Two great friends from Australia and New Zealand evoke a mythic vision of beautiful community, founded on, knit together by stories.

Stories from school, from war, from the Shambhala Buddhist tradition, from long, steady personal and communal Dharma practice. We look at how technology can make people - kids! - more courageous. And the everyday challenges when trying to develop kindness in the face of fear.

A re-definition of the heroic in the light of empathy, connection and the possibility of hopeful exemplification when imagining the future of our species.

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Check out our Dharma Toolkit space for details of all we have on offer to help you make it through the weirdness and stay inspired.

thebuddhistcentre.com/toolkit

Come meditate with us any week day!

thebuddhistcentre.com/stories/toolkit/meditation/

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Theme music by Ackport! Used with kind permission.

https://soundcloud.com/rascal-press/06-make-room-for-fun

How has the early promise of the Internet held up when it comes to new forms of global community and ways of Buddhist practice? Join us for some wonderful sharing around what community means – at least for today!

We're several weeks into lockdown and, as we continue to explore the experience of global intentional community, today's star is the Internet itself.

Our guests discuss the new online contexts for Buddhist practice, evoking the uses of imagination within transitional, liminal spaces. We riff on new emergent forms of practice and modes of engagement that are bringing our community to life in unexpected ways.

We also look at how surprisingly well the early promise of the Internet seems to have held up – and the potential consequences for how we conceive of and organise communities, especially when also dealing with the grief and the losses involved when the world is re-made through crisis.

Join us for some wonderful sharing around what community means – at least for today!

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Check out our Dharma Toolkit space for details of all we have on offer to help you make it through the weirdness and stay inspired.

thebuddhistcentre.com/toolkit

Come meditate with us any week day!

thebuddhistcentre.com/stories/toolkit/meditation/

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Theme music by Ackport! Used with kind permission.

https://soundcloud.com/rascal-press/06-make-room-for-fun

This week we are celebrating the anniversary of the birth of Doctor B. R. Ambedkar, one of the great Buddhist leaders of modern times and the radical father of the Indian Constitution. Today's episode of the Toolkit Daily focusses on what it means to be a global community and explores Dr. Ambedkar's vision of common humanity based around the evolution of just societies.

Our guests, Arun Bodh and Dayamudra, are from Jai Bhim International and Lokuttara Leadership Academy, two charities based between Kerala, India and San Francisco, USA. Their wonderful collaboration brings Dr. Ambedkar's vision to bear on educating girls and boys in English, and in Buddhist principles that serve social justice. Their students from the Dalit community (still regarded as "Untouchable" by the caste system in India) are enabled to become leaders in their own communities, breaking the cycle of institutional prejudice in their own lives and in those of many others.

A moving testament to how, even in the midst of crisis, worlds can be changed through consistent, simple generous acts, one person at a time.

Find out about Jai Bhim International and donate:

http://jaibhiminternational.org

The Lokuttara Leadership Academy:

https://www.lokuttaraleadership.org

The Blossom Projects (girls' education):

https://www.blossomprojects.org

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Check out our Dharma Toolkit space for details of all we have on offer to help you make it through the weirdness and stay inspired.

thebuddhistcentre.com/toolkit

Come meditate with us any week day!

thebuddhistcentre.com/stories/toolkit/meditation/

***

Theme music by Ackport! Used with kind permission.

https://soundcloud.com/rascal-press/06-make-room-for-fun

Abhayavajra loves painting. He loves paint itself. And sees himself more like an archaeologist, revealing something urgent and crucial about the human condition by adding rather than scraping away layers.

A totally delightful conversation about the quest to integrate and unite Dharma practice with the steady, disciplined practice of an art form. We discuss how appreciating beauty itself is like a healing force at times of stress; and how art itself can be a properly adequate response to suffering in the kind of reality we are all taking part in.

