It has been a bit of a shock that you died, I know that might sound strange. Anyway it has been a very unusual experience for me of both presence and absence. I am currently at Adhisthana and the AOWE there does seem to be an absence of your physical body although presence in some other form.
I wanted to write to express my gratitude which I was very lucky to have also expressed to you again when I last you...
From Sangharakshita Memorial Space on Sat, 1 Dec, 2018 - 05:11It’s very hard to imagine what my life would have been like if I hadn’t come across the Glasgow Buddhist Centre just over forty years ago. As a naively enthusiastic young man it was my good fortune to meet Bhante first through his talks and the order members inspired by his teaching the Dharma, then later more personally through individual meetings and in 1982 through ordination. That ordination, witnessing, gave me a tremendous confidence to practice a Buddhist Path -...
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Today’s FBA Dharmabyte is a recollection from Sangharakshita called An Encounter with Padmasambhava in Darjeeling. Padmasambhava, often known as the ‘Second Buddha’, is famous for converting the demons of Tibet. In this lecture we are given a brief biography of Padmasambhava and an outline of the progressive Nyingmapa practices attributed to him.
My meditation practice in that time was focussed on direct experience: I would sit for a while and then would look – and what was seen was fabrication! That was clearly seen: this fabrication making something out of direct experience that actually wasn’t in direct experience. Really clearly seeing that was liberating: it was liberating – the energy that went in to that – there was this visceral feeling of release and joy in that release of the energy that
This second revision of An Initiation into a New Life marks the culmination of a process in which we’ve sought a formula for the way in which meditation practices are taken on during the private ordination ceremony. We have wanted to do justice to a number of concerns, three of which were addressed in the first version of the paper:
1.To move decisively away from the context of Tantric Initiation, especially as found in the Tibetan tradition.
In this talk on Sangha Day at Manchester Buddhist Centre, Vishangka uses Sangharakshita's poem, The Sunflower's Farewell, as a starting point to reflect on the power and beauty of Sangha. This talk was given shortly after Sangharakshita's death.
In this talk on Sangha Day at Manchester Buddhist Centre, Vishangka uses Sangharakshita's poem, The Sunflower's Farewell, as a starting point to reflect on the power and beauty of Sangha. This talk was given shortly after Sangharakshita's death.
My parents gave me my life and raised me with love, thereby giving me a stable and healthy basis for my entire life, for which I feel deeply grateful to them.
But in my adult life, the greatest formative influence has been my teacher, Bhante Urgyen Sangharakshita.
I had met the Dharma and caught (some) fire before I met him or fwbo/Triratna. But would the Dharma ever have become the central focal point in my life that it did become, had I then embarked...
