Tag: Rainy Season

Ratnavandana talks about the Living in the Mandala Retreat

By jvalamalini on Mon, 30 Mar, 2015 - 16:20

Ratnavandana talks about the Living in the Mandala Retreat

By jvalamalini on Mon, 30 Mar, 2015 - 16:20

On the last day of the 2015 Rainy Season retreat, Ratnavandana talks about how it was to lead a retreat in an urban Buddhist Centre.

Bristol Buddhist Centre

Day 6: A Puja To Ratnasambhava

By Centre Team on Tue, 24 Mar, 2015 - 22:46

Rounding off day 6 of Living In The Mandala we have another puja that steers to the deep when it comes to evoking the guardian Buddha of the moment, in this case Ratnasambhava - the Jewel-Born, archetypal Buddha of abundance, spiritual riches and the South…

Complete with flute-accompanied mantra!

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Bristol Buddhist Centre

Day 6: A Personal Take On Upekkha

By Centre Team on Mon, 23 Mar, 2015 - 21:27

Continuing the series of personal talks on each of the Brahma Viharas from the 2015 Rainy Season Retreat, 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’s 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…

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Bristol Buddhist Centre

equanimity in its ultimate sense

By jvalamalini on Mon, 23 Mar, 2015 - 13:16

It’s on account of equanimity, in its ultimate sense, that you’re balanced - even with regard to Samsara and Nirvana, even those two extremes don’t disturb you. Subject and Object are, the same - or not different, so far as you’re concerned. You are in a state of absolute equanimity or, as I have said elsewhere, you are in a state of axiality and centrality. You have reached what the Chinese mystics call ‘the unwobbling pivot of existence’. As the Mangala sutta says ‘you are one whose mind does not shake when touched by the eight Loka Dhammas.

Do you know what I mean by axiality? You feel as though you are the axis upon which everything turns though not in an egoistic sense. You are absolutely stable and unshakable, immovable, though at the same time you’re extremely mobile, even dancing all over the place. You don’t need to have your centre fixed in any particular spot. Your centre is everywhere.

(Sutta Nipata seminar 1976)
Sangharakshita

Bristol Buddhist Centre

Day 6: Guided Upekkha Bhavana Meditation (Cultivation of Equanimity)

By Centre Team on Sun, 22 Mar, 2015 - 18:59

Ratnavandana introduces and guides us through the practice of cultivating equanimity. Not a cool, detached state but a deep warm engagement with the practice of love, compassion and joy held in the perspective of the Buddha’s insights into the nature of reality itself…

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Bristol Buddhist Centre

Day 6: Guided Meditation - Sitting In The Mandala (With Ratnasambhava Mantra)

By Centre Team on Sun, 22 Mar, 2015 - 15:31

Ratnavandana introducing Day 6 of the urban retreat on the Brahma Viharas - Living In The Mandala. Today we’re sitting with the great golden Buddha of the South, archetypal Buddha of abundance and spiritual richness. A good way to start things off…

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Bristol Buddhist Centre

Day 8: meditating, rejoicing, puja to Bhante, and clear up!

By jvalamalini on Sat, 21 Mar, 2015 - 20:53

Day 8: meditating, rejoicing, puja to Bhante, and clear up!

By jvalamalini on Sat, 21 Mar, 2015 - 20:53

Late post today - it’s been a full last day.

We had our usual silent meditative morning, with more beautiful words from Ratnavandana. The shrine room felt very still as we sat with her open approach to practising with all the brahma viharas again.

After lunch - and much rejoicing in Ratnavandana, the team, and the retreat - we did a puja to Sangharakshita, ending with dismantling the central five Buddha shrine. I found it...

Bristol Buddhist Centre

Day 5: A Personal Take On Mudita by Sanghaketu

By Centre Team on Sat, 21 Mar, 2015 - 20:43

An infectiously delightful talk by Sanghaketu on the subject of joyful resonance with others (mudita). He really gets into his subject here! And his sense and experience of gladness comes across beautifully through laughter and reflection on the boon of good friends.

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Bristol Buddhist Centre

Day 5: A Puja To Amoghasiddhi

By Centre Team on Sat, 21 Mar, 2015 - 18:18

A strong, stirring puja dedicated to Amoghasiddhi, the archetypal, unstoppable green Buddha of the North. This ritual features dedicated sections and readings that call forth Amoghasiddhi’s great qualities of fearlessness as well as the magical realm he inhabits. We are also treated to words enjoining us to practise empathy and sympathetic joy (mudita) in all our relationship. This puja includes some beautiful mantra chanting and lovely verses to Green Tara, Amoghasiddhi’s consort, used to help face and overcome our fears…...

Bristol Buddhist Centre

A Note For Online Rainy Season Retreatants!

By Centre Team on Fri, 20 Mar, 2015 - 21:56

A Note For Online Rainy Season Retreatants!

By Centre Team on Fri, 20 Mar, 2015 - 21:56

Hi all,

Two reasons for this post. First, a chance to post some rather lovely spring photographs from Bristol now the retreat has come to a close. Secondly, there’s been so much good material from it that we have fallen behind on remastering all the audio for internet use. Over the weekend and through the week we’ll get the remaining days’ worth of material up - plus a few extra treats! So, in a way, the retreat...

Tag: Rainy Season

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