Encompassing the plasticity of paint itself; the inter-relationship between colour and form; and the presence of blossom and bare branches in a sense of beauty felt all year round. This is a magic window into how we can meet the challenges of our time by holding to our deepest sources of inspiration.

Visit Monet's water lilies (Les Nymphéas) online:

https://www.musee-orangerie.fr/en/node/152

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Check out our Dharma Toolkit space for details of all we have on offer to help you make it through the weirdness and stay inspired.

thebuddhistcentre.com/toolkit

Come meditate with us any week day!

thebuddhistcentre.com/stories/toolkit/meditation/

***

Theme music by Ackport! Used with kind permission.

https://soundcloud.com/rascal-press/06-make-room-for-fun

Communities of all kinds all over the world have been facing up to the huge economic impact of Covid-19 and the ongoing lockdown. In the Triratna Buddhist Community this has meant financial stress at Buddhist Centres and an urgent need for help navigating the next few months, which will be crucial to the survival of many Centres, large and small.

Enter our two guests! Amalavajra and Danayutta are two former investment bankers, now working hard to support Buddhist communities in their hour of need. While offering immediate support to folk looking to weather the storm, their message to everyone is about moving towards a bold sense of responsibility when it comes to fundraising - one that is confident and clear about giving people the opportunity to help out and protect valued services. Both in a time of crisis, and in the years ahead.

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Check out our Dharma Toolkit space for details of all we have on offer to help you make it through the weirdness and stay inspired.

thebuddhistcentre.com/toolkit

Come meditate with us any week day!

thebuddhistcentre.com/stories/toolkit/meditation/

***

Theme music by Ackport! Used with kind permission.

https://soundcloud.com/rascal-press/06-make-room-for-fun

A mythic sense of things is never far away in today's conversation about radical imagination: at the most intimate levels of close, personal friendship; and also culturally, historically, politically, and spiritually as we try to meet the moment of crisis to which we are all witnesses.

With Viveka and Upayadhi we discuss taking cues from anticipatory communities who deal with systemic suffering every day, and who have stored up effective responses to some of the issues we are all now facing. The questions that arise are themselves hopeful:

How do we love each other back into life when we stand in a place that feels almost impossible? How do we make actual the vision of a just, loving world? And how can we imagine that as the simplest thing rather than as the most difficult?

A great, encouraging conversation from New York City and San Francisco, where the words of Grace Lee Boggs, activist and American revolutionary, ring out:

"A revolution that is based on the people exercising their creativity in the midst of devastation, is one of the great historical contributions of humankind."

We close today's episode with a minute's silent meditation.

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Check out our Dharma Toolkit space for details of all we have on offer to help you make it through the weirdness and stay inspired.

https://thebuddhistcentre.com/toolkit

Come meditate with us any week day!

https://thebuddhistcentre.com/stories/toolkit/meditation/

***

Theme music by Ackport! Used with kind permission.

https://soundcloud.com/rascal-press/06-make-room-for-fun

What has Buddhism got to say about the growing levels of inequality in many societies? What would a society based on Buddhist values look like? This talk is Vajragupta's personal response to "The Spirit Level", by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, a book about inequality that made a big impact when it was first published in 2009.

This talk was given at the Croydon Buddhist Centre in February 2020.

As part of our week-long Home Retreat on 'Sailing the Worldly Winds - A Buddhist Way Through the Ups and Downs of Life', we are delighted to host here for a live online Q & A, Vajragupta the author and Dharma teacher behind the retreat itself.

A great, wide-ranging and practical discussion about what this classic Buddhist teaching has to say to us about caring for ourselves and each other during the current coronavirus / Covid-19 pandemic. And what communities can do to try and make sure the world does not simply forget all that's being learned when the crisis is finally over.

Topics discussed are:

Naming the worldly winds in your own way

Gain and loss at the heart of change

Where does fear come in?

