Sangha Night is our regular get-together for members of the Bristol sangha. Each evening includes a mixture of meditation, teaching and discussion suitable for anyone who has completed an introductory course.

On Sangha Night, we cover various topics in the form of short courses or series.

Here’s what we have planned for the next couple of months…

22nd October and 29th October 2024

‘Beyond the view that our lives are problems to be solved’.

With Dharmamrta

We will consider the tension that can exist between the dharmic perspective and those perspectives that can be seen to be more psychological.  We will ask how the discoveries of meditation and psychotherapy come together and can we hold the possibility of neither offering an ultimate resolution.

5th November

Rains retreat – ‘This being that becomes’, sangha night regulars welcome to join for this eve

12th November

Why did she bother?(!). Satyalila’s 7 years’ work on Sangharakshita’s Complete Works

Satyalila has spent about 3 months a year for the last 7 years on ‘index mountain’, creating indexes for Sangharakshita’s Complete Works, as part of virtual team (or ‘scriptorium’) of Order Members ensuring that all the published writings (& more) of Triratna founder Sangharakshita are available for future generations. 

Each volume is around 700 pages long and contains freshly edited, contextualised and annotated texts of Sangharakshita’s core teachings, lectures, seminars, poetry and memoirs. 

Why do we, as a Sangha need this? And what can we do with it?  And why would someone spend all that time on it?

19th November until 17th December

Four week course on the Four Noble Truths. We will be looking at the Four Noble Truths. This is a teaching the Buddha often emphasised. There is suffering and unsatisfactoriness in life – what is the cause of this? Is there a way beyond this, and if so, how? We will be exploring this over four Sangha Nights; each evening will include meditation, input and discussion.

Led by Manjurava, Kamalavajra and Prajnamati.

17th December 2024

End of year sangha celebration

 Join us for the last Sangha Night of 2024 marked in the traditional way with a chance to both socialise and to enjoy some home-grown entertainment. And you don’t have to be a performer to contribute. The theme is ‘What brings us joy’, and the Sangha Night team would like to encourage as many people as possible to share something, be it musical, vocal, artistic, written or just an interest or outlook on life, that lifts their spirits at this darkest time of the year.  Refreshments of a seasonal nature will also be on offer as we round off our Sangha year with a smile.  If you would like to offer something it would be helpful if you could contact Ratnadhya in advance on Ratnadhya@outlook.com

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The year will also be peppered through with individual evenings on the theme of Living the Dharma Life. In our movement we live our Dharma lives in a wide variety of ways – in families, communities, work, study, the creative arts, activism, in solitude, in our Centres and organisations – to name only some.  Through the year we will be inviting people to come and share with us these rich and varied experiences.

All our classes are run on donations which means everyone, regardless of income, can learn about Buddhism and meditation. To keep this revolutionary approach going, please do give what you can!

If you’d like to catch up with what’s been happening at Sangha Night, subscribe to our YouTube channel for all the latest recordings, or our Listen Again pages for material from 2020 and before.