A newly remastered full-length talk from Sangharakshita, the founder of the Triratna Buddhist Community. Given at the end of last year to launch his recent book 'Dear Dinoo: Letters to a Friend', this is a wonderful set of recollections of life in India in the 1950s and early '60s. But it's also a glorious personal ramble through the history of letters and letter writing.

As usual the range of Sangharakshita's reflections in this is hugely impressive - taking in late mediaeval and 18th C. letter culture, provocative takes on Christianity, the Romantic poets and even the economy! It's an education and a genuine, poignant pleasure to hear him evoke a vanishing art, pass on old pieces of knowledge and lore, and remember so vividly a friend now gone with whom he shared, in Keats' phrase, 'a mingling of souls'. A beautiful talk.

The recording also includes the full introduction to Sangharakshita and the book by his editor, Kalyanaprabha.

Talk given in Birmingham, December 2011.

Svadhi talks about the experience of her ordination retreat