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The Blue Sky at the Heart of the Body (The Dharma Toolkit Daily, Episode 7)

By Centre Team on Tue, 31 Mar, 2020 - 11:04

A crucial and rather beautiful conversation about how we relate to our bodies in relative isolation. Some down-to-earth, open-hearted sharing of experience about things physical: the signs and symptoms and weathers of our bodies; the beneficial effect on our mental health of imaginative connection with other embodied beings; and the kindly wisdom in learning to see and name our actual physical experience instead of becoming lost in speculation.

We’re joined for an all Southern Hemisphere affair by Suvarnadhi from Auckland, NZ...

Windhorse Publications
Windhorse Publications

Get 15% off 'Poems and Short Stories'

By Windhorse Publi... on Tue, 25 Feb, 2020 - 16:00

Get 15% off 'Poems and Short Stories'

By Windhorse Publi... on Tue, 25 Feb, 2020 - 16:00

Here at Windhorse Publications we’re busy preparing for the release in April of the next three volumes of The Complete Works of Sangharakshita. One of these is Volume 25, Poems and Short Stories, now available for pre-order.

You may already be familiar with Sangharakshita’s Complete Poems, published in 1994. Even if you already have a copy, this new volume is worth buying, as it contains over one hundred pages of extra material:

  • all the poems Sangharakshita wrote after 1994
  • previously unpublished poems from his early years 
  • six short stories, some of them previously unpublished
  • a foreword by Padmavajra
  • a guide for the new
  • ...
Free Buddhist Audio
Free Buddhist Audio

FBA Podcast: Sangharakshita Foresees His Death In 'Padmaloka'

By Sadayasihi on Sat, 1 Feb, 2020 - 09:00

Vishvapani beautifully explores Sangharakshita’s poem ‘Padmaloka’ in which he looks forward to his own death.

It’s a poem about death, rebirth and nature, and Vishvapani connects it to other poetry which it echoes.

This talk was given a week after Sangharakshita’s death in November 2018 at Cardiff Buddhist Centre.

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Free Buddhist Audio
Free Buddhist Audio

Dharmabyte: A Measuring Worm

By Sadayasihi on Thu, 30 Jan, 2020 - 14:00

Maitreyabandhu draws out the deeper meaning and finer detail of the poem entitled A Measuring Worm, by Richard Wilbur. In the full talk entitled A New Knowledge of Reality-Buddhism and Poetry, Maitreyabandhu discusses five different poems, each around the theme of death, with the final poem focusing on spiritual rebirth.

By discussing the background of the poems and poets, the intricacies of their structure, and bringing in a Buddhist interpretation of the themes raised in...

Free Buddhist Audio
Free Buddhist Audio

Dharmabyte: Poems On Impermanence

By Sadayasihi on Mon, 27 Jan, 2020 - 14:00

A well read poem can help us deepen our understanding of Buddhist principles. Achala shares his practice of reflecting on impermanence through poetry. In this Dharmabyte we hear two poems. The first is entitled “Life” by Sangharakshita, the second entitled “Letter to a Nobleman in Kyoto” by Kukai, (774-835 CE), Japanese poet, scholar, painter, engineer, and great Buddhist teacher.

Translated into Marathi by Amitayush. Excerpted from the talk entitled Poems On...

Free Buddhist Audio
Free Buddhist Audio

Dharmabyte: Cracks in the Ice

By Sadayasihi on Thu, 26 Dec, 2019 - 14:00

This is a gem of a talk, with a wintery theme.

Parami starts by singing ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ by Christina Rossetti. She then goes on to bring out the underlying meaning of some of the imagery in the poem.

The first metaphors are about bleakness, with the earth as hard as iron and water like a stone, times when we struggle and it seems as if no growth is possible. She talks about her early experience of doing the metta bhavana and...

Western Buddhist Review
Western Buddhist Review

Harold Bloom: the Embattled Canon and the Experiential Critic

By Vishvapani on Sat, 19 Oct, 2019 - 20:26

Harold Bloom: the Embattled Canon and the Experiential Critic

By Vishvapani on Sat, 19 Oct, 2019 - 20:26

This is a guest post by Vishvapani, re-published here from an early issue of The Western Buddhist Review


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The Western Canon
By Harold Bloom
Macmillan, London 1994, pp. 567


1. Introduction: contemporary criticism’s questions and answers
What should be our central question in approaching literature? The celebrated American literary critic Harold Bloom proposes one: What is literature for? This question may sound obvious, but it is not one with...

Buddhist Centre Features
Buddhist Centre Features

Bidding Farewell to Harold Bloom

By Vishvapani on Sat, 19 Oct, 2019 - 19:09

Bidding Farewell to Harold Bloom

By Vishvapani on Sat, 19 Oct, 2019 - 19:09

Here is a new appreciation of the critic and writer Harold Bloom, who died on October 14th 2019.

Vishvapani is a writer, broadcaster and Buddhist mindfulness teacher. His writing can be found at Wise Attention.

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The sadness I feel at learning of the death, aged 89, of the great literary critic Harold Bloom, is softened only by my incredulity that he was living at all; that is, living in a modern world to which he seemed so alien....

Buddhist Centre Features
Buddhist Centre Features

Culture's Peak: An Interview with Harold Bloom by Vishvapani

By Vishvapani on Wed, 16 Oct, 2019 - 23:23

Culture's Peak: An Interview with Harold Bloom by Vishvapani

By Vishvapani on Wed, 16 Oct, 2019 - 23:23

This interview with the literary critic Harold Bloom was first published in Dharma Life, 5, Summer 1997. Harold Bloom died on October 14th 2019.

Vishvapani is a writer, broadcaster and Buddhist mindfulness teacher. His writing can be found at Wise Attention.

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When I first encountered Harold Bloom’s work, I discovered a remarkable mixture. Bloom is Professor of Humanities at Yale University, and is widely considered America’s leading literary critic. His many books combine an enormous breadth of reading...

Free Buddhist Audio
Free Buddhist Audio

Dharmabyte: The Art of Disappearing

By Sadayasihi on Mon, 2 Sep, 2019 - 14:00

How free would your life be if you gave up unreal expectations? Try to remember something too important to forget. Renunciation is where you are allowing yourself to be obedient to the call of the heart – what do you really want to say ‘yes’ to? One of her telling quotes is ” … there is no spiritual development without renunciation, and no renunciation without spiritual development …”

Saddhanandi begins this Dharmabyte with a poem by Naomi Shihab...

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