around the world. 

So far contributors (order members, mitras and non-mitras) have shared a rich mixture of original artwork and photography, poetry, stories, book reviews, dharmic reflections, requests and offers, letters, recipes and more. Karunā­gandha is open to contributions in various audiovisual media and we offer support to aspiring contributors through the e-zine and in workshops.

During these pandemic years, online communication has been critical to keeping the sangha connected, and has had the unintended consequence of creating a stronger countrywide sangha in Ireland, which had previously been very Dublin-centric. Karunā­gandha will continue to perform a role in this way for the women’s sangha and we would now like to extend the invitation to read and contribute to the e-zine to women in the international Triratna community with a strong connection to Ireland and the Irish Sangha. If you are interested, just drop us an email at karunagandha@gmail.com

Leonard Cohen’s musical genius was intimately connected with his spiritual life, which was deeply influenced by Buddhism. In this talk Jyotika looks at how Buddhism and the philosophies of the East helped shape some of the finest songs ever written in the English language.

Talk given during Culture Night 2019 at the Dublin Buddhist Centre.

Note: During the talk Jyotika played the following songs: 'Suzanne', ' Hallelujah', 'Anthem' and 'Avalanche'. For copyright reasons these songs are not included in this recording.

Listen to the talk on Free Buddhist Audio.

On 12th June, as part of Buddhist Action Month 2019, a group from the Dublin Buddhist Centre Sangha meditated outside the Dáil (the Irish parliament) to raise awareness about the need for our leaders to take action to address the climate crisis.

Here's a short podcast with some of the participants about why they took part and how it went.

+Follow the Dublin Buddhist Centre

"Suppose a man wandering in a forest wilderness found an ancient path, an ancient trail, travelled by men of old, and he followed it up, and by doing so he discovered an ancient city, an ancient royal capital, where men of old had lived, with parks and groves and lakes, walled round and beautiful to see. So I too found the ancient path, the ancient trail, travelled by the Fully Enlightened Ones of old" (Nidanasamyutta, Samyutta Nikaya ii.105-6)

During Buddha day we celebrate the fact that Siddhartha Gautama became an Enlightened human being, an Awakened One - a Buddha. This festival is celebrated by many Buddhists around the world - and, of course, throughout the Triratna Buddhist Community! Take a look at some of the photos in our gallery of Buddha day festivities in Triratna.

Among the first to mark this occasion was the Melbourne Buddhist Centre, who held their celebrations on 4 May. After the usual Saturday morning meditation class there was a shared lunch followed by a talk from Manjusiddha on the early life of the Buddha to his Enlightenment and a slide show presentation of the pilgrimage sites in India from Apada. The puja was conducted by the Chair, Dantacitta, with musical accompaniment and two Mitra Ceremonies - the Shakyamuni and Padmasambhava mantras were particular highlights.

Meanwhile in Britain, the Norwich Buddhist Centre decamped to the countryside for Buddha day. Vajragupta, the chair of the Centre writes:

Our Buddha day saw around 50 men, women and children gathering on Saccaka’s land in the Norfolk countryside for a day celebrating the Buddha’s Enlightenment. Preparation began the week before to erect the marquee and build a wonderful log shrine upon which, in the context of a Buddha Day ritual people were invited to place a favourite rupa or Buddha image. A children’s tent appeared on the day, where parents and children ranging from three months to ten years could have some respite and share activities. Highlights of the day included a talk by Ratnaghosa on ‘The Three Rs’: Reverence, Receptivity and Responsiveness and in the afternoon a dramatisation of the Buddha’s Enlightenment by Jessica and a special Touching The Earth Puja compiled by Suryadarshini. Thanks to Bodhivajra for organising the day.

In Dublin a more contemplative day took place with meditation and reflection on the Buddha and the joy that renunciation can bring, inspired by Prajnagita's talk, 'The Buddha and his begging bowl - the courageous practice of simplicity and the joy of letting go.' There was also an opportunity for good conversation and delicious food. A sevenfold puja brought an enjoyable day to a beautiful end. 

"What the Buddha overcame, we too can overcome" was the theme of Buddha day at the Amsterdam Buddhist Centre. The day was led by Jayavajri and Tarodaya and it was a mixture of meditation, reflection, sharing experiences, input and a threefold puja. 

