Buddhist Centre Features

5 Years of the Buddhist Centre Online: #12 Our Big Year

On Fri, 21 December, 2018 - 18:18
Sadayasihi's picture
Sadayasihi

Wow, it’s amazing what you have achieved in 5 years! So many gems have come my way through Buddhist Centre Online. My life and practice has been enhanced by many talks, recommendations for books, reading stories of people’s lives and visuals of places and events. From Australia I feel more fully connected to this world wide movement largely via [The Buddhist Centre Online]. Sadhu sadhu sadhu and happy birthday!” - Maitripala

2018 has been such a big year for the Triratna Buddhist Community – starting with the International Order Convention and International Council in India highlighting the global nature of Triratna; incorporating the celebration of 50 years of the Order itself (visit our ongoing 50 Years, 50 Voices project); and taking in, of course, the death of our founder, Urgyen Sangharakshita, with an astonishing 60,000+ people watching our online coverage of Bhante’s funeral around the world…

At these and so many of the watershed moments for our community over the past five years The Buddhist Centre Online team has been there, bringing you coverage – video, audio, live streams, articles, discussion – on this site, but also on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and all around the web.

Over 600,000 unique users visited our site in 2018, and of them at least 100,000 engaged with our free Dharma content regularly on the site and on social media. Imagine what we could achieve if every one of those regular visitors gave just the price of a cup of coffee!

If you love the Dharma and appreciate what we do to bring it to everyone for free on the web, support us now with a donation. Give the gift of the Dharma in 2019 – help us continue to be able to connect people across our community and beyond!

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Our top 12 highlights 2018!

Here’s a sample of what so many people enjoyed all year:

  1. Live stream of the public ordination from under the Bodhi tree in India
  2. A conversation with Maitreyabandhu during the Poetry Ireland festival - finishing with a poetry reading!
  3. Regular updates from our ‘50 Years, 50 Voices’ project, including this wonderful recording of Ananda, one of Triratna’s first Order Members
  4. Updates from across our community about Buddhist Action Month, a yearly festival of Buddhist social action taking place in June
  5. The series we ran on ‘Dharma Life, Family Life’ about practising in the context of a family
  6. Updates from the International Council - including these photographs from a meditation session in the ancient caves at Bhaja!
  7. An Instagram story on the importance of diversity in our community - with colourful snapshots from Pride 2018
  8. An interview with Surygupta, the new Chair of the LBC - and the first woman to hold this position
  9. ‘The Lion’s Roar of Dr Ambedkar’ - Maitriveer-Nagarjuna’s uncompromisingly radical talk from the Order Convention in India
  10. Coverage from the annual Young Buddhist gathering, the ‘Big One’ - including some amazing images from a fire ritual
  11. Audio and video resources from the International Practice Week in September on the theme of the Seven-Point Mind Training
  12. The complete live stream from the funeral and burial of Triratna’s founder, Urgyen Sangharakshita, who died in October


Read all our 5th birthday reviews of the best of The Buddhist Centre Online

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Giving thanks

Here are some of the lovely things you said this year (it really helps!):

Thank you for bringing a flavour of the [International Order] Convention all the way to Sydney. – Bodhidasa

I’m enjoying this [50 Years, 50 Voices] project and all the small snippets, hearing the hologram speak, so to speak. - Viryabodhi

I was very moved and grateful for all the work put in to communicating the events of yesterday [Sangharakshita’s funeral and burial] to the world. Our communications are so important for us as a world wide Buddhist movement, and this was a shining example of that. It was also very moving to re-watch aspects of the service this morning.” – Vishangka

A team for the Dharma

2018 was a year of change for our team too. After 10 years as a key player – during which time he got ordained! - Rijupatha has moved on to pastures new. 2018 also saw new faces: Sadayasihi began as a part-time social media editor in January, moving to full-time in October, and Lee Walford is now our full-time book-keeper. The other members of our team are Candradasa (the Director overseeing all aspects of our work), Will Elworthy (our Technical Magician / Lead Developer), Viryalila (the curator of our monthly Free Buddhist Audio podcasts and weekly Dharmabytes) – and Ratnarashi and Samudradaka (Developers).

We continue to dream big for the future in 2019 – with advanced plans already for the creation of mobile versions of both The Buddhist Centre Online and Free Buddhist Audio (with apps to follow, including for the Order). We’re also looking at developing and resourcing more ‘Dharma journalism’ so that we can reach even more people and bring the Dharma to bear on the aspects of life that matter to people most, Buddhist or otherwise!

So join us in the new year: + follow special Dharma features and live coverage of events, catch up with the latest Triratna News, get the highlights from our community around the web, and listen to our Buddhist Centre podcast and our new Buddhist Voices podcast. We’re here for you online with mindful, compassionate Dharma content whenever you need it!

Thank you so much to all who were involved for all your efforts and hard work. My parents watched the whole [funeral of Sangharakshita] live with you and were very touched by all that happened. Making it available to people has had more effect than you will probably ever know! - Vajratara

Of course all this can’t happen without help. If you’d like to be part of making our 6th birthday even more significant than our 5th, please make a donation now! Thank you! 🙏🏻

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