The image of the Inexhaustible Lamp occurs in the Vimalakirti Nirdesa, a Mahayana text: The Inexhaustible Lamp can be likened to a single lamp kindling thousands of lamps. All dark regions are illuminated, and yet the light is not exhausted. In the same way, a single Bodhisattva leads hundreds of thousands of sentient beings to liberation, inciting them to arouse the heart’s aspiration towards incomparable supreme Enlightenment, and this activity of theirs is also inexhaustible. 

This year’s conference will showcase papers, workshops, guided meditations, pujas, music, poetry and the visual arts. Full programme for the conference.

Confirmed speakers include

• Q&A session with Prof. Jem Bendell (UK & Bali), founder of the ‘Deep Adaptation’ movement and author of Breaking Together. 
• David Loy, US author of Ecodharma on ‘Don’t-know-mind, deep listening and common ground’.
• Margo Van Greta (Scotland) on ‘Eco-Dharma: The Work That Reconnects’ including a remembrance of Joanna Macy
• Our own Dhivan (UK) on ‘Rewilding the Heart’
• Cittapala (UK) on ‘Creating a New Society as the old collapses – what perspectives can Triratna offer?’
• The San Francisco Buddhist Center Green Sangha: ‘Don’t Forget to Light the Lamp: Dharma, Creativity, Resilience and the Climate Crisis.’
• Amarasingha (Mexico) on ‘Climate change is affecting wild animals. What can we do about it?’
• Sagaravajra (UK) on ‘The Tree and the Sacred Grove’, an ecological take on Spiral Dynamics.
• Sanghasiha (UK) on ‘Deep Listening and Deep Ecology’.
• Guhyasakhi (UK) on ‘Buddhism, Animism and direct knowing’
• The Local Triratna Earth Sangha convenors on ‘What now? Our Dharmic responses to the present challenges’.
• Narapa (UK) on ‘Resilience for Turbulent Times: Radical Buddhist Approaches for Transformative Adaptation.’
• Sanghajata (UK) on ‘How to be where we are: a guided reflection on equanimity.’ 
• Sean Rinryu (UK) on ‘Climate activism as Dharma practice’.
• Aryaka (Sweden) on the inspiration behind his Mindfulness Based Ecological Resilience course
• Yogaratna (UK) on ‘How might we practise in this political situation?’
• And a panel discussion on the recently released Triratna International Council Guidelines for social action.

Who are the Triratna Earth Sangha?

A group of Triratna Order members, Mitras and Friends worldwide who are deeply concerned about the climate and ecological crises we face and see it as part of their practice to do something about them. We are all too painfully aware of the Buddha’s core teaching that actions have consequences. The accelerating destruction of ecosystems in the natural world caused by greed, hatred and ignorance is causing untold suffering to beings of many kinds, and we feel that it is our duty as Buddhists to do what we can to raise awareness of the plight of the planet, demonstrate an alternative way of life based on stillness, simplicity and contentment and act to relieve suffering where we can.

As 2025 draws to a close, we invite you to join us in tuning into compassion for ourselves and others. After all, it’s been quite a year!

We will meditate together, write, reflect and gently turn towards what did and didn’t go well in the past twelve months. Recalling that we are on this weird and wonderful journey together and can only do our best! Things can get overwhelming at times, life can throw curveballs that leave us bewildered. Let’s create a space together on this day, and move on into a new year with kindness for ourselves and others. It’s time to write some letters of compassion and send them out!

It would work best to come for the whole day, but of course you are welcome to only attend either session. You won’t be required to share your writing, though we will also be making time for mutual support and reflection. We’d love to have your company in that creative space!

What to expect from the day:

• guided meditation

• prompts for reflective writing

• some interaction in friendly, optional small groups (3-4 people)

• hopefully some new insights!

Come along and delve a bit deeper: explore reflective writing with us to connect with yourself and others.

On this retreat, I will be offering embodied approaches to dhyāna (jhāna) that people have found to be helpful and effective. This may well involve questioning both our own views and approaches, as well as some of what the tradition has to say about dhyāna.

Dhyāna is far more than samatha, or mental calm. Recognising the liberative potential of the first dhyāna was the key to the Buddha’s own awakening and he taught dhyāna as inseparable from insight. Only later did the tradition come to regard the dhyānas as ‘just’ states of concentration.

The dhyānas are, rather, states of deep, embodied mental unity, integrated with awareness of the foundations of mindfulness (satipatthana) and the factors of awakening (bojjhanga). Dhyāna is where insight takes place.

In practice, we’ll ask, ‘what, in our experience, is actually helpful?’ By becoming alive to the energetic immediacy of body experience, resources for entering dhyāna can be discovered as already present – just waiting to be noticed. We’ll explore this in direct experience and delve into the relationship between body, dhyāna and liberative insight.

‘Wings to Awakening’ is a poetic rendering of ‘bojjhaṅgā’ – seven ‘limbs’ or factors that support bodhi – awakening. The bojjhaṅgās are highlighted in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta as crucial to the fourth contemplation, that of dhammas. They are experiential qualities that we cultivate and are integral to entering and deepening into the four dhyanas – and to awakening itself.

In this three day retreat, we’ll explore how the first three – awareness, discrimination and energy – can support the conditions to enter into the dhyānas. And how the other four – wellbeing, serenity,  samādhi (full integration) and equanimity – successively come to fulfilment.  However far we get with this, the exploration and play with possibilities on this retreat will enrich your meditation practice.

This retreat is a follow-up to ‘Dhyāna and Insight’ earlier in the year, but these explorations stand in their own right and people who were not on the earlier retreat are welcome.