Hi companions in the good life, I am writing this from Adhisthana where I am attending the Anagarika Convention. 23 of us are gathered to share our experiences, meditate and do puja together and to reflect upon our lives as anagarikas. Our theme for this convention is Creating a Living Anagarika Sangha and we explored that in small groups over the first couple of days. Today we are having a silent, meditative day followed by a couple of days of study. On the first day, we reported in, sharing...

Last Sunday was Burns night, the celebration of the anniversary of Scotland’s national Bard. While I know some people find Burns a controversial figure or incomprehensible, personally I find his poetry and his essays inspiring and still relevant. His message is a humanitarian one and I think some of the themes treated by him are messages that we, as Buddhists might find pertinent. I explored this on a day retreat I led at the GBC in January 2024. The link to the talks from this is here if...

Hi everyone. Last night I attended a Mitra group to talk about and answer some concerns and questions about Bhante and Triratna’s past. Interestingly this has come up a few times recently. In this particular group I visited there are a number of women about to have their Mitra ceremonies on Parinirvana Day on February 15th. They wanted the opportunity to clarify - or at least approach - the topic. I hope it was helpful. It occurred to me that, although I hope people becoming mitras are at...