In Triratna, learning to understand what is truly beautiful is seen as a path to Enlightenment itself. In this episode we find ourselves exploring this in an unexpected and extraordinary way at the seat of all Buddhist paths and myths, Bodh Gaya in India. Not far from the bodhi tree, where the Buddha’s great achievement is said to have taken place, you’ll find us deep in conversation with visitiing leaders from the Dublin Buddhist Centre about their vision of building a Buddhist retreat centre in Eire: a realm of beauty and a fitting home for distinctively Irish Dharma practice in the heart of County Clare.

We hear about the retreat centre’s name Shubha Vihara—The Place of Beauty—and how it sits alongside the legendary mythic names, spaces and stories of Ireland, before and after St. Patrick. We meet Brigid, Cuchulain (Setanta), and Fionn mac Cumhail as he catches the Salmon of Knowledge; and visit in our imagination Lough Derg, the ancient passage tomb of Newgrange, and the Hill of Tara—crowning place for the High Kings of Ireland. All while exploring aspects of Christianity’s impact on the country’s pagan spiritual history, and the role of positive warrior culture as it manifests and is transformed in both Buddhist and Irish contexts. 

It’s hard work building magic spaces and the team give us a glimpse into what’s involved on the ground trying to transmute spreadsheets and fundraising calls into the magic of genuine community, alive with deep possibilities, where practice is—somehow—palpably rooted in the native earth and energies of a specific land and a society ready for change.

Join us for an inspiring episode for the ages about a distinctively Buddhist contirbution to Irish culture. 

As a bonus, we close this conversation with a recitation of the traditional Buddhist ethical precepts rendered into Gaelic. Beautiful indeed!

Show Notes

Support the creation of Shubha Vihara, the Irish Triratna Retreat Centre

Explore key stories from Irish mythology

Dublin Buddhist Centre

The Windhorse Trust

FutureDharma Fund

***

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Enter Hinterland sober bar, “the realm beyond what’s known”… And meet founders Sanghadhara and Stephen Jeffreys in their cosy, cool, poetic, liminal space for a cocktail and meaningful conversation about how Buddhism and the Dharma can inform modern culture—and people’s social lives—in new ways. 

Hinterland has been a passion project from the start. And on this busy Friday evening on one of the busiest nights of the year in one of the hippest areas of Manchester, UK, we hear that passion come pouring through as we discuss ethical work in 2025; and how anyone can impact society by building an entrepreneurial business that is also a commercially counter-cultural social enterprise. 

For any building makeover heads out there, we hear how transformative interior and graphic design can express some of our deepest values. And, of course in a sober bar, how the look and feel of a social space can also support recovery through helping us shift how we perceive and experience the world—with no alcohol required.

It’s clear talking with Stephen and Sanghadhara that working together can both challenge and enhance a personal friendship, taking it to the next level. And in terms of specifically Buddhist practice, what an amazing testing ground Hinterland has been for the work of attending to their mental states and trying to serve the happiness of others with their energies and their work.

Join us over sophisticated hemp and root spirits and delicious vegan food to explore how a bar that attempts to blend an industrial aesthetic with animist sensibilities (through the lens of Japanese minimalism) can be a ground for depth of connection, art and Dharma. And how a drink with friends or strangers can open up a way into new possibilities in our lives when we have that sense of wanting to change…

This celebratory tale of inspired Buddhist practice is the perfect podcast to help you rekindle your own new year’s resolutions. Cheers! 🍸🍹

Hinterland Bar (Instagram)

Wholesome Junkies (Instagram)

The Pathfinder (Non-Alcoholic Spirit)

The Tale of Tipus’ Tiger (podcast episode)

Dark Mountain Manifesto: “The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world full stop. Together, we will find the hope beyond hope, the paths which lead to the unknown world ahead of us.”

Eight Step Recovery: Using the Buddha’s Teachings to Overcome Addiction

50ml Pathfinder Hemp and Root Non-Alcoholic Distilled Spirit 

20ml Santa Syrup (apple and cinnamon syrup, make your own if you like!)

10ml Lemon juice 

Top (75-100ml) with ginger beer

Optional splash of sparkling water

Fill a hurricane glass with ice

Add Pathfinder, Santa syrup, ginger beer and then sparkling water.

