This website is concerned with life at a hermitage and retreat centre in Spain, on a narrowboat on the canals of England and Wales, and with the dakini, a divine partner – as well as some other bits and pieces.
Uttaraloka is a hermitage and retreat centre in the Spanish mountains not far from Alicante. Twice a year I run a three-month retreat for up to four members of the Triratna Buddhist Order. There is no specific theme to the retreats the purpose is simply to leave one’s world and do nothing so that one’s inner life can emerge.
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The Dakini is an image from the Indo/Tibetan Tantric Buddhist tradition. I am not Tibetan, nor have I received Tantric initiation, but I have been an active Buddhist for fifty years and the dakini has always held a particular fascination for me. She is a symbol of the anima but also of insight into the Reality of Freedom and Bliss.
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For several months a year I live on a narrowboat on the English/Welsh canal system. Normally alone, I have an opportunity to wander from place to place just as as I please. The pace is quiet and slow and mostly in beautiful or at least interesting surroundings. Even fifty metres from a city street you are in a different world.
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Other Writing
Planting a Seed – the story of my seventeen years in the USA
How do you start a Buddhist movement? Charismatic teachers gather disciples by the thousand; Asian Buddhist organizations provide for the religious needs of immigrant communities; maverick monks trained in Asia set up temples of their own; eccentric Bohemians attract circles of devotees; academics ‘go native’ and preach what they teach. All this has happened in the development of American Buddhism which has become the most complex, some would say confused, form of Buddhism in the history of the religion.
In 1980 three men from the UK went to the USA to establish a new Buddhist movement. They had neither charisma, the backing of a traditional order, financial support, or experience, but they did have enthusiasm, confidence and naivete. Planting a Seed traces the development of the Triratna Buddhist Community in the USA for the first 15 years of its history, but it is also a story of the sort of personal struggle that is involved in such a project. It also offers a glimpse into the world of American Buddhism in the 1980s and 90s.
The Joy of Renunciation – based on a talk given at Padmaloka, UK in 2007