Taraloka

Saddhahadaya

Bookings are now well underway for all the retreats for 2011. We’ve finally moved over from pencil and paper bookings to a spreadsheet and I have had a great time training up Saddhahadaya to process the bookings ready for covering for me while I’m away in India on Pilgrimage in February.  Saddhahadaya arrived as a volunteer for the Christmas retreat and is here until mid-march.  Perfect timing for us!

Ruth Cheesley from Virya Technologies has just spent two days here with me teaching me how to use WordPress to update our website and discussing the possibilities for the website of the future.  She stayed in the community  following on from our second fabulous Young Women’s weekend led by Singhamati, Vajratara, Pasannamati and Karunadhi.  I am extremely grateful for her patience and quick and simple answers to my many questions.  It’s also been great fun learning a brand new skill with her.

You can now see whether a retreat is nearly booked up or full directly on the Retreats 2011 page; we’ve made our contact details, how to book and how to get here easier to find and I now feel ready to make further changes as and when needed.  Please do give us feedback on this site and we can take it into account when updating.

IMPORTANT NEWS: from now on all cheques are to be made out to “Taraloka”  as our bank account name has changed

Saddhanandi writes:

During July, I was on a ten-day European Chair’s Assembly at Vajrasana Retreat Centre in Suffolk. It was lovely to be with all the European Chair’s again but my mind was often with the people at Taraloka as I was aware there were some big changes happening during that time.

Singhamati arriving..

One special change was the arrival of Singhamati (who used to be called Lindsay) after her three month Ordination course at Akasavana. I saw her for about fifteen minutes before I drove off to Vajrasana. In that short time I saw her shaven-headed radiance and her pleasure at being back at Taraloka surrounded by friends, she looked very happy.

Singhamati’s new name means ‘lion-like mind’, and it’s a good name for her. Over the years, I’ve watched her grow into a spirited woman who is capable of taking on a lot of responsibility and leadership, as well as having a strong sense of integrity and kindness towards others. A great boon for Taraloka and for the Triratna Community in general.

Another change that happened whilst I was away, was that Kulaprabha left Taraloka and moved back to Glasgow on Tuesday 27th July – it was an important occasion for all of us!

Kulaprabha lived at Taraloka for eight years, through lots of change and challenge. She became a very familiar figure for women who came on retreat here as she led and supported many retreats during those eight years. She was a creative retreat leader, establishing new retreats and thinking through ideas that she believed Taraloka should offer women in terms of meditation and Dharma practice. She also visited many centres giving talks and running weekend events.

In the Community, she was always popping into my room with a new idea or a particular question that she wanted to talk through, and I’ll miss her energetic engagement with various projects and her willingness to support me in my work as Chair.

Looking back over the last eight years, I can see how she bought an intelligent creativity to Taraloka, with an

Kulaprabha closing the energy project deal

ambitious vision that has pushed the whole project in new directions. One such direction has been the recent change from oil-based heating and hot water to a system now fuelled by solar power and wood pellets. I’m still getting used to the miracle of having water heated by the sun! Amazing!

When Kulaprabha left the Community she was presented with a gift: a special digital camera connected to a bird nesting box. It was a complete surprise to her and she loved it – it was in fact a perfect gift for her as it bought together her love of gadgets, cameras, and bird watching. I hope her new life supports her in many hours of witnessing eggs hatching and young birds feeding and all that sort of thing, whilst in the comfort of her own room.

At Taraloka, we all wish Kulaprabha well in her new life, she’s contributed a great deal to this project and the effects will continue to be appreciated for many generations.

This is  a video the keynote talk  given by Munisha at the 5th Manchester Buddhist Conference on 19 June 2010 in Fo Guang Shan Temple.  Please note that the census statistics quoted are from 2001 and will be superseded by the 2011 census. The breakdown of UK Buddhist groups by size is from the book “British Buddhism” by Robert Bluck, and open to question.

‘British Buddhism Today’ – Munisha from Video Sangha, Vimeo

Munisha is a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order and one of the people who run the Clear Vision Trust, a Buddhist audio-visual media project and a UK registered charity. Clear Vision are based on the top floor of the Manchester Buddhist Centre, UK. Munisha and others who work there see their efforts as an expression of Right Livelihood, the fifth limb of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path. They maintain the Triratna video and image archives and provide a steady flow of new and archive material for our Buddhist movement worldwide.

