Chairman’s Message June 2022 A few months ago now I went on a retreat with the Theme of the Tibetan text; the Bardo Thodol, commonly known as the ‘Tibetan Book of the Dead’. The text is a Terma, which means it was written by Padmasambhava in the 8th century and… Read More »Important decisions
This is a question we might be asking ourselves as we try to get some sense of our place in this world. It is a question we may have been asking for a long time. We can look at our current sense of this self and work on being clear… Read More »Who am I?
Every morning I set out two glass bowls, for our porridge, that is for my partner and I. The bowls are not equal, one is older and more worn, the other is much newer. I noticed that I was choosing the newer bowl for my own porridge. I turned my… Read More »The Nature of Choice
Chairman’s Message March 2022 It is early morning and I am sitting writing this from a candle lit room. I have just lit a wood fire so I hope to be warm in about an hour. My electricity has been off since storms Dudley and Eunice hit 5 days ago… Read More »More from Less
We have just held another very successful Sangha retreat at Vajrasana. We had a good cross-section of the Ipswich Sangha, from those who had never attended one of our events before to those that have been along too many times to mention. There was also a great range of ages… Read More »Take delight in Mudita
We are going through that period that is the end of the last year and the beginning of the next, a Bardo, to use a Buddhist term. The Earth, our precious planet, has fully circled the Sun taking just over 365 days. It is a good time to reflect on… Read More »New Year, New Now
I was in a meeting of the Triratna International Council recently, which had the theme of Unity.We studied a very interesting text, the Cetokhila Sutta, the title of which can be translated as ‘Wasteland of the Heart’ and it gives five ways in which one can fail to make spiritual… Read More »Weathering the Wastelands
I have had a few conversations recently about fear. This primal emotion seems to be working strongly in many people’s lives at the moment and is worth exploring. So what is fear? It is an emotion, a complex thought that makes us act. It tries to make us act to… Read More »Fear & Fearlessness
I don’t know if you can remember, but Freedom Day has come and gone. Like all such ‘freedoms’ they never quite fully live up to the name. The promised lifting of all Covid restrictions did technically happen, however, there was a strong recommendation from the Government to keep in place… Read More »Freedom Day
The PM’s announcement that the ending of lock-down on the 21st June was going to be postponed for four weeks brought up, I am sure, an emotional reaction in many of us. Quite a few members of the Ipswich Sangha had been working very hard to get the Centre ready… Read More »My dreams have been shattered
