The Buddhist Centre

A joyous conversation today with Buddhist artists and practitioners about illustration, animation, puppetry, model making and art - how all of these can help bring to life the Buddhist path in the most beautiful, moving and inspiring ways!

A conversation about imagination and why it really matters...

How a life of service to others can make magic happen in our lives...

Explore the extraordinary work of Buddhist artist Hugh Mendes around death - 'Obituaries' - and watch the accompanying film.

Open-hearted reflections on cancer, dying and death from Kamalashila, a much-loved Buddhist practitioner and meditation teacher.

Journey into love and the amazing potential for freedom of heart and mind with us...

A great story of passion and inspiration in a 1990s American Buddhist restaurant. The trials, triumphs and tremendous impact of running an ethical business on the lives of those who served and came of age in their Dharma practice together.

Is it possible to engage in politics as a Buddhist? What might it look like - and not look like - if we do?

Explore the magical world of Alfoxton House, birthplace of English Romanticism and now home to an amazing new Buddhist community...

“If the doors of perception were cleansed, we would see the world as it really is – infinite.” William Blake

What do Buddhists make of AI? And what does it all mean for our ideas of human consciousness? Check out our round table conversation about all things ChatGPT and beyond!

A conversation about race and the possibilities of connecting beyond fear towards hope.

A journey into embodied experience, moment-by-moment, uncovering the potential for integrity at the heart of challenging emotions.

How to build a world class archive online: love, patience, and a vision of the Dharma for all.

From Mexico to England and back again - the magic of friendship as an enduring pathway to truth.

Buddhists from different traditions in a joyful conversation about living a Dharma life post-Covid, post-history, post-everything!

How to work together consensually in community–without recourse to power!

Join us to explore the magic and mystery of meditation as a lifelong practice of transformation...

A conversation from the frontiers of compassion and response to the world's sorrows as two friends from Poland greet Ukrainian refugees caught up in the war with Russia.

Can you be a Buddhist and and an activist? As people committed to non-violence, protest and social justice can be hot topics when it comes to how we act. Join us for a deep dive into the ethics, uncertainties and fields of compassionate activity in the world.

This week's episode is a brilliant, edited conversation from the launch of Karuna USA live in New York City, featuring speakers from India, America and the UK.

Most of us constantly look outside ourselves for something: happiness, love, contentment. But this something is not out there. ‘It’ is within us.

How does an appreciation of beauty impact our awareness of our environment? What even IS "beauty"? A fabulous - even beautiful - conversation to move and inspire!

Walk with us over the hills of the Scottish Highlands in the company of the wild creatures of the forest - and join us for a special live series of events to bring nature back into your world at home!

Two amazing artists walk us through the forest of their imagination to offer a Home Retreat experience like no other. Come and join us online!

"O fret not after knowledge - I have none, And yet my song comes native with the warmth. O fret not after knowledge - I have none, And yet the Evening listens..." John Keats

A project to bring online learning to kids from Nagpur's poorest communities was just getting started. Please support this vital work now if you can: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/aryaloka

In this first podcast of 2021 we turn to the magic of inner transformation, with a special episode to mark our forthcoming Home Retreat on meditation: 'The Alchemical Heart' with Paramananda.

A passionate two-part exploration of how Buddhist approaches to community might help transform the economics of our time.

Today we're exploring creativity and meaning at the juncture between life and death. Encountering strange creatures at the edges, feeling for the depth of the blue sea and of the earth "Apparelled in celestial light".

A conversation about art and the making of images as a response to the sorrows and beauties of the world. Come and get lost with us in the dark wood...

Exploring in the body and in meditation a dynamic mandala of five key principles: Integration Positive Emotion Spiritual Death Spiritual Rebirth Spiritual Receptivity

The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out. (James Baldwin)

From the wild flower meadows of Vancouver Island to the slums of India and Nepal, join a conversation about a month of social and environmental action, speaking up for the beings who have no voices and telling a new story about our possible future on the earth.

Let's start with this image: there's a river under the river. The wolf is there too. Alive and real and, sometimes, scary. But this is the true place of greater safety, and of a deeper freedom too. Join us for another inspiring conversation!

A great, practical conversation with Yashobodhi about the meditative, reflective work of the Seven-Point Mind Training tradition in Buddhism. How do we face up to difficult emotions? Find the opportunities inherent when there are obstacles in our lives? Learn how we might all turn our straw into gold...

A conversation amongst friends about images, opening up to wider vistas of perspective and relationship: with our kids, with ourselves, with all our fellow beings. All reflected in each other like jewels in a great net thrown across the universe.

Cuatro amigos budistas se reunion en zoom y exploran como su practica budista les ayuda en tiempos de pandemia y tambien como el mundo cambiando ha cambiado su practica.

A beautiful, poetic set of reflections from Ratnavandana on the Brahma Viharas - a set of meditations on love and hoe to change your life in its light. Plus a gorgeous wee song to bring our week to a close!

There's so much Buddhist "stuff" online already it can be hard to know where to start - and how to handle the sheer amount of quality resources out there. Join friends from Berlin, Glasgow and Oxford to reflect on the pitfalls, pleasures and immense possibilities of Dharma on the web.

How we can meet the deep and urgently serious aspects of life and of the current times without jettisoning a similarly vital human sense of fun, pleasure, play, spontaneity, creativity – even joy? Join us and explore the myriad ways of touching in with deep pools of creative life, even in the hardest times.

