A few weeks ago, Padmasagara gave a talk on the Buddha’s encounter with a hateful dragon or ‘naga’ inside a fire chamber in a woodland camp.
Throughout the night they both produced smoke and flames, and it looked like nobody would get out alive.
The naga wanted to destroy the Buddha!
But the Buddha tamed its fury through the power of loving-kindness.
In the morning, he coolly stepped out of the fire chamber with the naga curled up asleep inside his begging bowl.
The end.
But actually that’s not the end of the story! It’s merely the beginning…
This week, Padmasagara will be continuing this tale from the life of the Buddha, which introduces us to other characters, strange lights in the sky, miraculous events, near-death experiences, and much more.
If you ever feel that things get too hot to handle, or that events and experiences have a tendency to burn, or that you find yourself confronted by ‘Dragons’ (whether externally or internally) then this might be a helpful talk for you!
Padmasagara will be drawing on eastern and western imaginative traditions and telling stories from the life of the Buddha to illustrate how it’s the power of Love that can help us find fulfillment in a burning world.
The first couple of meetings the Buddha had on the road after attaining Enlightenment might not be what you were expecting at all.
And the fact that they have been kept at the forefront of the tradition can gives one confidence in Buddhism somehow…
In this talk, Tarapalita follows the Buddha from the Bodhi Tree to the Deer Park where the Buddha first successfully managed to communicate what he had discovered.
Imagination is perhaps the most powerful and important aspect of human consciousness.
It allows us to ‘become’ another and experience their life like our own.
This is the real foundation of love.
And can we love and be loved by chat gpt?
Join Tarapalita this week to find out.
"Befriend your mind" is an invitation to explore how meditation can serve our life on and off the cushion, and especially during challenging times.
By Prasadavati
Why do people worship the Buddha if he is not a god? What might Enlightenment actually look and feel like? How do we free ourselves from the suffering caused by clinging?
Tarapalita takes us on a journey through all this and more.
I will look at these 3 words and draw out how they relate to 3 sets of Buddhist teachings.
Talk by Arthaketu
The Buddha talks about 7 kinds of suffering. The 7th is the suffering of not getting what one wants.
So I would like you to pay attention to that when it hsppens. What is that like when we dont get what we want?. What thoughts arise?, what emotions arise? and very importantly how does that feel in the body? Also notice your relationship to all those things. Your thoughts, emotions and bodily sensations. How are you relating to them?
This will lead us into the theme of the talk. Seeing suffering, ending suffering.
Every Buddhist tradition has its own unique history and qualities. Tarapalita explores some of these in celebration of Triratna day.
And what does Kentucky Fried Chickens latest advert ‘Believe in chicken’ have to do with any of this? 🐣🐔🍗🫨
Talk by Tarapalita
What are the core values you live your life around?
Where exactly did they come from?
Did you make them up yourself?
Did you pick them up somewhere?
Do you know their history? And what does it have to do with Instagram?
In this talk, Tarapalita explores how we become who we are.
In this talk, Dharmasara looks at a fundamental question: Why on earth should be follow a 2500 year old Religion alles Buddhism?
What does it mean to be upright in this life?
Well, it means not being spineless.
What does it mean to be spineless?
Being spineless means being utterly self-absorbed and giving in to any and all of your stories or desires.
Being spineless means being a bully, a bitch, a coward or a snitch…
It means playing the eternal victim or treading on others to get to some imagined top.
It means being the kind of person that people don’t respect.
Join Tarapalita in this talk about How the Buddha´s community grew.
The Buddha was a true individual. Free from everything that we are restricted by and suffer from. Psychologically, socially, emotionally…spiritually. He discovered the causes and sources of his suffering and dissolved them in the profound and sustained depths of awareness. What was left afterwards was the ongoing bliss of Liberation…
On his journey towards that Liberated state, he fully commited himself to following his most subtle and radical spiritual instincts and intuitions, which at points meant going it alone. Fully alone.
And yet…although he finally became an earth-shaking embodiment of what it means to be free from the chains of conditioned existence, a true individual, he spent the rest of his life creating and nurturing a community. One rooted in wisdom, love and integrity, one that is still going strong 2500 years later.
An ongoing story of friendships that we here in Berlin are now a part of.
So how does all this go together? Becoming more individual and also more committed to a community? Why is the spiritual community or Sangha as its traditionally called, one of the Three Jewels every Buddhist bows to? Is just about organised religion promoting itself? Is it just nice people, drinking nice tea, trying to be nice and hoping the world will be nice to them? Perhaps we cynically think we know all about what Sangha means already and if so, has it then become another dead concept neatly ticked off in our mind?
