Wednesday Daytime Dharma Drop-in Class
Buddhism drop-in, all welcome any week
11.45am-12.45pm | by donation (suggested £6)
Stick around for lunchtime meditation, come early for volunteering
You can read Buddhist books and listen to talks on YouTube, but things will open up much more fully when studying Buddhism alongside others.
The fivefold Mandala of Tantric Buddhism
The Buddha recommended that you need certain resources to become complete as a human being, and to 'wake up'. We will be looking at a comprehensive set of personal qualities, the five faculties. These are ways of "meeting" the experience of life and of others, analogous to the physical senses.
26 March: Five Buddhas - A slideshow by Ratnaprabha to introduce the five Buddhas of the Tantric Mandala.
2 April: Five Sacred Emblems - Guhyasakhi explains the powerful objects held by each Buddha, and their symbolism – the vajra, the jewel, the lotus, the double vajra, and the wheel of truth.
9 April: Five Symbolic Gestures - The meaning of the Buddhas' hand gestures – earth touching, supreme giving, absorption, fearlessness, and teaching.
16 April: Five Elements - Water, earth, fire, air, and space, their symbolic meaning, and their associations with the five Buddha families.
23 April: Five Parts of a Human Being - The five skandhas, that make up the complete human personality: form, feeling, perception, volition and consciousness. Understanding yourself, your identity, and whether there is an underlying soul.
30 April: Five Mantras - Each Buddha has a special Sanskrit mantra, chanted in invoking them. Can mantras really protect the mind?
7 May: Five Magical Functions - Including prospering, pacifying, subduing and fascinating. Is it just vulgar magic, or can the magician turn into a compassionate bodhisattva?
14 May: Five Realms - Looking at the so-called Tibetan Wheel of Life, and how the realms of heaven, hell, humans, jealous spirits, and hungry ghosts are protected by the five Buddha families.
21 May: Five Female Buddhas - Can Buddhas really be female? Looking at The One with the Eye, The Mine Maker, The Wearer of the White Robe, The Star or Ferry Woman, and the Sovereign Queen of Infinite Space.
28 May: Five Bodhisattvas - Compassionate mythical bodhisattvas are associated with each Buddha family, figures such as Avalokiteshvara, Tara, Manjusri, and Vajrapani. What do they represent, and can we really be called on for help?
4 June: Five Poisonous States - The five Buddhas are said to transform the poisonous destructive states of mind known as kleshas: aversion, pride, clinging, envy, and deep ignorance. Do we have to get rid of these states, or can they be sublimated into constructive energies?
11 June: Five Wisdoms - The poisons are transformed into five wisdoms – the mirrorlike, equality, all-distinguishing, all-performing, and the wisdom of the realm of reality. How can we access these wisdoms in ourselves?
18 June: Five Great Stages - The five Buddhas can be correlated with five great stages of the path to awakening: integration, positive emotion, spiritual death, spiritual rebirth, and receptivity or compassionate activity.
Background reading if interested – 'Meeting the Buddhas', by Vessantara (Windhorse Publications).
25 June: New Series Starts
Led by Ratnaprabha & Guhyasakhi