Garnish with mini candy cane… 

See the Santa’s Slaay cocktail for presentation ideas… ✨

***

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Home Retreats help us inject some of the powerful teachings of the Buddha directly into our everyday lives. This week we’re joined by Balajit, Singhashri and Viveka to talk about what lies behind their latest week-long collaborative venture with The Buddhist Centre [Live] - the enigmatically titled ‘The Three Bodies of Belonging’. 

In this episode we dive into the the traditional Buddhist teaching / images / metaphors / experiences of the three kayas (‘bodies’): Dharmakaya, Samboghakaya and Nirmanakaya. These are correlated respectively, via Urygyen Sangharakshita’s reading of the Tibetan yogi and mystic Milarepa, with human mind, speech and physical body. The discussion that arises out of this takes in not just what it means to belong - but also questions of longing: what the heart yearns for, how we conceive of liberation itself via an embodied and relational approach to Awakening.

We explore what individuality and collectivity look and feel like in the light of the trikaya - how the whole of the teaching is pointing to human potential where we have the same faculties, senses, heart, body and mind as the Buddha and everyone else who has ever trodden this path. In that sense, like Buddhism at its best, it’s a profoundly hopeful, healing conversation requiring honesty, vulnerability and a new perspective on ‘self’, ‘other’ and our relationships in the face of the universe.

How do we change our stories to allow for genuine and profoundly transformative connection in a suffering world? How might we resource ourselves to blow open wide our own “window of tolerance” for whatever arises in life and become beings with a boundless heart? Join us on the Home Retreat - live or after the fact - to discover with other seekers the luminous and boundless possibilities beyond trauma, fear, anxiety, heartbreak and all that holds us back from a true sense of belonging.

N.B. The audio quality in some parts of this recording were affected by a poor connection at times.

Show Notes

🧘 Join us live for ‘The Three Bodies of Belonging’ Home Retreat (October 25-31 2024)

👥 Staci Haines - Exploring Trauma and Resilience in the Body

👥 Prentis Hemphill - Embodiment and Community

📖 ‘Mending Wall’ by Robert Frost (‘Good fences make good neighbors.’)

🎧 ‘The Inconceivable Emancipation - Themes from the Vimalakirti Nirdesha’ (lecture series by Sangharakshita)

🎧 The Sangha or Buddhist Community by Sangharakshita

🧘 Forces for Good: Challenging Emotions as Portals to Liberation (Home Retreat to do anytime!)

🧘 Explore the archive of Home Retreat on The Buddhist Centre Online 

***

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Mandarava has always been a maker. Her way into puppetry came initially through trying to make sense of deep family grief. Mandarava’s work is brimful of magic - filtered through fairy tales, her own deep immersion in illustrative art and the realm of stories accompanying long-cherished images, both from childhood and her further adventures as a grown-up. We hear about her exploration of female figures from the Buddhist and other mythic traditions, including the resonances between old mythologies and certain kinds of visualisation meditations that feature imagery representing a rich seam of possibilities for transcendent Buddhist practice.

Aryajit, animator extraordinaire, was inspired as a boy by Star Wars’ retelling of classic mythology. It was a major influence on his deciding to live out the Buddhist path as “the adventure of my life”; and to help make the tradition new in his own work animating many aspects of that path. His work appears extensively on The Buddhist Centre Online, explaining and evoking in brilliant ways both the nuances of the Dharma and the life of the Buddha as a set of nested myths and stories that still resonate today when re-presented in this way. Watch any of his animations (see the show notes below!) and you can feel his own quietly passionate heart in the work. 

Prasannavira from The Windhorse Trust was instrumental in helping fund Aryajit’s new animated series, ‘The Legend of the Buddha’. We talk about helping shape a Buddhist context to fund creators and innovators. And how bringing up his own children within a broadly Buddhist culture informed by classic stories and images has helped him as a parent. We also hear about Prasannavira’s own trove of mythic reference points, including Studio Ghibli’s ‘The Tale of the Princess Kaguya’. And about his early days as a Buddhist in London, profoundly affected by modern evocations (inspired by Tibetan tradition) of the great guru Padmasambhava.