Parina, who attended the Amsterdam Buddhist Centre's celebrations, writes:  

As a participant I enjoyed the atmosphere of celebrating the Buddha jewel: his remarkable attainment is very moving. We reflected on our own going forth and what is holding us back and it was moving to listen to each other's open and honest reflections. One woman walked into our Centre for the first time and she was moved to tears by the Shakyamuni mantra. One other Sangha member shared her wish to care more for the earth by buying organic food. It was a rich, intimate, joyful celebration.

Sunday afternoon found the London Buddhist Centre attempting to celebrate the Buddha in a new way. Gus writes:  "Over the course of an hour, we attempted to evoke the living presence of the Buddha with a cycle of meditation, atmospheric accordion music and stories told from the first-person perspective of some of those who met the Buddha (via some recognisable faces from the sangha!). Altogether with meditation, shared meals, Mitra ceremonies and a rousing talk from Jnanavaca, the LBC sangha was at its vibrant best, in tune with one another and alive to the ideal of the Buddha."

In São Paulo, Brazil, Buddha day was celebrated on Wednesday night. Manjupriya writes: 

Our little Sangha is almost 17 years old and last night we celebrated Wesak with a Seven-Fold puja with a reading of the story of the Buddha meeting Kisagotami. The shrine was very carefully built by the Wednesday night team and it focused on the Buddha Shakyamuni and Enlightenment in its five Jina forms. None of this would have been possible without the Buddha or Sangharakshita’s vision and dedication. Sabe Satta Sukhi Hontu!

Mitra ceremonies - an occasion to make a formal commitment to practice Buddhism in the context of the Triratna community - played an important role in many Buddha day celebrations in Triratna. From Berlin, Aryabandhu writes: "a wonderful Buddha day at Buddhitsches Zentrum Berlin with Buddhanusati meditation, walking and chanting and a 7-fold puja with 3 Mitra ceremonies. About 50 people celebrated Buddha Day in Berlin......3 new mitras....Sadhu!...the Sangha grows." Also at Nagaloka in Nagpur, India 45 people became mitras!

Watch a video of the Buddha Day celebrations and Mitra ceremonies at Nagaloka, India

And in Valencia Buddha day celebrations commenced with an all-night meditation. Maitrighosha explains:

We started celebrating the Buddha’s commitment to awakening with a vigil through Saturday night, preceded by a light dinner at 21:00, and a lovely three fold puja and meditation at 22:00. There were 18 people at the beginning - through the night numbers decreased and there were 7 people by early morning finishing with a breakfast around 09:00.

On Sunday we began with a meditation, then Saddhakara gave a touching talk about seeing the Buddha’s Enlightenment through a child’s eyes, with awe-inspiring fascination... and finally we finished celebrating Buddha day with a traditional seven-fold puja taking the opportunity of incorporating mitra ceremonies in this context with a joyful atmosphere of rejoicing in merits, heart-felt offerings and mantra chanting. We were around 50 people there with a full shrine room. Many of us went later on to a restaurant to carry on the celebration in the traditional Spanish manner!

See other posts about Buddha day

Find Triratna Centres and groups around the world

Subhadramati is the president of the Dublin Buddhist Centre and also a Public Preceptor, one of the few men and women who make the final decision on who joins the Triratna Buddhist Order.

She has recently returned from leading a three month ordination course in Spain, during which she ordained nine women as their Public Preceptor.

In this interview with Jnanadhara, she reflects on the significance of ordination in the Buddhist tradition, her own experience of conducting ordinations into the Triratna Order and taking responsibility as a path to self-transcendence.

There's a 'questions and answers' session at 47 minutes. Talk recorded in the Dublin Buddhist Centre on 12th October 2018.

On Monday 17th September 2018, Dayasagara had his Private Ordination into the Triratna Buddhist Order, followed by his Public Ordination on Saturday 22nd September 2018.

This took place in Guhyaloka retreat centre on a special one-month ordination retreat, and in total there were 12 men ordained, from all around the world.

