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...
The Buddha taught that there are three doorways to freedom. These doorways open when we turn towards our experiences of impermanence, insubstantiality, and suffering. Known as the lakshanas—the marks of conditioned existence—they can seem uninviting. After all, who wants to look closely at the more painful aspects of life?
Back in the 90s, Vajradarshini came across Leonard Koren’s Wabi-sabi for Artists,...
In our online retreat earlier in the year, the ‘moon’ to which I was pointing was the unfindability of a separate self. The kind of self that we think we are - persisting, potentially satisfactory and somehow ‘who and what I really am’ - is nothing but a mental fabrication. Our fabricating of this leads to suffering.
Join us for five days of practice, dialogue, storytelling and contemplation as we explore the life and teachings of Sangharakshita, the founding teacher of the Triratna Buddhist Community. Through talks, meditation and discussion we will trace how one man’s journey—from post-war Britain to...
“We heal through the imagination, through images and fictions.”
James Hillman, ‘Healing Fiction’
At its best, meditation practice and Dharma reflection can be a means to help us gain access to the unseen underlying currents and forces that shape our lives. Yet, as practitioners in day to day life, many of us can still have an experience of somehow being ‘out of touch’ both with ourselves and...
Many meditators come to practice in the hope of reducing or even getting rid of difficult feelings like stress and anxiety. Yet, to feel anxiety about our lives and especially the current state of our world is a completely understandable and even appropriate response. So how do we learn to listen deeply to our anxiety without allowing it to overwhelm us?
Transforming the Sacred Space. Online weekend retreat on spiritual death and rebirth Hosted by Jnanadhara and Suvarnadhi.
Event postponed. Check back for new dates soon!
The Auckland Buddhist Centre is delighted to invite you to a weekend retreat on The Buddhist Centre Live in collaboration with the team at Dharmachakra.
Featuring experienced Triratna teachers and leaders from both hemispheres, this is a wonderful chance wherever you live to meet a new set of friends in our worldwide community. Join us as we embrace new...
The well-known metaphor of ‘a finger pointing at the moon’ is itself a hint at something essential in Dharma practice. It suggests ‘don’t mistake the finger for the moon’. But what is the moon, and what is the finger? The finger could be taken as whatever gets us looking and going in the ‘right’ direction. For...
