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What is it?
Buddhism is a spiritual path that helps us cultivate more positive mental states and
emotional warmth allowing us to lead more meaningful and fulfilled lives. The ultimate ‘goal’ is enlightenment,
seeing how things really are or freedom from the basic drives of greed, hatred and ignorance. This allows us to become less
reactive and more creative with our life choices, which is spiritual growth.
The spiritual tradition we call Buddhism was started by the Buddha about 2500 years ago in northern
India. Since his death,
Buddhism has adapted to many different societies finding ways of expressing the Buddha’s vision in different cultures
and historical periods. The fruits of this process are the Buddhism in the west of today consisting of Tibetan Buddhism,
Indian Buddhism, Zen and pure land Buddhism of Japan and many more. So now
Buddhism has landed in the west, it is finding the form most appropriate to our culture and modern times.
The Triratna Buddhist Community draws from the vast,
rich Buddhist tradition of core teachings and practices that underlie all the different schools of Buddhism. So we are simply
Buddhist practitioners, basing our practice on the core teachings, but open to the whole of the tradition.
The Triratna Buddhist Community sees the commitment to the Buddha, Dharma (the Buddha’s teaching)
and the Sangha (the community of practitioners), as being what defines one as a Buddhist. This commitment can be followed
through in a variety of lifestyles. So ordination into the Triratna Buddhist Community does not mean becoming a monk
or nun and is open on an equal basis to both men and women.
Try it
Over the thousands of years that
they have been used, Buddhist practices have shown themselves to be effective in creating more engaged and positive mental
states. You can try them for yourself by coming along to one of our activities, like an introductory meditation class.
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