There’s so much to enjoy in these thoughtful exchanges: from the legacy of classic British children’s television and theatre to the life of the imagination itself. We explore how stories can help us work with past trauma to figure out a realistic path through life in relation to our ideals. And the connections between new work in animation, illustration, puppetry, drawing and painting and established traditions of folk and classical Buddhist art (from India, China, Japan and elsewhere). Whether it’s the value of dramatization, theatre and ritual for evoking the best of Buddhism, or how being “good” at art isn’t the point - everything flows in this fun episode about how to never lose touch with the sense of wonder and creativity we have as kids, and need now more than ever.

Show Notes

Home Retreats by Mandarava and Nagasiddhi (with original puppetry and set design):

🎬 The Myth of Innana (including silhouette storytelling)

🖥️ In the Footsteps of the Buddha (puppet storytelling each day in session 2)

—

Aryajit’s animation work: 

🎬 Guide to the Buddhist Path (Legend of Buddha)  

🖥️ Discover Buddhism   

🎬 Letting Go of Fear   

🖥️ Follow Aryajit on Substack  |  🎗️Support Aryajit’s ‘Legend of the Buddha’ project!

—

Star Wars: 

🎨 Original concept art by Ralph McQuarrie    

Source myth and legend: 🖥️ Overview  |  🎬 The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell  | 🖥️ George Lucas on the mythology of Star Wars

Star Wars model making: 🖥️ Overview  |  🎨 Image gallery  |  🎬 Industrial Light and Magic model makers (documentary)

—

Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin (Bagpuss | Ivor the Engine | The Clangers): 

🖥️ The History of Smallfilms  |  🎬 A Life in Smallfilms (documentary)

—

The Wombles:  

📚 Books by Elizabeth Beresford (illustrated by Margaret Gordon)  |  🎬  Watch the animated series 

—

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya by Isao Takahata (Studio Ghibli): 

🎬 Japanese trailer  |  US trailer (dubbed)

🎧 The Procession of Celestial Beings (from 'The Tale of Princess Kaguya')

—

Lottie Reiniger animation: 

🖥️ The Art of Lottie Reiniger  (The Metropolitan Museum, NY) 

🎬 Silhouette Animation: The Genius of Lotte Reiniger (video lecture by Nannina Gilder)

—

Other sources of inspiration:

🖥️ Illustrator John Bauer and Princess Tuvstarr (Cottongrass)

🖥️ Buddha: Japanese manga series by Osamu Tezuka

🖥️ The Lincoln Imp

🎬 Blending indigenous Mexican culture in retelling the Tibetan Book of the Dead

🎨 The work of Alison Harper

🎨 The Impermanence of Everyone: In Studio With Buddhist Artist Hugh Mendes (Paramabodhi)

🎨 Buddhist art by Aloka

📖 The Artist and the Sangha by Aloka

🖥️ Padmasambhava and other Buddha and Bodhisattva figures

🎬 Bedknobs and Broomsticks (Walt Disney):  Trailer   |   Excerpt

—

Podcasts episodes on the life of the imagination: 

🎧 The Many Jewels: Buddhism, Writing and the Arts

🎧 The Heart of Imagination in Buddhism with Vishvapani and Amitajyoti

🎧 Mindfulness and Imagination with Vidyamala and Vishvapani

—

With grateful thanks to:

🖥️ The Windhorse Trust

🖥️ FutureDharma Fund

***

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W.B. YeatsThese days, mindfulness is everywhere. How can engaging with images - with imagination itself - take our awareness deeper and help us connect with something truly transformative? Join our guests Vishvapani and Amitajyoti to explore how a Buddhist perspective on consciousness can help move us towards a life touched more fully by a sense of creativity and freedom. 

In this episode, we look at imagination within the framework of Triratna’s system of practice, an approach to Buddhism that represents a naturally unfolding process of experience emerging from the dedicated cultivation of awareness and kindness:

Each stage here is a doorway to a more creative realm that we can access whatever our circumstances. 

We also evoke the place of nature as intertwined with the life of the imagination. Resonance, empathy, connection with the world around us - with practice, these qualities in experience can be sustained as a flowing, organic, enriching state of being. 

