Taraloka
News
| Taraloka on the BBC | Diverse People, One Sangha retreat |
| Tara Shrine Cabin |
Taraloka on Radio Four's Women's Hour
On Thursday 22 February 2007, Taraloka was featured on BBC Radio 4's Women's Hour programme.The programme is available on the BBC website via the Women's Hour Homepage and includes extracts of interviews with Kavyasiddhi, and Saddhanandi who lives at Taraloka.
The BBC website also boasts two videos of Taraloka - Inside a Buddhist retreat centre VIDEO and Take a Tour of a Buddhist Retreat VIDEO. The first was one of a series of films made by BBC Shropshire examining faith and religion in modern society.
New Tara Shrine cabin
A strange thing about Taraloka is that, although the retreat centre itself is dedicated to Tara - the archetypal female figure of compassionate activity, we have never had a shrine-room dedicated specifically to her.
Now we have a very beautiful shrine-cabin in our grounds. Here are some photos of its construction.
We've been dedicating the ground around the cabin, we've circumambulated the foundations, and we've chanted Tara mantras around and inside the new space. We have a temporary shrine built and are designing a more permanent one. When that is in place Sangharakshita, the founder of WBO, has said he'd be delighted to come and dedicate it for us. Keep in touch to find out when that will be happening. |
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Since January we have been encouraging our retreat leaders to help us
dedicate the new Tara shrine.
In the meantime it's being well used ..... Fiona Doolan of the
Leeds sangha had her Kalyana Mitra Ceremony in it at the end of March with
Samanartha and
Extra Retreat - Diverse People, One Sangha
Diverse People, One SanghaLed by Parami, Padmadhara, Maitrisara and Munisha
Friday 18 May - Sunday 20 May
For Men and Women Mitras and Order Members
"We make the world and the world makes us" Joanna Macy
Buddhism teaches a way beyond our dualistic notions of self and other.
Yet in communities, societies and Sanghas divisions are still felt; most
noticeably in the differences of culture, race, sexual orientation,
disability, gender and class. We will explore how the teachings of the
Buddha help us to find harmony across divides, focusing on cultural
diversity but drawing in experiences and learning from other issues.
The retreat will start with appreciating and affirming who we are and the benefits of what diversity brings to our lives. We will then open up a space where we can share our stories about how these cultural divisions have affected us and look to what we can learn from the Dharma to help us find a way through this. Finally we will look at where we might like to go next to work together or to pursue our own reflections.
It will all be facilitated with an attitude of exploration and creativity, taking place within a supportive environment. Meditation, workshops, ritual, discussion and talks will accompany us on our journey. Though a weekend is a very short time to be raising some of these very big issues, we thought that by coming together we could at least make a start in discovering where we might like to go with this conversation.
Suggested donation: £115/95/75