The World Cup is over. Spain are the well deserved campeones del mundo and Argentina were bad losers. Don’t worry, this won’t be a blog all about football, or at least not only about football. It will just be some reflections from my musings on the beautiful game. Last night’s final struck me as a masterclass in team work versus a team who were way too dependent on their estrella, their star player. Messi is without doubt a wonderful player. His ability to glide past defender

On Sunday, at our AGM, I gave a talk. It was a chair’s report but I decided, as I did last year, to do a talk - a kind of "state of the nation / state of the community”. A few people afterwards suggested that the script of that could be this week’s blog. So, here it is Chair’s Report: Parami AGM July 2026 State of the Community Address – Triratna Glasgow I am going to do what I did last year and offer a State of the Nation. Normally I just have a few notes and ad lib but tod

Last night we had a lovely Mandala night class. It was a Mexico night, organised because Adriana, a Mexican mitra, was visiting Glasgow. After watching some extracts from the film Cuna de Luz / Cradle of Light, which tells the story of the setting up and development of Triratna in Mexico, we had a tea break with nachos and guacamole. Then Angela had a lovely conversation with Adriana. They talked about the differences and similarities in their experience of training for ordi

At our Mandala night class we are, as many of you know, exploring the themes from the four talks given by Bhante (Sangharakshita) in 1976: Buddhism for Today and Tomorrow. We are now in the block looking at the talk called The Nucleus of a New Society. I wrote about this in a previous blog so won’t repeat myself here about the cultural conditions in which Bhante was giving these talks. I wrote then quite a bit about the New Society but today I want to concentrate on the Nuc

Dear friends and neighbours, We at the Glasgow Buddhist Centre are writing with deep sorrow in the wake of the escalating racist violence in our city. We are horrified by the scenes of disorder, where masked individuals marched towards our places of worship, where people were attacked because of the colour of their skin, and where worshippers at the Central Mosque were forced to lock their doors and remain inside for their own safety. We stand in absolute solidarity with the

There was no blog last week for various reasons so I didn’t want to miss another one. I’m writing from Rivendell retreat centre where I’m leading a retreat called “Creating compassion for the cries of the world”. The blurb on Rivendell programme said: How can we, as Buddhist practitioners, respond with compassion in a world marked by chaos and uncertainty? What is the Dharmic response to meet the cries of the world, our own and others’?How can we draw on the richness of the D

May is coming to an end and I am wondering where on earth the year has gone. I know that time passes more quickly as you get older and I am definitely old but, even so! We are having a heatwave and, while it is lovely and I rejoice in sitting in the park or on my balcony, sadly it is almost certainly a sign of imbalance in the atmosphere. We are heading for even warmer climes and there is the threat of El Niño striking later in the year. Not only El Niño but a Super El Niño a

Wee short blog today to make up for the long one last week. Once again I am writing on the train. This time I am on my way to Brighton where I will be giving a talk tomorrow evening. The link to the live stream is on this weeks newsletter. The theme is a revisiting of Bhante’s 1976 talk: A Nucleus of a New Society. This is timely as next week we will be starting on that theme in Mandala night. All part of our revisiting Buddhism for Today and Tomorrow as we are doing through