The hopeful, practical vision here - the efficacy of cultivating a heart of imagination - can give us the confidence to allow our images, symbols and myths to open us up to new ways of living.

Enlightenment is the state of irreversible creativity

Urgyen Sangharakshita

Show Notes

🧘 Join us live for the ‘Heart of Imagination’ Home Retreat (or catch up later!)

📖 W. B. Yeats, ‘The Symbolism of Poetry’

🎧 Listen to talks on the system of practice in Triratna

🖥️ Vishvapani is a writer, broadcaster and mindfulness teacher with over four decades’ years experience of Buddhist practice

🖥️ Amitajyoti is a visual artist and a teacher of art and mindfulness with over 30 years experience of Buddhist and art practice.

🧘 ’Mindfulness and Imagination' Home Retreat with Vidyamala and Vishvapani (2023)

***

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Podcast episode image by Amitajyoti

Ever since his introduction to Buddhism in 1976, Mahamati has been attracted to collective, collaborative contexts. He was, from the start, delighted to find a group of people with whom he could live his whole life, practising and working together with a vision for the transformation of both self and the world. This has long characterized his relationship with the Triratna Buddhist Order and with its founding teacher, Urgyen Sangharakshita, whose lecture The Meaning of Spiritual Community ignited something magic in Mahamati’s life that continues to find new expression today.

This vision of transformation is what Mahamati will be bringing to a major role in our community as Chair of the College of Public Preceptors, starting in November 2024. Mahamati speaks about Triratna’s primary mission - and his own spiritual life - in terms of responding to suffering in the world and a vision of ‘transcendent happiness’. Understanding what that might mean - and how that works, both at an individual level and at the level of serving a spiritual community - is key. 

We hear about the many-layered role of the College of Public Preceptors: its central role in welcoming new members into the Order, upholding an established lineage of practice (particularly after the death of Sangharakshita in 2018), and addressing ethical issues. What shines through most is the deeply personal lifelong connection that marks ordination into our particular community; how people are transformed through a shared sense of common project ready to meet the challenges and sorrows of the world. Happiness and the potential for it is never far away throughout the conversation as Mahamati unfolds his own sense of how that initial act of commitment - choosing to become a Buddhist - blossoms and fruits over time into a path of service and of responsibility capable of changing a life in quite profound ways.

An encouraging, inspired evocation of the opportunities to serve that light up a life lived on the Buddhist path.

Show Notes

🖥️ The Triratna College of Public Preceptors (website)

🎧 Listen to more talks from Mahamati on Free Buddhist Audio

🎧 The Meaning of Spiritual Community

🎧 The Six Distinctive Emphases of the FWBO by Sangharakshita

🖥️ Addressing criticism of Triratna 

🎧 Listen to talks on The Greater Mandala

🎧 Listen to evocations of Manushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom

***

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We are sitting in an East End art studio talking about death. The London tube rolls by outside, surfacing momentarily from tunnels dark as Hades, trundling its occupants inexorably on to somewhere. You can hear at intervals its soothing, almost womb-like background rumble and hush as a reminder of sorts - fitting sound as backdrop to this conversation with Buddhist artist Hugh Mendes, whose celebrated series ‘Obituaries’ we are exploring in a new online ‘Story’ space: ‘The Impermanence of Everyone’.

Far from being grim or at all didactic, these canvases light us up when we see them: whether with recognition of a famous face; startled apprehension that this is the artist’s dead father not long after the moment of death; or fascination at the mysterious techniques of oil painting and how on earth it survives and thrives as a medium in the contemporary art world.

Mendes - ordained Buddhist name, Paramabodhi (“Supreme Enlightenment“) - loves painting, loves meditating, and loves teaching both. His practice - as artist and Buddhist - is fused in the ongoing contemplation of impermanence as a core aspect of whatever it is we mean when we say “reality”.  Equally at ease immersing himself in the Satipatthana Sutta, with its exercises contemplating the decomposition of our own body as a corpse, or becoming deeply absorbed in the physical act of painting for hours on end every day, Mendes is usually in touch with something both intimate and detailed, vast and universal.

