Thursday evening is ‘friends’ night’ at our centre, an ongoing drop-in activity which takes place fifty two weeks of the year, and is currently our main focus of sangha activity.

Led by an Order member or experienced practitioner, the evening starts promptly at 7:00pm and ends at 9:00pm

All are welcome to this class.

If you have never meditated before it would be useful to arrive twenty minutes or so ahead of the start time so that someone could give you a brief introduction to the evening’s practice. Otherwise, visitors with some meditation experience will quickly learn our practices as meditations are usually introduced, and led stage by stage.

A typical evening starts with the collective chanting of the Buddhist refuges and precepts followed by a period of meditation. After a short tea-break, the second part of the evening consists of either a talk, discussion or another meditation depending on the current program and class leader.

At least once a month, you will have the opportunity to experience the ‘Seven-Fold Puja’ – a Buddhist devotional ceremony.

Sunday mornings are also a time for drop-in practice. Activities start at 10:00am and finish at 12 noon. Led by an experienced meditator, the morning sit is a good time to meditate with others and benefit from the experience of communal practice.

We currently run a bi-monthly Sunday afternoon study session which is by invitation to those who are familiar with our centre and practices, and follows a three-year ‘rolling’ Mitra study curriculum.

meditation

Buddhism has developed many methods for working on the mind, but meditation is probably the most important. Buddhist meditation practices are ways of developing concentration, clarity and emotional positivity. Meditation teaches one the patterns and habits of the mind, and serious and regular meditation is a way to cultivate new, more positive states such as calm, concentration and awareness, and emotions like loving-kindness (or metta), compassion and equanimity. With discipline and patience the positive, calm, and focused states of meditative awareness can become profoundly tranquil and energized. Using the awareness developed in meditation it is possible to gain a fuller understanding of oneself, other people, and life itself.

Over the millennia countless meditation practices have been developed in the Buddhist tradition. All of them may be described as ‘mind-trainings’, but they take many approaches. The foundation of all Buddhist meditation, however, is the cultivation of a calm and positive state of mind.

Each year thousands of people learn meditation at triratna centres. They learn two basic meditations that develop these qualities: the mindfulness of breathing and the loving-kindness meditation or metta bhavana.

As techniques, these meditation practices are very simple. However, reading about them is no substitute for learning from an experienced and reliable teacher who can offer guidance in how to apply the technique and deal with difficulties. Perhaps most importantly, a teacher can offer the encouragement and inspiration of their own example.

devotion

Because Buddhism is a path of transformation it is not enough to understand it intellectually. Buddhism is reasonable, but practicing it effectively demands a response to its ideals and a willingness to put its teachings into effect. Emotional and imaginative engagement are also essential.

Buddhist devotional rituals or pujas offer a focus for cultivating such faith, and pujas are important within the triratna community. They include three main elements: reciting verses, chanting, and making offerings. The verses are associated with the principal tenets and ideals of Buddhism, and give expression to the spiritual aspiration that makes someone a Buddhist. Several liturgies have been drawn from traditional sources or composed more recently. Pujas are a regular feature of the life of tbc centres, a focus for the sangha to come together in collective expression of their shared aspirations.

study

For the Buddha’s teachings to take you to Enlightenment, Buddhist tradition says you must do three things: listen, reflect, and meditate on them.

First it is important to know what Buddhism teaches. The Buddha had a radical and distinctive approach to life, which underlies ethical behaviour, meditation and other Buddhist practices. Talks and courses, which are held at every tbc centre, are opportunities to hear the Dharma in this way. Many centres also have bookshops or lending libraries with texts from across the Buddhist tradition.