The Buddha saw that we are infinitely stronger together and made sure that his community started and carried on in the right way. When there is so much distress and disharmony in our general collective experience right now, it’s good to remember that things can be different.
We can choose to contribute to the nucleus of a new society by taking responsibly for our own actions and raising our level of consciousness. And as we see with the rest of Buddhisms long history, you really never know how wider conditions change and what that can lead to.
If we play our part in keeping the flame burning strong and true, it’s possible for wider conditions in society to change and for more people to recognise and take up the Buddhas teachings in unexpected and beautiful ways.
It’s happened before, there’s no reason it can’t happen again.
We’re going to take a little journey into all this as Tarapalita talks to us about How the Buddha´s community grew.
Being a Buddhist isn’t all about glory and light. Sooner or later we’ll encounter difficult experiences, even grief and death. How will Buddhism help us then?
In this talk, Padmasagara shares a story from the earliest Buddhist texts in which the Buddha helps one of his female followers - Kisagotami - overcome her grief and reach enlightenment.
In this talk, Tarapalita looks at the Story of Angulimala: How did a serial killer, who’s passion was cutting off the fingers of people he’d killed to make a delightful necklace for himself, go on to become a disciple of the Buddha and eventually the patron saint of women in childbirth?
And just to say, even if you’re not a serial killer yourself, and you might not be, that’s ok as well, there are plenty of life lessons to be learnt from this story of redemption and transformation with one of the wildest characters in Buddhist history.
If it’s possible for Mr. Fingers to turn his life around and move towards his full blown potential, then it’s possible for us!
The mind is our most precious asset. Untrained, it can also be the most dangerous thing in this world. Really, it is the only thing we have control over and can take responsibility for, at least potentially.
In Buddhism, Consciousness is central. It is at the centre of our perception and therefore conditions how we perceive ourselves and the world. It is so powerful that the Buddha said that "All things are preceded by mind, led by mind and produced by mind".
This is why meditation is such a central practice in Buddhism, because we work on our mind with our mind, directly and immediately.
In this talk, Dharmasara explores what the Buddha meant when he said that Mind precedes World. It's a simple statement which has endless implications. It's also a challenging statement since it tackles a view of ourselves and the world which is deeply rooted in materialism.
This week, Sanghadarsini gives a talk on one of the central themes of Buddhism: Friendship. In many instances, the Buddha has emphasised the necessity of Friendship and companionship with people who journey on the path together.
One of those instances is the story of Meghiya, who was a young monk and one of the Buddha's personal attendants. He was an idealistic young chap and quite driven. He wanted to give it his all, and in his strive towards enlightenment was even prepared to leave the Buddha and leave him alone.
Obviously that didn't work. In one of the most interesting teachings of the old scriptures, the Buddha then explains to Meghiya how staying close to friends, especially those who are more developed than we are, is essential if we want to make progress on the path.
In this episode Tarapalita shares his top ten tips for living a spiritual life…starting with No.1- ‘Don’t try and be spiritual’. Confused? Indeed.
The story goes that the Buddha was enlightened beneath a full moon. The land, the water, the bodhi tree under which he was sitting, as well as the person -his body, heart and mind - were all fully illuminated by and bathed in a reflective, silvery light. He was Enlightened, literally and metaphorically.
We celebrate this moment every year on full-moon day in May - which we call 'Buddha Day'. This weekend, as we edge towards the full moon of July, we'll be celebrating 'Dharma Day', the second major event in the life of the Buddha.
The story continues, saying that…after his enlightenment, the Buddha left the shelter of the bodhi tree in order to share his discovery with others. Not that they always wanted to hear what he had to say! The first person he met along the road was a man named Upaka. The Buddha declared to Upaka that he was a world-conqueror, free from all limitations, enlightened! Upaka simply swayed his head from side to side and said, "may it be so, friend", before carrying on along his way...
But when the Buddha was reunited with five of his former spiritual friends in a wild deer park at Isipatana, it was a different story.
They got it. They could see what had happened to him. They could feel it. They couldn't resist it. And as the Buddha communicated with them, skillfully pointing a finger towards the moon of the enlightened mind, they also - one by one - became enlightened.
The Buddha had successfully communicated the 'Dharma' - the truth, and the teachings that lead towards that vision of truth. He had, to use the traditional language, 'set rolling the Wheel of the Dharma'. The old texts tell us that as that happened:
"the ten-thousand-fold cosmos shivered & quivered & quaked, while a great, measureless radiance appeared in the cosmos, surpassing the light of the gods."
Talk given by Padmasagara