We hear about his time teaching art in in San Francisco, where he also co-founded the San Francisco Buddhist Center in the city’s Mission District. His years of training and counter-cultural experiment at Chelsea Art school in the 1970s, where he booked the Sex Pistols for one of their first ever gigs. And his return to London following the death of his father to focus on art practice and, latterly, public Buddhist teaching at the London Buddhist Centre. 

We also discuss the challenges for both Buddhism and art of reaching a more diverse group of people - finding ways to cross class, racial, gender and financial boundaries. One of Mendes’ great heroes in this is the Indian Buddhist leader and author of the Indian Constitution, Dr. Bimrao Ambedkar. It’s fascinating to watch the artist very much at home in his studio, surrounded by inspirational figures mythic and human, all looking back at him as he tries to capture both their own versions of themselves and our culture’s gaze as they exit life and are being memorialized. We get to dwell with Mendes as he continues his decades-long meditation on the elusive nature of selfhood and identity that slips in and out of light and shadow yet may - sometimes - be beautifully and usefully reflected in the eye of the beholder.

The Impermanence of Everyone: In Studio With Buddhist Artist Hugh Mendes (Paramabodhi)

 + Follow Hugh Mendes on Instagram

Visit Hugh Mendes’ website

Satipatthana Sutta: The Foundations of Mindfulness

Find out more about Dr. Ambedkar

***

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Kamalashila is dying. So are we - we are dying. Really. 

In this recent conversation with Kamalashila following his diagnosis of terminal cancer - and in the closing guided meditation reflecting on death - this is the core theme to which we keep returning: the value of familiarising ourselves with our impermanence: dying and death are going to happen to every single one of us. As Kamalashila says, “Taking it out of the taboo cupboard”.

We hear Kamalashila’s perspective starting out on what he refers to in his cancer blog as “A Voyage into the Unknown”. What it’s like to be in relationship to other people’s responses as he himself comes to terms with what’s happening. What he is carrying with him by way of reflections on a path of Buddhist practice, regrets in relationship to his own Dharma life and community, and thoughts on the nature of sangha itself.  Exploring how, as Buddhists, as humans, we can work effectively with the intimations of our own mortality that are there if we only choose to look.

We revisit the themes of previous conversations: modes of Buddhist practice and ways of seeing community; the effect of landscape as a space of practice; the ongoing life of a particular spiritual context (the Triratna Buddhist Order) and his sense of sometimes being “a square peg in a round hole” within it. We hear Kamalashila’s sense of Triratna’s history, its up and downs, its many gifts, its changes for better or worse, its historical dynamics, its tensions and contradictions - all with a temperamental leaning towards personal agency in practice, trust in community, and finding unity through diversity. 

The exchanges here are grounded in Kamalashila’s present experience - but his thoughts on the past are naturally part of it. And as anyone who knows him might expect, we are never too far from his sense of depth connection to the importance of playful, curious, committed meditation practice and teaching, one of the great loves of his 50+ years as a Buddhist. Whether he’s talking about life back in the London of his childhood or the nature of agnosticism in relation to the teaching of Padmasambhava, Kamalashila is always a good companion in attending to what matters.

This is a fascinating and generous hour of engaged conversation - followed by a beautiful 20 minute gently guided reflection on how our bodies and our consciousness (parsed by Kamalashila as “manifesting a world”) might, in time, come into relationship with our own dying and death.

Follow ‘A Voyage into the Unknown’: a blog by Kamalashila

Online classes and retreats with Kamalashila (with teaching archive)

Read Kamalashila’s thoughts on his diagnosis and upcoming meditation teaching

Some previous podcast conversations with Kamalashila:

Kamalashila's Quarterly No.1

Kamalashila's Quarterly No.2 - On Landscape And Experiment

Kamalashila's Quarterly No.3 - On Gonzo Psychogeography and New Beginnings

The Magic Of Meditation with Kamalashila

Parami & Kamalashila Talk About Meditation

Satyaraja and Kamalashila Talk About Meditation

Other links:

Read free digital editions of ‘Crap, I’ve Got Cancer’ by Suvarnaprabha

Amitasuri on her work as a Buddhist chaplain

Watch Seamus Heaney reading his poem ‘Mint’

***

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In this latest episode of the Buddhist Centre podcast, we are delighted to welcome back Tejananda, one of the most experienced meditation teachers within the Triratna Buddhist Community. Tejananda will be bringing insights from decades of practice to his upcoming Home Retreat on The Buddhist Centre Live, ‘Emptiness and Compassion: The Divine Abodes’, starting March 29th. 

