Windhorse Publications
Windhorse Publications

Complete Works sneak peek Volume 17

By Windhorse Publi... on Wed, 24 May, 2023 - 12:20

Complete Works sneak peek Volume 17

By Windhorse Publi... on Wed, 24 May, 2023 - 12:20

We’ll be publishing the next three volumes in The Complete Works of Sangharakshita in August. Over the last few weeks, we’ve been inviting you to explore each new title. For the last in our series of sneak peeks, we are introducing volume 17.

The Complete Works of Sangharakshita

Volume 17: Wisdom Teachings of the Mahayana

How much knowledge of the Dharma do we need? Sangharakshita’s answer might surprise some: ‘a lot less than we think’, but we need to use the knowledge we do have well....

Bristol Buddhist Centre
Bristol Buddhist Centre

Great Faith, Great Wisdom Retreat, 2017 - day 4

By jvalamalini on Wed, 13 Sep, 2017 - 13:22

Great Faith, Great Wisdom Retreat, 2017 - day 4

By jvalamalini on Wed, 13 Sep, 2017 - 13:22

Today we focused on the very beautiful descriptions of the beings in the happy land of Sukhavati. In many ways these are my favourite sections of the sutra; I’ve spent happy meditations in the past basking in the golden light as I imagined being amidst great beings with “minds of equality, minds of loving-kindness, gentle minds, affectionate minds, diligent minds, clear minds, stable minds, unhindered minds, unshaken minds, unagitated minds, minds which practise the perfection of wisdom” who stroll around...

Bristol Buddhist Centre
Bristol Buddhist Centre

Great Faith, Great Wisdom Retreat, 2017 - day 3

By jvalamalini on Tue, 12 Sep, 2017 - 09:04

Great Faith, Great Wisdom Retreat, 2017 - day 3

By jvalamalini on Tue, 12 Sep, 2017 - 09:04

Another beautiful day in the pure land!  On my way home, I sighed - “oh it’s all so lovely!”.

Today our sutra reading was sections of the text describing the land of Sukhavati, which is the Dharma aspect of the text. (Yesterday focused more on the Buddha - including beautiful descriptions of bodhisattva activity)

I found the description of the river particularly beguiling - the sound of the river is both soothing, and conveys the Dharma. It conveys the Dharma by murmuring the only,...

Community Highlights
Community Highlights

Great Faith, Great Wisdom Retreat Online!

By Centre Team on Mon, 11 Sep, 2017 - 16:37

Great Faith, Great Wisdom Retreat Online!

By Centre Team on Mon, 11 Sep, 2017 - 16:37

All this week we’ll be bringing you online resources and blogs from the Bristol Buddhist Centre’s Rainy Season Retreat on ‘Great Faith, Great Wisdom’ with Ratnaguna.

Follow the retreat online

On this retreat Ratnaguna will guide us on a journey into Amitābha’s Pure Land, Sukhāvati – a mythical realm where the ground is golden, trees are made of jewels, heavenly musical instruments play ravishing music, and magical birds sing the Dharma. It is...

Bristol Buddhist Centre
Bristol Buddhist Centre

Great Faith, Great Wisdom Retreat, 2017 - day 1

By jvalamalini on Sat, 9 Sep, 2017 - 21:51

Great Faith, Great Wisdom Retreat, 2017 - day 1

By jvalamalini on Sat, 9 Sep, 2017 - 21:51

We had a wonderful first day of our Order-Mitra ‘Rainy Season Retreat’ today, with Ratnaguna on fine form exploring everything from what we can learn from the language of the heptapods in the film ‘Arrival’, through the way the Mahayana expresses insight cosmically, suggestions on how to listen to the sutras, to why birds have to be magical apparitions in the pure land.

We listened to one of the sutras twice, and discussed our responses. 

When I walked out...

European Chairs' Assembly
European Chairs' Assembly

Ratnaguna - Three Talks On The Pureland

By Centre Team on Wed, 13 Jan, 2016 - 00:09

Ratnaguna - Three Talks On The Pureland

By Centre Team on Wed, 13 Jan, 2016 - 00:09

A new three-part series from Ratnaguna introduces the Pureland texts as a practice in themselves, and discusses their relationship to Sangharakshita’s core teachings. 

In the first talk Ratnaguna takes us on an excellent exploration of imagination itself, essential for understanding the sutras on their own terms. The second talk discusses how the texts hint at what Sangharakshita calls the supra-personal force of the Bodhichitta. The third talk is on the importance of sangha in the sutras and its relevance...

Adhisthana
Adhisthana

Inconceivable Emancipation

By akasajoti on Sun, 13 Dec, 2015 - 16:24

Inconceivable Emancipation

By akasajoti on Sun, 13 Dec, 2015 - 16:24

Inconceivable Emancipation
An Order retreat on the Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra
29th January–5th February 2016
with Dhammarati, Lokeshvara, Parami, Saddhaloka + Saddhanandi

In 2016, Adhisthana will hold a series of Order retreats and seminars beginning with a week long retreat on the Vimalakirti Nirdesa sutra. On these events we hope to offer the same richness of vision that was witnessed on the Order weekend in celebration of Bhante’s 90th birthday, with its magnitude and diversity, though on...

Western Buddhist Review
Western Buddhist Review

No Need for the H-word

By Dhivan Thomas Jones on Fri, 14 Mar, 2014 - 09:19

No Need for the H-word

By Dhivan Thomas Jones on Fri, 14 Mar, 2014 - 09:19Bhikkhu Bodhi et al., The Bodhisattva Ideal: Essays on the Emergence of Mahāyāna
Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, 2013, 239pp., £9.99 pback. (Available from Wisdom Books at www.wisdom-books.com).

Review by Dhivan Thomas Jones

The usual history of Buddhism in India goes that the Mahāyāna arose around the beginning of the common era as a reaction against complacency and scholasticism in the existing schools. It described itself as a ‘great vehicle’, which put forward the Bodhisattva ideal of...
Portsmouth Buddhist Center
Portsmouth Buddhist Center

The Rain of the Dharma

By viriyalila on Mon, 4 Jun, 2012 - 17:14

The Rain of the Dharma

By viriyalila on Mon, 4 Jun, 2012 - 17:14It’s been raining quite a bit in these parts the last few days… There’s a lovely parable in the Buddhist tradition from the White Lotus Sutra called the Parable of the Rain Cloud. Take a listen to “The Rain of the Dharma”, track 11, for a lovely reading of it by Sangharakshita.