Join us for this Q & A with Ratnavandana on a series of root Buddhist meditation practices that, even in the face of pandemic, can nourish us with love and wisdom.

'Hair on Fire': The Director's Commentary! Join us with Mary Salome, for a 'making of' special about our specially commissioned mini-series of podcasts: "Hair On Fire: Using the Threefold Way of Ethics, Meditation, and Wisdom to Turn Toward Climate Change".

Third in a series of three special podcasts for Earth Day 2020. Episode 3: Buddhist responses to climate change from the perspective of wisdom. This week on The Buddhist Centre Online and the Dharma Toolkit we are marking Earth Day - all week long! Here's the first episode in our specially commissioned mini-series of podcasts to be released through the week: "Hair On Fire: Using the Threefold Way of Ethics, Meditation, and Wisdom to Turn Toward Climate Change".

Second in a series of three special podcasts for Earth Day 2020. Episode 2: Buddhist responses to climate change from the perspective of meditation. This week on The Buddhist Centre Online and the Dharma Toolkit we are marking Earth Day - all week long! Here's the first episode in our specially commissioned mini-series of podcasts to be released through the week: "Hair On Fire: Using the Threefold Way of Ethics, Meditation, and Wisdom to Turn Toward Climate Change".

First in a series of three special podcasts for Earth Day 2020. Episode 1: Buddhist responses to climate change from the perspective of ethics. This week on The Buddhist Centre Online and the Dharma Toolkit we are marking Earth Day - all week long! Here's the first episode in our specially commissioned mini-series of podcasts to be released through the week: "Hair On Fire: Using the Threefold Way of Ethics, Meditation, and Wisdom to Turn Toward Climate Change".

For Earth Day, a mythic and personally practical journey, against a backdrop of glacial time that challenges all our notions of 'activism'. We are both ghosts and voyagers in the underworld of our own life as our guests explore what it might be like for a largely urban community to make awareness of nature and the land part of how we communicate the Dharma. And what sort of ancestors we may yet prove to be.

Two great friends from Australia and New Zealand evoke a mythic vision of beautiful community, founded on, knit together by stories.

How has the early promise of the Internet held up when it comes to new forms of global community and ways of Buddhist practice? Join us for some wonderful sharing around what community means – at least for today!

The wonderful collaboration bringing a vision of social justice to bear on educating girls and boys in English, and in Buddhist principles that support local community leadership. A moving testament to how, even in the midst of crisis, worlds can be changed through consistent, simple generous acts, one person at a time.

How do we meet the stresses of the times with our deepest sources of inspiration? Abhayavajra loves painting. He loves paint itself. And sees himself more like an archaeologist, revealing something urgent and crucial about the human condition by adding rather than scraping away layers. A wonderful conversation about art and beauty itself.

Meet two former investment bankers, now working hard to support Buddhist communities in their hour of need! How to turn a financial crisis into an opportunity for generosity.

A great, encouraging conversation from New York City and San Francisco. The mythic sense of things is never far away in today's conversation: at the most intimate levels of close, personal friendship; and also culturally, historically, politically, and spiritually as we try to meet the moment of crisis to which we are all witnesses.

Live online Q & A with Vajragupta, author and Dharma teacher. A great, wide-ranging and practical discussion about what this classic Buddhist teaching has to say to us about caring for ourselves and each other during the current coronavirus / Covid-19 pandemic. And what communities can do to try and make sure the world does not simply forget all that's being learned when the crisis is finally over.

An emergency appeal from us to you, dear friends. Will you help? 300-400 million day-labourers are left without work or money after the sudden lockdown in India. You can support some amazing work happening on the ground right now, wherever you are! Witness how we can all make a difference, even when things are as tough as they are.

Meeting Dr. Paramabandhu Groves, pioneer in the area of effective kindness-based therapies for people suffering from long-term issues with depression and addiction. Tune in for a great conversation about some quietly heroic, compassionate work! Join us for a new podcast each week day - the best of community in strange times!

Pleasure and Pain, Gain and Loss, Praise and Blame, Fame and Infamy... The plan is, there is no plan! The message is: give yourself to the flow of life as lovingly as you can in any given moment. Join us for another great conversation - and for some serious practice at home. Get a new podcast each week day - the best of community in strange times!

A crucial and rather beautiful conversation about how we relate to our bodies in relative isolation. Some down-to-earth, open-hearted sharing of experience about things physical... Join us for a new podcast each week day - the best of community in strange times!

Standing in the idyllic gardens of Chintamani Buddhist Retreat Center in México and Manjupriya from São Paolo, via Dublin, is telling us, "Time is poetry in Brazil." Listen to the birdsong, close your eyes and you can almost smell the blossom. Join us for a new podcast each week day - the best of community in strange times!

The Internet doesn't always make things better! What do you do in the face of 24 hour news media that is just not going to stop? Join us for a conversation about how to guard the gates of our senses when it matters in order to stay sane.

Join us for a good look at what scares and also at the hope that lies beyond fear's false horizon. "What went before — let go of that! All that's to come — have none of it! Don't hold on to what's in between, And you'll wander fully at peace." The Buddha

"The virus is not the monster from the deep. It evolved on this planet the same way we did." A new podcast from The Buddhist Centre, with good company to help you through the weeks or months ahead in these extraordinary coronavirus times. Dharma inspiration when you need it most!