Free Buddhist Audio
Free Buddhist Audio

Dharmabyte: Living Like a River

By Sadayasihi on Mon, 25 Nov, 2019 - 14:00

Ratnavandana shares an intensely honest, psychologically intimate, beautifully forensic history of her personal relationship to the practice of upekkha (equanimity) throughout her spiritual life. We hear about ways to assess what is going on in the subtler realms of our experience - and how to look to move beyond them so we too can live like a river…

Excerpted from the talk A Personal Take On Upekkha given as part of the series Brahma Viharas - Bristol Rainy Season Retreat...

Triratna News
Triratna News

Turning Arrows into Flowers: The International Practice Week 2018

By Sadayasihi on Wed, 1 Aug, 2018 - 12:06

Turning Arrows into Flowers: The International Practice Week 2018

By Sadayasihi on Wed, 1 Aug, 2018 - 12:06

The International Practice week will take place from the 22nd to 29th September. It will be a world-wide practice week, including all Centres and Triratna Practice Groups wherever they are, on the theme of ‘Turning Arrows into Flowers’, inspired by Subhuti’s teaching on the 2017 Order retreat at Bodhgaya.

The image that sums up and symbolises the theme of this urban retreat is that of the Buddha on the cusp of his Enlightenment, at the point when Mara attacks him with all he’s got …… but the Buddha...

Adhisthana
Adhisthana

Willingly Inviting Ruin: Blazing in the Fires of Sunyata

By akasajoti on Fri, 16 Jun, 2017 - 16:51

Willingly Inviting Ruin: Blazing in the Fires of Sunyata

By akasajoti on Fri, 16 Jun, 2017 - 16:51

Lokeshvara speaks of the culmination of metta in Equanimity, and describes two ways of seeing Upekkha – as the outward radiation of goodwill that makes no distinction between living beings; and as the inner attitude of complete equanimity as life flows in, the attitude when abandoning the welcoming and rebelling of the worldly winds.

He expresses very personally, and insightfully, his own practice of developing this second aspect of equanimity, as a practice of ‘willingly inviting ruin”, referring to this poem by...

Adhisthana
Adhisthana

The Luminous: Blazing in the Fires of Sunyata

By akasajoti on Thu, 15 Jun, 2017 - 23:46

The Luminous: Blazing in the Fires of Sunyata

By akasajoti on Thu, 15 Jun, 2017 - 23:46

There has been so much beauty today that I can’t do justice to, and wish I could. Such a high quality of communication between us all in our last discussion group, sensitive, alive and mirror-like to one another; sitting in our closing circle this evening, hearing each person rejoice and share what they had enjoyed and benefitted from during the retreat; the final Bodhicitta mantra in perfect harmony. A lotus-bed of many beings growing towards the light in our own...

Portsmouth Buddhist Center
Portsmouth Buddhist Center

Community Morning - Keeping Things in Perspective

By Candradasa on Wed, 6 Jul, 2016 - 16:49

Community Morning - Keeping Things in Perspective

By Candradasa on Wed, 6 Jul, 2016 - 16:49

The world isn’t always a garden of delights, life isn’t always a holiday. We know this, right? Yet it’s so hard sometimes to remember it - and harder still to stay positive when we do! That’s where we need an active element of imagination in our meditation and Dharma practice. Remembering, imagining, perceiving things differently - and a whole world opens up…

This week as part of our ongoing series on practical imagination, we’ll be exploring the practice of ...

Buddhist Centre Features
Buddhist Centre Features

The Possibility Of Practice

By Free Buddhist Audio on Tue, 29 Sep, 2015 - 00:13

The Possibility Of Practice

By Free Buddhist Audio on Tue, 29 Sep, 2015 - 00:13

If a talk could ever be described as beautifully bracing, this is it! Amaragita brings a sharp-edged mind and a long-term perspective to the whole question of what practice is. 

As you might expect, she also brings humour, warmth and kindness too, qualities that more than balance out the penetrating clarity and sometimes challenging questioning underpinning this exploration of the possibility of practice - for all, and especially for those raising families at any stage of life.

Amaragita offers three principles for...

Community Highlights
Community Highlights

Complete Archive Of Teaching On The Brahma Viharas

By Candradasa on Fri, 17 Apr, 2015 - 18:57

Ratnavandana has given much of her later life to the cultivation and teaching of Brahma Viharas meditation - helping inspire many people to move towards spending more of their time in the ‘divine abodes’ of love, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity.

Here is the complete archive of teaching from her Spring 2015 Rainy Season retreat in Bristol, UK. The theme was ‘Living In The Mandala’, looking at the Brahma Viharas in the context of the five Buddha mandala. Talks, readings, guided...

Free Buddhist Audio
Free Buddhist Audio

Dharmabyte: Setting Intention for Equanimity

By Rijupatha on Thu, 16 Apr, 2015 - 11:00

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Support FBA today!

In today’s FBA Dharmabyte, “Setting Intention for Equanimity”, Ratnavandana shares an intensely honest, psychologically intimate, beautifully forensic history of her personal relationship to the practice of upekkha (equanimity) throughout her spiritual life. We hear about ways to assess what is going on in the subtler realms of our experience – and how to look to move beyond them...

Bristol Buddhist Centre
Bristol Buddhist Centre

Day 7: Guided Brahma Viharas Meditation (With Notes on Bhavana)

By Centre Team on Sat, 11 Apr, 2015 - 20:27

Ratnavandana introduces and guides us through a composite practice of all four Brahma Viharas at once - loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity.

She sets the scene perfectly with an introduction to the notion of cultivation/development within the context of a Buddhist spiritual life, showing how each of these qualities may be called forth whenever needed in the face of our experience, just as the flower is called forth from the seed in springtime.

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Free Buddhist Audio
Free Buddhist Audio

FBA Podcast: Introduction to the Brahma Viharas

By Rijupatha on Sat, 11 Apr, 2015 - 10:50

FBA Podcast: Introduction to the Brahma Viharas

By Rijupatha on Sat, 11 Apr, 2015 - 10:50

Subscribe to the FBA Podcast

Support FBA today!

We are delighted to share this week’s FBA Podcast entitled, “Introduction to the Brahma Viharas.” Here, Ratnavandana beautifully introduces the Brahma Viharas as an integrated set of practices flowing from metta – loving kindness. Her central image is that of a tree, deep rooted and spreading its canopy wide as she evokes a profound, personal connection to the cultivation of the sublime...

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