Acharya Kaspalita (temple host)

We’re just over a week into 2019. Some people that made resolutions will have broken them already, I’m sure. My experience of will power is that it usually fails. Why? Because if I’m having to push then there’s usually something in me that I’m pushing against (karma, you might say) and eventually that pushes back.

That’s why I like the idea of a…[Read more]

Hi everyone,

Happy New Year!

We’re a few days into 2019 now, and while I’m still officially off work – or not seeing clients, at least – I wanted to let you know about January events in the temple. These include the first of our new monthly talks next weekend. This time Satya is talking about Connecting with Joy.

If you want to hear about ev…[Read more]

This week is the fourth anniversary of our moving into the temple. Four years! I remember those early days very clearly: the complicated business of buying a house and making sure all of the old trustees from years ago signed the right piece of paper; the moving process; the amount of help we had cleaning and preparing the temple for the first…[Read more]

From Dharmavidya:

We call her Queen Vaidehi. Actually we do not know her name. At the time, twenty-five centuries ago, the word vaidehi probably meant a consort of the king, but she is now established as Queen Vaidehi. She was the mother of Ajatashattru. Ajatashattru means broken hand, on account of a deformity he had. Vaidehi was the wife of…[Read more]

Over on YouTube, underneath one of Dharmaviyda’s talks from the Bodhi retereat last year, someone asked, do we know for definite that the Buddha’s mother died during childbirth?

I said:

‘For definite’ is a tricky concept when we are talking about so long ago. The oldest texts that we have say that the Buddha’s mother died in childbirth.

There is…

[Read more]

On Sunday evening we were fortunate to host a music of Indian raaga and bhajan. Awantika Dubey sang with William Tooby from the Fold, accompanied by Akash on tabla and John on tanpura. A wonderful music of devotional singing and improvisation by these world class performers.

Here are the videos of the evening.

This morning I opened a newsletter from Dosho Port, an American Zen teacher who trained with Katagiri Roshi.

He began the newsletter by writing:

‘There are two directions for spiritual practice. One is a movement toward escaping the suffering of the world. The other, of which our Zen way is an example, aims at realizing that the 84,000…[Read more]