What can you do when the winds are blowing strongly? Spaciousness and reflection

Considering pleasure and pain as the basis of all the winds; each of the pairs as possible root factors; fame and celebrity

Poem - 'This is the time to be slow' by John O'Donohue

The place of beauty in our response

The intimacy of care for others - engaging as fully as we can

Working with hyperactive thought processes (papanca) in meditation

No expectations, only possibilities - control and influence in relation to the worldly winds

Connections between the five hindrances in meditation and the worldly winds

Joy and pain are woven fine - potentially hopeful aspects around the consequences of the pandemic

Human beings forget very easily - the urgent value of commuinity and conditions as a context for remembering what matters

Final thoughts on keeping your practice going

Check out our Dharma Toolkit space for details of all we have on offer to help you make it through the weirdness and stay inspired.

https://thebuddhistcentre.com/toolkit

Come meditate with us any week day!

https://thebuddhistcentre.com/stories/toolkit/meditation/

***

Theme music by Ackport! Used with kind permission.

https://soundcloud.com/rascal-press/06-make-room-for-fun

An emergency appeal from us to you, dear friends. Will you help?

The humanitarian crisis unfolding in India is of a scale that can seem overwhelming. It is understandable that, in the midst of our own undoubted trouble, we may wish to turn away. Perhaps we may even feel a sense of hopelessness. But when you listen to our guests from the Karuna Trust and the India Dhamma Trust, the moral force of their work is itself a bright example of the best kind of human response to suffering.

Working with 50+ NGOs on the ground in India and Nepal, the Karuna Trust has set itself the aim of raising £200,000 in 6 weeks. This money will enable local people to alleviate immediate food shortages affecting 300-400 million day-labourers left without work or money after the sudden lockdown. In this episode, we hear about amazing work going on in densely packed slums right now that you could support from wherever you are. And how your donation will bolster the longterm planning that's already happening to set up conditions for dealing with the aftermath of it all. Help Karuna's partners in India rebuild broken lives.

If you do one thing this weekend, please hear this appeal marked by proper urgency and surprising hope. Witness how we can all make a difference, even when things are as tough as they are.

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Give now to the Karuna Trust and help some of the poorest people in India: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/karuna-coronavirus-appeal/

Donate to the India Dhamma Trust and their work to support the highest dignity and freedom for all:

https://indiadhammatrust.org/donate/

Support FutureDharma: transforming lives around the world:

https://futuredharma.org

Check out our Dharma Toolkit space for details of all we have on offer to help you make it through the weirdness and stay inspired.

www.thebuddhistcentre.com/toolkit

Come meditate with us any week day!

thebuddhistcentre.com/stories/toolkit/meditation/

***

Theme music by Ackport! Used with kind permission:

https://soundcloud.com/rascal-press/06-make-room-for-fun

Dr. Paramabandhu Groves is the co-author with Dr. Jed Shamel of 'Mindful Emotion - A Short Course in Kindness', and the pioneering spirit behind the Breathing Space project in London. Using mindfulness-based cognitive therapy he specialises in recovery work with those suffering from long-term depression and addiction issues.

As you might expect from someone who has lived for 30+ years in Dharma-centred community, Paramabandhu has also turned to developing resources for mental health based around core Buddhist practices designed to cultivate radical kindness (mettā). His practical, courses in Kindness Behaviour Training have broken new ground in the mindfulness field, and in this episode we get to hear the story of how they developed.

A lovely conversation about great, quietly compassionate effort - and about his books that capture the fruits of this for everyone to access.

Buy 'Mindful Emotion - A Short Course in Kindness': https://www.windhorsepublications.com/product/mindful-emotion-a-short-course-in-kindness/

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Check out our Dharma Toolkit space for details of all we have on offer to help you make it through the weirdness and stay inspired.

https://thebuddhistcentre.com/toolkit/

Come meditate with us any week day!

https://thebuddhistcentre.com/stories/toolkit/meditation/

***

Theme music by Ackport! Used with kind permission.

https://soundcloud.com/rascal-press/06-make-room-for-fun