Buddhist Voices
Buddhist Voices

Fifty Years, Fifty Voices: Manidhamma (Highlights)

By Zac on Wed, 8 Jun, 2022 - 11:25
The impact of Bhante’s visit was so great that I decided to give up my pilot’s career and go for training towards becoming an Order member…

Manidhamma’s Annals

In 1968 I was not yet born in this world. I was born after three years (1971) in a hamlet, Waghnath situated by confluence of the rivers Pus and Ship in central India. My parents were living a life of hardship and poverty, bonded labourers in the prevalent caste based social system of discrimination and...

Buddhist Voices
Buddhist Voices

Prasadacarin: Friendship and the Path of Responsibility (Full Interview)

By Zac on Sat, 4 Jun, 2022 - 11:17

Padmapani is my Yidam, two-armed Avalokitesvara… I came from a Pureland Mahayana tradition so I wanted all of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas to be part of my practice, but I gradually narrowed down… Avalokitesvara gave the Heart Sutra and bit by bit it became clear that, ‘Well, it’s just a question of how many arms!


When Prasadacarin’s school teacher organized a class visit to a Mahayana Buddhist temple in Stockholm, Sweden, he did not imagine his encounter with the Dharma...

Buddhist Voices
Buddhist Voices

50 Years, 50 Voices: Amritavani (Highlights)

By Zac on Sat, 4 Jun, 2022 - 10:55

School runs every day, tantrums, tears (from me as well!)… Family life can be a messy life!



Amritavani’s Annals
In 1968 I was not yet born into this world.

In 1978 I was 3 years old and during this year my family moved from North Wales to Devon. My dad was in his early 20s and we moved as he found a new job in a shoe shop in Exeter.

In 1988 I was 13 years old. I was living in Exmouth in...

Buddhist Voices
Buddhist Voices

50 Years, 50 Voices: Shraddhavajri (Highlights)

By Zac on Sat, 21 May, 2022 - 15:57

I say to ‘Padmasambhava, ‘You don’t have a body—I have a body… Use my body, and I’ll use your energy.
 

Shraddhavajri’s Annals
In 1988, I was about six or seven years old, living in Modinagar with my parents, three elder sisters and two brothers. I studied and enjoyed life with my family and relatives. My father taught us the Precepts and every Sunday it was compulsory to chant them with my family and other brothers and sisters. My...

Buddhist Voices
Buddhist Voices

Vessantara - Finding Deeper and Deeper Reservoirs of Energy (Full Interview)

By Zac on Fri, 20 May, 2022 - 19:05

Things have changed in the last 10 years or so. A lot of it was just building on what I’d received from Bhante and other Order Members and other people… over the years. But I think, for me, it feels as if those three years with all that time to completely focus on the Dharma did sort of liberate things or bring to fruition a lot of seeds that had been planted by Bhante and other people over a long

...
Buddhist Voices
Triratna@50

50 Years, 50 Voices: Buddhadasa (Highlights)

By Zac on Thu, 12 May, 2022 - 17:08

I think it began for me when I was 8 years old…


 

Buddhadasa’s Annals
In 1968 - I was 25 and working as an interior designer with a firm of architects in Bloomsbury Square, London. It was the era of drawing boards and T squares and the time of transition from Imperial to Metric. It was also the year when decimalisation began to be introduced. This was my second and half-hearted attempt to establish a career having previously discharged...

Buddhist Voices
Buddhist Voices

Ratnakumar - Changing Self, Changing World (Full Interview)

By Zac on Tue, 10 May, 2022 - 17:00

I asked him, if I would go there, will I get food? And he said “Yes, obviously there will be a feast and you can have enough to eat.’ And I thought then, ’I’ll go.’

In 1998 when Ratnakumar was 13 years old, one of his cousins asked him if he’d like to go to a public meeting. That meeting just so happened to be an anniversary celebration for the birthday of Dr. Bimrao Ambedkar, the great leader of India’s Dalit community...

Buddhist Voices
Buddhist Voices

50 Years, 50 Voices: Malini (Highlights)

By Zac on Wed, 4 May, 2022 - 12:38

I have a very definite sense of something which is above and beyond mundane living, and that’s what draws me. That’s what Going for Refuge is for me.


 

Malini’s Annals
1967 - I was 17 and working as a junior secretary in the BBC Arabic service in Bush House. Here I met Ananda to be, who told me about Sakura as somewhere I could get incense however I not only got the exotic fragrance of incense but the...

Buddhist Voices
Buddhist Voices

Celebrating Dhivati - whose legacy part-funded Fifty Years, Fifty Voices

By Satyalila on Mon, 18 Jun, 2018 - 14:56

Here, Sucimani talks with me about Dhivati, whose legacy part-funded The Fifty Years, Fifty Voices Project..  Although we don’t have any recordings of Dhivati herself (a reminder to us to record while we can!), we do have a celebration of her life written by Vijayasri and her family have helped us to put together her ‘Annals’. 

Dhivati’s Annals

In 1968 Dhivati was Joyce Mumford, living in Chessington, married to Ian and mother of Bill, Liz and Julia, taking them to Quaker Meeting each...

Buddhist Voices
Buddhist Voices

Some Glimpses Into The Vision And Sometimes Messy Unfolding Of The Triratna Buddhist Order on its 50th anniversary

By Satyalila on Fri, 18 May, 2018 - 13:04

This is a talk I gave on our Sangha Night in Bristol to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Order in April.  It puts the ‘Fifty Years, Fifty Voices’ project in context alongside the Sangharakshita Complete Works and includes a sneak preview of a number of ‘voices’ from the project, including Vessantara on Bhante in the early days, Buddhadasa on the Order & Arya Sangha, Vajratara on what she loves about the Order, , Manjusvara...

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