In the early 1990s Clear Vision began to work on a series of highly acclaimed video packs for Buddhism. Their video-makers joined forces with Padmasri and Adiccabandhu, two very experienced primary school teachers to produce Buddhism for Key Stage 1. Stage 2 followed in 1994 and remains a best-selling DVD.

Having produced 7 DVD packs for 4-16 year-olds in schools, they’ve now moved into the world of online interactive materials. Even more significantly, they’ve begun work to ensure young people at home and temple can enjoy Buddhist teaching materials as good as those in schools. It’s Clear Vision policy to represent what is core to most Buddhist traditions, and a range of Buddhist traditions, practices and views. In this they have the specific agreement of Sangharakshita, founder of our own tradition, Triratna.

Want to find out more about Clear Vision? Click here (a new window will open in your browser)

You can watch other Triratna  videos on Video Sangha. (a new window will open in your browser)

The sun has been shining here at Taraloka for two weeks pretty well uninterruptedly. And in that same two weeks our EcoEnergi team have installed twelve solar thermal panels on the roofs of the community house and the retreat centre. There are four sets of panels altogether. The community panels are working and our hot water now comes direct from the sun!! and the retreat centre will soon be following suit. Here is what they look like ….

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It’s an amazing delight to turn on the tap and have very hot water come out – knowing that the source of that heat is direct sunlight from 93 million miles away! We know it’s  about photons, vacuum tubes  and light sensitive chemistry – and also it’s like magic. We’re trying to think what Hogwarts’ spell Harry Potter would use to produce hot water. Any suggestions? Mine is “Calorificus!”

The work will be continuing in the community this coming week to bring the biomass boiler online and working in tandem with the community solar thermal panels. The retreat centre is in use now until 12 th July so the final link up of those solar panels and the biomass boiler will have to wait till then.

And if all goes to plan – the official energy project launch will be on our Open Day on 25th July. Everyone is welcome!!

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It was last Wednesday. Vajradarshini was leading a study retreat on the Yogacara. She changed the day’s program completely so that we weren’t trying to study at 10.30am when a large motorised crane was due to arrive,  followed at 11am by a very large articulated lorry – delivering our Energy Box.

At 7.30 I was in the Tara cabin meditating with the others on the retreat when I heard what was obviously a large vehicle arriving. I thought the recycling collection was happening early. In fact it was the Box! driven over from Austria by a couple of nice Bulgarian guys. Saddhanandi and Suchitta took them out coffee and croissants.

Three hours later the crane arrived and the transfer of the 8 tonne Energy Box – it comes complete with boilers, tanks, pumps etc pre-installed inside – began.

While all this was happening Genevieve Tudor from BBC Radio Shropshire came over and recorded a short set of interviews with Kulaprabha, Andy from Organic Energy, and some of our retreatants. Click here to listen.

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Rachel Jones-Wild has been living and working with us for two months as a volunteer. She’s been fun to live with; a hard worker; very adaptable – cooking for 25 people one day, strimming long grass the next; helping with preparing the retreat centre for the next retreat; doing what was needed in the community… We’ve really enjoyed and appreciated having her here. Soon she’ll be back in Newcastle.

Part of her stay coincided with the Triratna International Festival. Here are her impressions of that -

Rachel writes:

As part of my two and a half month stay volunteering at Taraloka, I was involved in the set-up and set-down of the International Retreat as well as enjoying much of the retreat itself. I was amazed by the way in which, relatively painlessly, Taraloka was transformed from a peaceful and tranquil space to a hive of activity – a festival inhabited by 430 people! I say relatively painless as even the burst water pipe on the last day of the set up was rectified with minimum fuss and a lot of good will.

I really didn’t know what to expect, having only previously experienced festivals that revolved around music and intoxication! This, however, was not quite a festival and not quite a retreat but a magical event that was more than both. It was an opportunity to catch up with friends, to see familiar faces in an unfamiliar context and, for me, was a chance to welcome members of my local sangha in Newcastle to the place that I was currently calling home. I was able to marvel at the depth of connections that I had made over the years and get a real sense of being part of a Movement that is very important to me.