In the sparkling and wonderful talk, Dayasagara evokes the magic and mystery around his ordination and his time in 'the secret valley', as well as his new Dharma name.

From the glorification of violent struggle in 'The Shadow of a Gunman' through the rest of his Irish trilogy, Dublin playwright Sean O'Casey demonstrated the futility of violence to achieve political aims. Eventually in 'The Silver Tassie', set partially in the trenches of WW1, he espoused a pacifist message of the utter futility of war.

Maitrikaya explores how O'Casey believed in the solidarity of the entire human race over narrow national interests and how, though not a Buddhist himself, he lived by the Buddhist principle of non-violence. 

Talk given at Culture Night in the Dublin Buddhist Centre on 21st September 2018.

To celebrate Dublin Pride 2018, and Buddhist Action Month (BAM), the Dublin Buddhist Centre hosted a special Pride celebration on the 25th June. Kasey Tobin, a GFR Mitra involved in the event gives us a flavour of the event.

"This event was facilitated by a number of us in the Dublin Sangha with LGBT+ experiences.  As LGBT+ people we have seen a lot of progress in securing our human rights in the last few years in Ireland (for example the Marriage Equality Referendum, and Gender Recognition Legislation). However, many of us can still carry a sense of shame or guilt around who we are, and sometimes those roots of discrimination, or being treated differently, can run quite deeply both in society and our own psyches.

Open to those who are Buddhism Curious
The event was open to all those who were Buddhism curious! A lovely diverse mix of 27 people came. We had people of all colours of the LGBT+ rainbow, with diverse experiences of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and physiological sex. There were some who were new to the Dublin Buddhist Centre and some who were regulars. Along with this mix of people with LGBT+ perspectives, family members, loved ones and allies joined us as well.

During this evening, we had an introduction and a practice of the Metta Bhavana meditation, a great way of building on the positive mental states, true individuality and community that Pride celebrates. There was also discussions and break-out groups exploring the diverse range of experiences in the LGBT+ community, as well as a very important break for some non-alcoholic bubbly!

LGBT+ people can unfortunately still be excluded from many spiritual traditions, so it is to explicitly communicate that our Sangha is a place where everyone is welcome. This was one of the things we wanted to communicate this evening, to open up the Centre to people who might have felt hesitant about it, that it might not be for them.

LGBT+ Experiences in Triratna
We explored how for many of us, Triratna had been welcoming to us with our LGBT+ experiences. Triratna was founded in 1967, around the time of decriminalisation of homosexuality in England. A few of us talked about how we had felt accepted with our identities within the Dublin Sangha, and also by the wider Triratna community. It had not been a big deal, meaning we could just get on with practice, but also that we could talk about it and it wouldn’t be ignored. At the same time, we also tried to examine the ways in which there may be challenges or barriers of entry for some LGBT+ people engaging in the Sangha.

The Buddha's Example
We looked at the Buddha’s life and how he began his spiritual quest by realising a dissatisfaction with life, his seeing the four sights of old age, sickness, death and then the holy man. For a lot of us with LGBT+ experiences, we can come up against this dissatisfaction at an early age, particularly if we don’t feel we can be who we truly are. We can be forced into asking pretty fundamental questions about our identities and our place in the world. Also we may not fit into many of the traditional patterns for living within society, and experience a sense of suffering or dukkha as a result. This can be even more so if we can’t be open about who we are, and also how the process of coming out, while liberating, can cause problems and difficulties. This can bring about a desire, or a sense of searching, to find an end to this suffering, to begin the quest to freedom, as some mentioned was their experience.

The Buddha then through his quest became completely awakened, gaining a freedom from all negative mental states. Through a deep solidarity and care for all that lives, he taught a path to this awakening, through ethics, meditation and wisdom.

Sexual Ethics and Gender Roles
The ethical principles in Buddhism are very different to other forms of authoritarian morality, which often are the basis or justifications used to suppress and harm those in the LGBT+ community. This is particularly true of ethics around sexuality. Members of our LGBT+ community have been outlawed, shamed, made illegal, simply because of who they love, and unfortunately this is still the case in many parts of the world today. Going outside tightly defined gender roles was, and sometimes still is, prohibited, which was a large contributing factor to the Stonewall riots, which proved a major catalyst for the LGBT+ human rights movement.

