Tag: Being Divine Online

The Community Toolkit for Uncertain Times

Closing the Being Divine Online home retreat

By kusaladevi on Fri, 1 May, 2020 - 17:01

Closing the Being Divine Online home retreat

By kusaladevi on Fri, 1 May, 2020 - 17:01

We hope you have enjoyed Being Divine Online with us this week!

The retreat ended with this beautiful song by Ratnavandana, which retreatants sing together at the end of her Brahma Viharas retreats.

Thank you so much to Ratnavandana for supplying us with these fantastic resources around the Brahma Viharas, for sharing her practice and experience so fully and for her wonderful evocation and explanation of the Divine Abodes in the Q & A where 138 of us gathered together.

Look out too for a ...

The Community Toolkit for Uncertain Times

A Sustaining Community of Meditators: Reflections from Cambridge on Being Divine Online

By Vidyasakhi on Fri, 1 May, 2020 - 11:04

A Sustaining Community of Meditators: Reflections from Cambridge on Being Divine Online

By Vidyasakhi on Fri, 1 May, 2020 - 11:04

Arthasiddhi, myself and around 40 friends, mitras and Order members from Cambridge sangha have been following the Being Divine Online Home Retreat as a community within the wider community, adding to the mix some of our own meditation sessions (every day at 8 am), three zoom plenaries (or check-ins) and WhatsApp home groups, as well as attending evening events at Cambridge Buddhist Centre online. It has been such a joy: and we’ve deeply appreciated the richness of Ratnavandana’s experience and teachings...

The Community Toolkit for Uncertain Times

Song of the Brahma Viharas - Being Divine Online home retreat

By Sadayasihi on Fri, 1 May, 2020 - 09:06

Song of the Brahma Viharas - Being Divine Online home retreat

By Sadayasihi on Fri, 1 May, 2020 - 09:06

It’s always good to finish things with a song - and happily, today, here’s one! It’s Ratnavandana chanting the Brahma Viharas song that is usually learned on each ‘Living in the Mandala’ retreat that she leads.

As Ratnavandana kindly sent on some lovely nature photos she has taken, we have made this into a short video which you can enjoy, and hopefully get a feeling for the Brahma Viharas “pervading all quarters”.

The text from this song comes from...

The Community Toolkit for Uncertain Times

Reflections from Ratnavandana - Being Divine Online Home Retreat: Day 7

By Sadayasihi on Thu, 30 Apr, 2020 - 09:05

As we come towards the end of our Being Divine Online home retreat it is my great pleasure today to share with you some further reflections from Ratnavandana on this theme.

She beautifully evokes where and how she is currently spending this time of lockdown in rural Wales, UK, and shares how the Brahma Viharas have been helping her at this strange and difficult time. What she gives us is her deep confidence in these practices and a rich tapestry...

The Community Toolkit for Uncertain Times

Navigating the Brahma Viharas - Being Divine Online Home Retreat: Day 6

By Sadayasihi on Wed, 29 Apr, 2020 - 09:18

Navigating the Brahma Viharas - Being Divine Online Home Retreat: Day 6

By Sadayasihi on Wed, 29 Apr, 2020 - 09:18

Years ago I did a mountain navigation training over the course of two weekends. As part of that we had to bring an Ordnance Survey map of the area and, more excitingly, a fancy compass that included a magnifying glass, twirling dial and ruler. I was impatiently looking forward to using said compass - probably having visions of myself as a cross between a detective and a code breaker. To my surprise we seemed to spend much more of the time standing...

The Community Toolkit for Uncertain Times

Reflections on Upekkha - Being Divine Online home retreat

By Maitrisiddhi on Tue, 28 Apr, 2020 - 11:21

Reflections on Upekkha - Being Divine Online home retreat

By Maitrisiddhi on Tue, 28 Apr, 2020 - 11:21

Hi everyone, thought I’d share one way in which I enjoy approaching equanimity. I’ve been really enjoying listening to Ratnavandana’s material and feeling quite inspired by the ‘great tree of the Brahma Viharas’.

Ratnavandana and I would have been running ’Living in the Mandala: The Brahma Viharas’ retreat at Taraloka this very week (April 2020) - I’m so pleased it can happen in another form.

love Maitrisiddhi

The Community Toolkit for Uncertain Times

Ever Greater Wholeheartedness - Being Divine Online Home Retreat: Day 5

By viriyalila on Tue, 28 Apr, 2020 - 08:36

Ever Greater Wholeheartedness - Being Divine Online Home Retreat: Day 5

By viriyalila on Tue, 28 Apr, 2020 - 08:36

Upekkha mystifies me. I’m really drawn to it as a state of being, and yet I’ve no idea how to describe it. I think it’s because I’ve lived most of my life bound by its near and far enemies of neutrality and indifference, and I want nothing more than to feel deeply with all beings. To imbibe equanimity is to be permeated by love, by compassion and by joy fully and wholeheartedly, without wavering, without shying away, without averting or hiding.

I...

The Community Toolkit for Uncertain Times

Being Divine Online: Q & A with Ratnavandana on the Brahma Viharas (The Dharma Toolkit Daily, Episode 20)

By Centre Team on Tue, 28 Apr, 2020 - 01:58

Loving Kindness (Metta)
Compassion (Karuna)
Joyful Resonance (Mudita)
Equanimity (Upekkha)

This week on the podcast we’re in full-on love mode with our Home Retreat: Being Divine Online.

Our guide to the series of meditations in focus - the Brahma Viharas - is Ratnavandana, and in this special episode recorded live online she’s in discussion about a practice that has been one of the touchstones of her life.

The sense of someone choosing to dwell inside a mythic vision of...

The Community Toolkit for Uncertain Times

Reflections on Mudita - Being Divine Online home retreat

By Maitrisiddhi on Mon, 27 Apr, 2020 - 11:04

Reflections on Mudita - Being Divine Online home retreat

By Maitrisiddhi on Mon, 27 Apr, 2020 - 11:04

Hi everyone, hope you’re enjoying your explorations of the Brahma Viharas - I am! Here’s a few of my reflections on Mudita. Somehow I feel like this is the Brahma Vihara I always forget about, and every time I rediscover it, I find it so delightful I wonder why!

Ratnavandana and I would have been running ’Living in the Mandala: The Brahma Viharas’ retreat at Taraloka this very week (April 2020) - I’m so pleased it can happen in another form. ...

The Community Toolkit for Uncertain Times

A Day So Happy - Being Divine Online Home Retreat: Day 4

By Sadayasihi on Mon, 27 Apr, 2020 - 08:31

A Day So Happy - Being Divine Online Home Retreat: Day 4

By Sadayasihi on Mon, 27 Apr, 2020 - 08:31

A good few years ago I remember watching a film on TV with my sister. We generally don’t like the same type of films - and this one was a dance movie, not my favourite genre - so my attention was phasing in and out. But somewhere in the midst of the seeming silliness of the plot (a middle aged lawyer, played by Richard Gere, finds a dance teacher, Jennifer Lopez, and his life turns around for the better) something caught my...

Tag: Being Divine Online

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