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.

COMING UP:

July 1 – 22

The Taste of Freedom

Week 1 (July 1) – What Is Freedom? / The Dakini as a Symbol of Freedom

Week 2 (July 8) – The Spiral Path

Week 3 (July 15) – Breaking the Fetter of Habit

Week 4 (July 22) – Breaking the Fetters of Superficiality and Vagueness

A practical course in freeing ourselves from what binds us

The point of being a Buddhist is to free ourselves from whatever keeps us trapped in a mundane and repetitive cycle. But how do we do that, and what does real freedom mean?

In this course we explore a pivotal point in the Buddhist path where we have our first taste of real freedom. Traditionally this is called ‘stream entry’ – we enter the stream that leads to the ocean of Enlightenment.

At this point we break three fetters that prevent us from entering the stream, or we could say, from reaching our full potential. We take a good look at these and see how they play out in our lives, both individually and collectively, and we explore ways in which we can loosen, and eventually break them.

July 29th: Special evening. Arts Cafe. An exciting evening of cultural delights.

Listen Again: Tuesday April 1st: The Dharma is Like an Avocado! – The Buddhist Poetry of Gary Snyder

https://www.freebuddhistaudio.com/audio/details.php?num=LOC6460

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Material from the meditation course with Prajnamati

Handouts on the approaches covered can be downloaded below:

Listen to an introductory exercise on balanced effort:

Listen to a talk and exercise on balanced effort:

Listen to a talk and exercise on the polarity map of Concentration and Relaxation:

Previous Talks:

Listen to the talk by Taranita given 7th January where he introduces the theme and skillfully offers some helpful suggestions https://www.freebuddhistaudio.com/audio/details.php?num=LOC6367

Listen to talk given by Maitrijyoti 14th January

Listen to the third talk in the series by Kayamoksini 21st January

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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.