The retreat is part of a trilogy (so far!) exploring the Buddhist concept and experience of ‘emptiness’ (shunyata - pointing to the lack of an “objectively” fixed essence or selfhood in anything). This time around we are approaching the great field of contemplation and reflection from the meditative perspective of the 'divine abodes' (brahma viharas)—unconditional love, compassion, joy, and equanimity–all seen as pathways to liberating the mind. By cultivating these beautiful qualities, Tejananda says, we can find a larger context for our afflictive emotions—craving, hatred, and ignorance—and in the process gradually find unveiled the uncultivated, unlimited, and unconditional nature of them as ways to engage with ourselves, with other beings and with reality itself. 

Tejananda is interested in a non-abstract, earthed, experiential relationship to ‘emptiness', and in the transformative power of compassion for our consciousness. The ensuing conversation opens a seam of truly rich material: from constructed realities (yes, we talk about the Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest) to how we can work with difficult emotions, to the relief of resting in a developing experience that we are fundamentally okay. Even as we are all subject to impermanence in the luminous emptiness of this reality, “Let there be unconditional love” is Tejananda’s quietly encouraging rallying call. 

This is a fascinating glimpse into the work waiting for us when we close our eyes in meditation, experience more fully sensed and in potentially higher resolution than any fancy-pants headset can render!

🧘 Reserve your place on ‘Emptiness and Compassion: The Divine Abodes' with Tejananda and friends

Like all our Home Retreats Tejananda’s week-long meditation event is designed to support you in exploring in-depth Buddhist practices and teachings in your own time - during the live retreat or at any time after in the archive.

Visit our Home Retreat spaces

Listen to ‘Meditating in the Mandala’, a previous episode with Tejananda about Triratna’s System of Practice

‘Being Divine Online’ - a Home Retreat space with Ratnavandana on the Brahma Viharas

Home Retreat spaces with Paramananda and Bodhilila focussed on the body in meditation: 

‘The Alchemical Heart’

‘The Myth of Meditation’

Paramananda’s books on Buddhism and meditation from Windhorse Publications

‘Forces for Good – Challenging Emotions as Portals to Liberation’ with Balajit, Singhashri and Viveka

‘Entering the Mandala: Mindfulness and Imagination’ with Vidyamala and Vishvapani

***

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Join us for a ‘90s story of inspired Buddhist practice in Missoula, Montana - of great friendship, fierce love, burnout and life lessons learned in the fire of idealism and spiritual adventure. There’s nothing quite like going through a big experience together - and Tipu’s was a very big one for so many people as a new Buddhist community took root in the United States.

Founders Buddhapalita and Varada witness to the joys, trials, sacrifices and lasting consequences of starting the first (east) Indian restaurant and explicitly ethical Buddhist ‘Right Livelihood’ business in a small midwestern city. Old friends and colleagues, Aryadrishti and Viriiylila, bring their own accounts of fortitude, loss, abandonment and resolution to the reunion. Grief and cherishing, naivety and wisdom go hand in hand as we hear the tale of Tipu’s Tiger and how much it still means all these years later.

Listen to this beautifully, sometimes achingly, resonant conversation about the good that survives long after a shared project has fallen away. Listen closely, hang onto the tail of the tiger, and you can still almost taste the best chai and channa this side of Mumbai…

Recorded in Ahuatepec, Mexico, October 2023.

Tipu's Chai (the legacy business, no longer owned by Buddhapalita and Varada)

Wolf Water Resources (Aryadrishti's subsequent ethical engineering business)

This week’s guests

Aryadrishti

Buddhapalita

Varada

Viriyalila

***

Visit The Buddhist Centre Live (events year-round on Buddhism, mindfulness, meditation, and culture)

Come meditate with us online six days a week!

Theme music by Ackport! Used with kind permission.