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This talk is from the series organised by 'Dharmapala College' to mark the 40th anniversary of the Western Buddhist Order, with a chance for questions and comments from the audience. The series looked at the Order and the FWBO taken together – past and future: its own emphases, and its relationship to the whole Buddhist tradition...
Here Dhammarati explores the FWBO's system of practice itself – its background in practice, its relationship to tradition, and its implications for the very nature of spiritual life. An encouraging, grounded, flexible take on the rigorous, meaningful, and rewarding challenges of a lifetime of working with the mind and the heart.
Talk given at the national Order weekend, February 2008
 | 1. | Dhammarati's nightmare; celebrating birthdays; the Order at 40 - taking stock (2:26) |
| 2. | The 'Cheto Kila Sutta' - confidence in your basis of practice; influence from other sources; lineage and handing on through generations (2:09) |
| 3. | Systems; Ravenna mosaics and modern mosaics - building in irregularity (2:01) |
| 4. | Sangharakshita on the Fwbo system of meditation (3:07) |
| 5. | The system of practice seen pragmatically; the centrality of 'Going for Refuge' - shared experience of spiritual life (2:50) |
| 6. | Asanga on essential elements of practice; 'purified intention' and 'making correction after failure' - mind and the nature of commitment (3:39) |
| 7. | The Fwbo as four lineages; meditation not all there is to our practice; a lesson from Lhundrup about experience meeting a tradition (3:59) |
| 8. | The context of meditation in the Fwbo and the five spiritual faculties; describing not prescribing – the system in relationship to the mind (4:09) |
| 9. | The need for intelligent dialogue between what we like and prefer, and a more rounded tradition (3:09) |
| 10. | Specific practices shading into insight; two takes on 'Pure Awareness' practice in the Fwbo (4:31) |
| 11. | Anapanasati and metta practices as examples; corollary between the work of the Six Element Practice and the Bodhichitta Practice (3:30) |
| 12. | Context and structure in relationship to formless practice - unpacking the four lineages of the FWBO (3:04) |
| 13. | Practice as aligning the nature of reality and the nature of our mind (1:32) |
Total running time: 40:06