This sense of the Triratna Buddhist Movement as a whole was exemplified on several occasions during the weekend. At the pujas I was invariably moved to witness and be part of such a large group, circumambulating the shrine, making offerings and visibly going for refuge. On the final evening, at a puja dedicated to the name change I was struck by what a momentous event this was, how significant the Movement is and the pivotal time we are now at. All of us present started practising in the FWBO and are now seeing the beginning of a new era – heralded by our new name.

I was also moved to see the presence of so many children at the weekend. As a young woman hoping to start a family whilst remaining committed to the spiritual life, I found this immensely reassuring, and I was aware of how fortunate these young beings are to be around the Dharma at such a young age. The story-telling that the children participated in was a beautiful addition to the event.

There are so many moments I could pick out as being memorable – and so much effort, love and care went into creating this wonderful opportunity for so many to gather together and practise and celebrate the Dharma.

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Thanks for that, Rachel. Our chairwoman, Saddhanandi, gave one of the key-note talks on the Festival. Click here for that and other talks and videos from the Festival.

Since then we’ve hosted a UK National Order weekend on the theme of meditation and our system of practice in the Order. And currently there is a retreat on exploring the Yogacara school of Buddhist thought and practice.

And …. the shrineroom roof is being replaced! The corrugated iron roof has done us proud for 25 years but it’s now replaced with a new and very well insulated roof that is going to help keep the loft bedrooms warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. Kulaprabha climbed up on the scaffolding to get these pictures.

Before the Energy Box arrives we needed to excavate the foundations for it’s concrete base and far a new access driveway. All done by Earl the excavator and Kev the builder… though you’ll see that Earl had a new apprentice getting a lesson in earth-moving! And for all fans of the TV archaeological program  “Time Team”, Earl did the earthworks  for one of their programs!

Kulaprabha writes:

Yes!! it’s happening ….. in fact, preliminary work is starting in three days time!!

It’s over two years since I started gathering data to work out our carbon footprint.  Then about a year ago I started seriously  investigating the possibilities of installing solar thermal panels and biomass boiler systems in our retreat centre and community house. Installing these is not cheap and it wasn’t going to go ahead without getting funding in place. There is funding out there but it’s been a steep learning curve for me in accessing information and finding out what Taraloka is eligible for and what it isn’t. Some grants that are available for England are not available in Wales and vice versa. Then there were various  pretty complicated online forms to fill in. And somewhere in the midst of all that, I discovered I needed Planning Permission for the new biomass boiler house – which led to another another set of forms!

But now all the funding has fallen into place  and since then we’ve had our first commissioning meeting! This is us sitting in the community library – I think they were in the midst of a detailed discussion about electrical supplies and pipe bore diameters when I took this photo!

The whole project will cost around £130,000 and we have been given £80,000 in grants and another £23,500 in a zero-interest loan. We have allocated funds from our own reserves to cover the rest of the installation costs.

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As to who has made this possible?

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Our funders are:

UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC website)  who provide funding via

- Low Carbon Building Program (their website)

- The Carbon Trust (their website)

and

Scottish Power Green Energy Trust (their website)

Needless to say I am delighted that we are able to go ahead with this project and want to thank the three funding bodies who have backed the project. Thanks also to Sharon Holman  of Wrexham County Planning Office for all her help. And to Mike and Mark of the Welsh Forestry Commission Wood Energy Scheme who were prepared to step in with a top-up funding application if DECC didn’t manage to give us as much as we’d asked for.

At the moment I am working with Matthew Goodwin of EcoEnergi Ltd to draw up a time-line for the installation. Fingers crossed that it will be installed by the end of June. Here is some of what is involved:

• a very large crane to unload the Okofen Energy Box which houses the biomass boiler. It’s basically a mini-district heating system with a twin wood pellet boiler delivering heat to the two sets of building that make up our premises.
• a new access driveway for the wood pellet delivery lorries
• excavating heat trenches from the boiler house to the two sets of buildings
• sensing equipment to allow the solar panels and biomass boiler to work in tandem
• roof access to install the panels
• special hot water tanks to work with solar thermal systems – four systems altogether

Matthew and Kulaprabha shake on the deal

Most of all I want to thank Matthew who has provided the technical information for all the grant applications I’ve made. He was very patient in the face of detailed questions from BRE examiners, that’s Building Research Establishment, as they went through his calculations with a very fine tooth comb!

