Today and tomorrow see two posts from the growing Triratna Sangha in Kerala, South India. Today Arun writes with news of their latest publication and recent - and first - Mitra retreat, saying - “Recently we had one 3-day Dhammamitra retreat here in Kerala. It was a first Dhammamitra retreat in Kerala. There were nine Dhammamitras all of them in the ordination process. We conducted our retreat at the new community Ratnaloka in Thiruvanantapuram, capital of Kerala. We studied the Patang Sutta from the Pali Canon led by Dhammacharis Ratnasiddhi and Bodhipriya from Nagpur. Each day we started with puja and meditation, then Ratnasiddhi led wonderful study on the Sutta, giving three speeches. We looked at and discussed the Maras in our minds which pull us so strongly from the spiritual life; in the retreat I liked this section so much.

Also last Sunday was a very important day for our Sangha, we took one more step forwards in establishing our movement here when our third Malayalam Dharma book was launched by Unni who is a drama writer specialising in Dalit and minority dramas. Around 35-40 people were there. We started our function at sharp 10.30am conclude at 12.30pm, I am very proud to say that this function was very punctual! Our new book, Buddhanum Buddhamatta Bhaviyum (in English, "Buddha and the future of His religion”) is a compilation of two long articles by Dr. Ambedkar: the title article plus his speech delivered at the Deeksha Bhumi (Conversion Ground) in Nagpur on Oct 14th 1956, at the time of the great mass conversions. In the first article Ambedkar outlines very skilfully and deeply his vision of what will be necessary for a bright buddhist future in the modern world: I think every Buddhist must read this and understand Ambedkar’s vision of the future for his religion. In the second article we can see why Ambedkar chose to embrace Buddhism.

We are very grateful for all the support and encouragement we have received for this work, especially from Nagaloka. With metta, Arun"