So it’s understandable that we might be a bit apprehensive about exploring sexual ethics. This is why it’s so important to emphasise that the Buddhist ethical precepts aren’t rules or commandments to be obeyed out of fear, but instead are guidelines based on love, helping us to develop a solidarity with other living beings. But it’s really important to say - and we stressed this at the evening - that Buddhist sexual ethics has nothing to do with the gender of the person, or persons, you’re having a relationship with, nor with your experience of your own gender. We emphasise this quite strongly in classes in the DBC. It’s more about refraining from causing harm to others, or ourselves, in our sexual relationships, coming as it does from that sense of solidarity and care for all beings that the enlightened state represents.

A few of us were quite nervous before this event, as it felt like something very significant and meaningful for us, and a way of quite visibly bringing a particular aspect of ourselves into our spiritual practice. But we were really delighted with the outcome. There was a great sense of community and mutual support between people at the evening, showing the power of Sangha and Metta to bring people together.  This is the first time that we were holding a Pride celebration here at the DBC, and hopefully there will be other events like this in the future."

Read more about gender diversity in Triratna

More on diversity from The Buddhist Centre Online

Follow the Gender Diverse Group on Facebook

Maitreyabandhu discusses his childhood, forbidden love, his path to writing poetry and what Buddhism can learn from poetry (and what poetry can learn from Buddhism) in this wide-ranging interview with Jnanadhara, the chair of the Dublin Buddhist Centre. 

He also reads a selection of his poetry - including from a forthcoming book on the painter Paul Cézanne - as part of this special evening held as part of the programme of events during the 2018 Poetry Day Ireland festival.

Recorded at the Dublin Buddhist Centre on 26th April 2018.

Atulyamitra gives a very personal talk about her experiences of being on the 2018 Akashavana ordination retreat, on which she was ordained into the Triratna Buddhist Order.

This talk was given on a welcome back night for Atulyamitra on Tuesday 10th July 2018 in the Dublin Buddhist Centre.

Here is a short podcast with members of the Irish Sangha discussing what has motivated them, and what continues to inspire them, to practice the Dharma. From 'finding my friends' and a sense of meaning to life, to building a Buddha-land and being able to practice within one's own culture, Jnanadhara, Vajrashura, and Pavara together with Mitras Julie, Sean and Kristina share their thoughts.

Recorded in the Dublin Buddhist Centre during Triratna Day in April 2018.

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Subscribe to the Buddhist Voices podcast, featuring longer form, in-depth conversations and interviews with Dharma folk around the world.

In this wonderful personal talk about Padmasambhava, Vessantara talks about his connection with the strange figure of Padmasambhava.

On the way, he gives an insight into what it’s like to relate to these Buddha and Bodhisattva figures deeply, and how we can do this.

And he explores the effects doing this can have on our mind, our heart and our Dharma lives.

Talk given in the Dublin Buddhist Centre on Tuesday 25th April 2017.

Paramabandhu explores in great breadth and depth the profound and central teaching of the Buddha: conditionality.

Drawing especially on incidents from the lives of the Buddha and his disciples in the Pali Canon, he highlights seven points that we should be particularly aware of when looking to understand this important teaching.

Talk given in the Dublin Buddhist Centre on Friday 17th May 2018.

Dr. Ambedkar was a great social reformer in India who converted to Buddhism with hundreds of thousands of his followers, in order to help them escape the crushing oppression of caste.

Given as part of Buddhist Action Month in 2018, in this talk Jnanadhara explores the life and legacy of Dr. Ambedkar, and especially what Buddhists in the West can learn from the peaceful revolution that Dr. Ambedkar instigated in India.

Talk given in the Dublin Buddhist Centre on Friday 15th June 2018.

The 1st June marks the start of Buddhist Action Month, a festival of social action which is being marked by many Buddhist groups across the UK and Europe.  In Triratna, Sanghas across our community have been preparing for this event and incorporating events and activities in their various programmes.