Then guess what?

In the midst of all this, DECC announced that from next year they will be extending their Renewable Energy Incentive Scheme. This is a way in which the government is encouraging sustainable energy installations by paying so much per kilowatt produced even if you use that energy yourself. It already covers electricity and from mid-2011 it will include heat energy. In other words the government will pay Taraloka an amount per kilowatt produced by our biomass and solar thermal equipment! That will enable us to pay off the installation costs much more quickly than I thought. So thank you DECC again.

At some point we’re aiming to have a Grand Opening….. watch this space!!

We’ve been giving our food sourcing some serious thought. Des Woolf does all our food ordering and arranges the menus that you have when you’re on retreat with us. She hasn’t been at Taraloka for that long herself  but she’s been thinking about where our food comes from – local, or wider European, or even further afield. She’s also been looking at the options we have for organic food sourcing; at animal welfare issues; and at the financial implications of making changes.

Those of you who have visited us already will know that all our meals are vegan and that we provide cow’s milk and some cheese. You give us frequent enough praise for us to be confident that our menus are hitting the spot as regards flavour, variety and satisfaction – not to mention quantity!

We have a very good connection with Peter Stokes who has been supplying our fruit and vegetables since 1985. Des has been talking to Peter about what his options are for sourcing locally grown produce. He does grow some of the vegetables himself but most of it he buys from Liverpool wholesale market. There are big advantages of scale in organising business in this way and we – and no doubt you – benefit in terms of cheaper pricing. But he is limited in the local produce that he can get for us because he only has what is available in the wholesale market on any particular week and he doesn’t know in advance what that is. Whereas more local farmers, some of them organic, are beginning to organise themselves so that they can provide a flexible and dependable service within their locality. Des has been investigating that and has found an outlet in south Shropshire which can supply us.

Last week Des wrote all this up for us and then presented a proposal to our community business meeting. This prompted a very good discussion. Within the community we have different priorities in this whole area. For all of us animal welfare is very important. Some of us are keen to use organic produce. Others are not so bothered about that but think keenly about carbon footprinting, so are more concerned with getting as much locally grown food as possible. There’s the area of biodiversity as well and how different approaches to agriculture affect that. And we have to think about the financial aspect of it all as our food budget is one of our biggest outlays over the year.

The outcome of all this is that we decided to

• buy organic cow’s milk from now on
• no longer  supply cheese on our retreats
• use the south Shropshire organic outlet for some of our fruit supply and for some seasonal vegetables
• and Des will adapt her menus to take seasonal availability more into account

We see this a step in the right direction and we’ll monitor how it goes – in terms of the quality, flexibility of sourcing, and cost. And of course we’ll continue to make whatever provision we need for visitors with special medical requirements for their diet.

And Des and Peter will no doubt continue their food conversations over a cup of tea when he turns up on Thursday mornings at 8.30 with that week’s delivery.

construction traffic!

This sign has been at the end of the track to Taraloka for about three months – ever since a British Waterways canal maintenance crew doing some work on the canal bank accidentally broke through into a very extensive badger set – thus de-stabilising the canal bank, causing a partial collapse and a flood. This happened just opposite where our retreat centre buildings are. Fortunately for us – but not for our neighbours on the other side of the canal – the badgers had excavated their set on the sunnier south-facing side of the canal away from our land. Have a look on the Bettisfield Village website for more photos.

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drained section of the canal

In a matter of days the piece of land next to our canal bridge was an engineering site! Complete with very large excavators, offices, piles of materials like pipes, steel reinforcements and electricity generators. It was noisy. Well noisy for us. Lindsay and I met up with the British Waterway project manager who was very sympathetic and helpful. Within a couple of days he had arranged for much quieter generators to be installed.

Last week the heavy machinery moved out and the works site was dismantled. Now all that left is a slightly muddy bit in the field. The fences are back in place, the tow-path is open again. And they repaired bits of our track where the heavy loads had done a bit of damage.

And the badgers? On the one hand, badgers are a protected species in UK.  On the other hand canals need to be kept safe! Now that the necessary canal bank strengthening has been done and steel pilings added, we are hoping that they will take up their residence again before too long.

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photo by Neil Phillips