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The Buddhist Centre

The Buddhist Centre

By: Dharmachakra
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 News, event coverage, mantras and rituals, Dharma conversations among diverse voices from the Triratna Buddhist Community around the world, keeping you up-to-date with the latest in our sangha.

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Episodes
  • 454: A Mythic Retreat Centre for Ireland: Shubha Vihara, The Place of Beauty

    454: A Mythic Retreat Centre for Ireland: Shubha Vihara, The Place of Beauty
    Mar 29 2025
    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

    ***

    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.
    Show More Show Less
    56 mins
  • 453: Hinterland Sober Bar - Brewing a New Society in 2025

    453: Hinterland Sober Bar - Brewing a New Society in 2025
    Jan 18 2025
    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! 🍸🍹

    Show Notes
    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

    Santa’s Slaay Cocktail
    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… ✨

    ***

    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.
    Show More Show Less
    50 mins
  • 452: The Three Body Solution - Healing and Belonging In Community

    452: The Three Body Solution - Healing and Belonging In Community
    Sep 27 2024
    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

    ***

    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.
    Show More Show Less
    59 mins
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