In Southampton in the UK there will be talks on the theme of transformation, a workshop exploring Engaged Buddhism through the work of Joanna Macy, an India evening and a special puja - as well as an invitation to join in a weeklong digital detox. In Birmingham, Sangha night has been dedicated to BAM, and there will be talks and rituals as well as awareness-raising about a local homeless charity. And in Oxford there's an outdoor meditation, litter picking event and a film night and more.

Over the water in Dublin there's a range of events from a film night showing Angry Buddha (about Hungarian Gypsies who were inspired by Dr Ambedkar) to a biodiversity tour and cycle to 'writing for transformation' workshop and more besides.  The Dublin Buddhist Centre are also inviting individuals to make pledges for the month and share their tips on a padlet.

'Down Under' in Wellington, New Zealand, the five positive precepts are being explored as part of 'transforming self, transforming world'. The Sangha there is also being invited to address the question “The future we want for our world and its inhabitants is…" and help create a feather cloak out of the various responses. And in Adelaide in Australia, things kicked off early to include Buddha day, as "what better example could we have of ‘transforming self transforming world’ than the Buddha Shakyamuni". The Adelaide Sangha will be exploring what kind of new collective myth we can bring into being over the course of the month.

Read more about the theme for this year's Buddhist Action Month, 'transforming self, transforming world'.

Keep in touch with what's going on through our community during Buddhist Action Month by clicking +Follow on the dedicated Buddhist Action Month page and do share what you or your Sangha are doing.

Maitrikaya from the Dublin Buddhist Centre writes: "On March 24th 2018 at the historic Rotunda building in Dublin a meeting took place to establish the Irish Buddhist Union (IBU) to represent Buddhism in Ireland. The IBU is a new umbrella association of Buddhist Sanghas and Organisations in Ireland. It is envisioned as a fellowship of Irish Buddhists, intending to bring Buddhist ideas and principles to the attention of wider Irish society.

Buddhism is among the fastest growing faiths in Ireland, showing a 12.1 per cent increase - to 9,758 practitioners - from the previous census in 2011. This is evident in the vibrancy in our own Dublin Buddhist Centre not to mention the various other traditions with a presence in Ireland.  In an increasingly diverse Ireland, the IBU hopes that the many Irish people who identify as Buddhist will become visible and active in Irish public life, with the IBU acting as a conduit for this.  Hoping to have an input on the national debate as Ireland develops to accommodate its growing diversity for the first time.

At the inaugural meeting a constitution was adopted and a board of trustees elected. On the day the Triratna Buddhist Community, Zen Buddhism Ireland, Kagyu Samye Dzong Dublin and Jampa Ling Tibetan Buddhist Centre were represented. The Order of Interbeing (Thich Nhat Hanh) and Sunyata Buddhist Centre (Thai Forest tradition) couldn’t attend on the day. It is hoped that the Union will expand in the future with SGI Ireland joining soon. The aim is for all Buddhist traditions to come together in a spirit of celebrating our shared Going for Refuge rather than our differences.  

Bhante in 1996 almost 30 years since the founding of the Order wrote Extending the Hand of Fellowship outlining how we might relate to the wider Buddhist world. We in the Dublin Buddhist Centre feel that in a changing Ireland - and in the spirit of Bhante’s vision - it’s important that Buddhists ethics and viewpoints are heard and a good way to do this is through some kind of umbrella organisation representing Buddhist groups in Ireland."

Visit the Irish Buddhist Union website

Visit the Dublin Buddhist Centre website

View 'The Balance of Being' film from RTE 1 which features members of the Dublin Buddhist Centre community, exploring how the Buddha's teachings informs their lives in Ireland

+Triratna in the Buddhist World space on The Buddhist Centre

This week is the 50th anniversary of the founding of our community, the Triratna Buddhist Community!

On the evening of April 6th, 1967, around 24 people gathered in a room in London where they recited a ceremony specially written by Sangharakshita to inaugurate this new Buddhist movement.

Now, all these years later, the Triratna Buddhist Community has grown into a worldwide community of men and women inspired by the Buddha-Dharma, including our own Sangha here in Dublin.

On Sunday 9th April, 10am - 5pm, we'll be marking this happy occasion here at the DBC by celebrating our community and the benefit that it brings to the world. All welcome.

How can you financially support the DBC?

We hope you can give generously!