The Buddhist Centre – Details, episodes & analysis

The mind liberated from the pressure of the will is unfolded in symbols
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:

1. Integration, meaning embodied awareness.
2. Positive emotion: an open, loving and empathic heart.
3. Spiritual Death: releasing limiting attitudes, and finding a more authentic way of being.
4. Spiritual Rebirth: the realm of imagination that brings an expanded experience of ourselves and opening to a sense of mystery
5. Spiritual Receptivity: resting in the freedom of open, spacious awareness and creative flow

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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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.

Podcast episode image by Amitajyoti

Prayer to Manjushri, Bodhisattva of Wisdom
May all beings experience happiness and its causes
Be free from suffering and its causes,
Never be parted from happiness
And dwell in the condition of equanimity

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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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.

The construct of race is an integral part of Western society’s DNA and if we are to address the social injustice of racism, we need to have the race conversation. Yet all too often, attempts at such a dialogue are met with silence, denial, anger or hate.

Is it possible to navigate diverse conversations about race without confusion? Can we authentically create a culture capable of responding to the pain and discomfort caused by racism for both people of colour and white people? These questions lie at the heart of this heartfelt conversation between Bodhilila, Chair of the West London Buddhist Centre and Eugene Ellis, acclaimed author of 'The Race Conversation: An essential guide to creating life-changing dialogue’.

Eugene’s work encompasses trauma theory and the vital need to resource inner conditions in engaging with others. Exploring the Buddhist perspective of conditionality, he emphasizes the significance of intention and working with discomfort within our conversations. As Bodhilila brings to bear her own profound experiences around race, intersectionality and Dharma practice, the discussion delves deep into the race construct, examining the profound impact of prejudice, colonialism, and slavery on individuals of all races. 

The creation of safe environments where people can openly share their experiences is vital, allowing us to acknowledge the fear that can arise when engaging in these conversations. This, in turn, enables us to move past blame towards repairing relationships and alleviating the more negative forms of shame. What emerges is a passionate advocacy for personal introspection and doing the work to understand our own racial conditioning and perspectives. Only then can we take responsibility and actively seek avenues for redress and healing.

Recorded live in London, November 2022.


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Bodhilila has been meditating and practising mindfulness for over 25 years. She is a fully accredited Breathworks mindfulness trainer as well as a qualified counsellor, teacher and massage therapist. She also worked for many years as a classical musician and as a nursery manager. She is currently Chair of the West London Buddhist Centre, where she has been teaching meditation, mindfulness and Buddhism, as well as helping to run the Centre, since 2012. She regularly leads retreats for the WLBC and at Taraloka women’s retreat centre.

Eugene Ellis is an activist, writer and public speaker on issues of race, difference and intersectionality. He is also the founder and director of The Black, African and Asian Therapy Network (BAATN), a network of therapists committed, passionate and actively engaged in addressing the psychological needs of Black, African and South Asian people in the UK.

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Show notes

'The Race Conversation: An essential guide to creating life-changing dialogue’ by Eugene Eliis

The Black, African and Asian Therapy Network

Events in London and Online for People of Colour

More conversations about race in Triratna

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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.

Prajnaketu, Triratna's Young Buddhist Co-ordinator, gave the keynote talk at the 2018 'Big One', which was on the theme of 'Seek Truth, Release Life'.  His talk was entitled 'A Religious Life'.

In this conversation with Sadayasihi in the Beams on the last morning of the 'Big One' he talks about the significance for him of giving this talk as well as delving into his choice of the word 'religious' and how he has benefitted from taking part in a Karuna Appeal.

Recorded at Adhisthana, October 2018.

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For more, check out www.thebuddhistcentre.com/features

A conversation with Candradasa, Munisha, Parami and Sthanashraddha towards the end of a strong week at Adhisthana, home of Urgyen Sangharakshita, who died last week at the age of 93. We talk about our personal relationships to the founder of the Triratna Buddhist sangha over decades, and the great change his passing represents for our community. Join us online to begin saying farewell to a man whose long work for the Dharma transformed so many lives around the world for the good.

www.thebuddhistcentre.com/sangharakshita

It's the afternoon of Day 2 of the 'Big One'! Here's Caroline from Oxford and Shubhanaga from Cambridge talking about how they have been finding it and the highlights so far!

Recorded at Adhisthana, October 2018.

If you enjoyed this episode, please help us by taking a moment to rate the podcast in iTunes or your favourite app. There are so many podcasts these days it really does help people find us!

For more, check out www.thebuddhistcentre.com/features

Here's a beautiful rendition of the Shakyamuni Mantra - led by Dharmamayi from Sheffield - on the first evening of the Young Buddhists' annual gathering in Adhisthana, the 'Big One'.

Recorded after the Dedication Ceremony.

#Buddhist #Buddhism #chanting #chant #harmony #mantra

Ratnadharini and Shantigarbha give an excellent, practical introduction to using the Restorative Process in order to resolve disharmony within Triratna.

Exploring its principles and its methodology, this short talk also provides a helpful overview of why the Restorative approach is considered such a good fit for a Buddhist community. Recorded in India, spring 2018.

Find out more about Triratna’s Restorative Process with the Adhisthana Kula

"Nature is, in itself, a healing environment". 

During the 2018 Combined Order Weekend in Adhisthana, Dayajoti talks about a newly forming project - the Tara Sanctuary and Natural Burial Ground which has a vision of creating a beautiful ecological burial ground and retreat site. Here she speaks about the what the natural burial movement is about, the links between nature, death and the land, how it connects with Buddhist practice and where the project is currently at.

Find out more about the Tara Sanctuary and Natural Burial Ground: www.tarasanctuary.org.uk

Recorded at Adhisthana, August 2018.

If you enjoyed this episode, please help us by taking a moment to rate the podcast in iTunes or your favourite app. There are so many podcasts these days it really does help people find us!

For more, check out www.thebuddhistcentre.com/features

Sudaka, the Mitra Convenor in the Valencia Buddhist Centre, talks about his experience of Buddhist practice as a parent and discusses how he fits in his meditation practice, the importance of having a supportive partner and how his practice informs his parenting.

You can read more about Dharma practice in the context of a family on Families space on The Buddhist Centre Online.

Recorded at Suryavana, Valencia, July 2018.

If you enjoyed this episode, please help us by taking a moment to rate the podcast in iTunes or your favourite app. There are so many podcasts these days it really does help people find us!

For more, check out www.thebuddhistcentre.com/features