“Late July saw us celebrate something new here: our very first joint Polish-Ukrainian-Russian retreat, held in the beautiful green countryside of Kominkowy Spichlerz near Krakow in Poland. It was conceived by Saddhaloka, who fulfilled a long standing ambition to bring together practitioners from the Triratna Buddhist Sanghas of Krakow in Poland, Odessa in the Ukraine and Moscow, Russia, as well as others from Germany and the UK.
“Two highlights of the week were Dmitry Hovansky from Odessa asking for ordination, thereby becoming the first person living in the Ukraine to do so, having been in contact with Saddhaloka for eleven years; and Viktor Chudin from Yuzhnyy near Odessa becoming a Mitra. Both are very involved with Shorinji Kempo, the Buddhist-affiliated Japanese martial art, with Dmitry being the President of the Association in the Ukraine.
“Thanks go to everyone who gave to the successful appeal to raise funds for the travel costs of Evgenia Lipilina, from Moscow, to come on the retreat and translate between English and Russian.
“Saddhaloka co-led the week-long retreat along with Nityabandhu, chair of Sanghaloka, Triratna’s centre in Krakow, choosing as his theme “The Five Great Stages of the Path”. This allowed those present to explore how a ‘Life in the Dharma’ might be lived, specifically by following Triratna’s system of spiritual life and practice. The five talks covered Integration, Positive Emotion, Spiritual Receptivity, Spiritual Death, and Spiritual Rebirth revealing practical ways of how to progress from stage to stage until gaining Supreme Enlightenment. We’ll be posting his talks on Free Buddhist Audio as soon as it’s ready to handle the Cyrillic character set! You’ll then be able to hear the fruits of Evgenia’s labours”.
Saddhaloka and Suvannavira have built up an impressive collection of Russian Dharma material on the buddhayana.ru website; other resources include his very popular VKontakte site (a Russian social-networking site); a selection of Russian language Dharma books, and last but not least a video of Evgenia speaking at Sanghaloka on 'Why I am a Buddhist?'. This time Evgenia speaks in English and is translated into Polish by Nityabandhu.
Finally an appeal by Suvannavira, who says - “Wherever your centre is in the world, you’re likely to have some Russians, or native Russian speakers, coming to classes from time to time. Some Order members already put me in touch with them when this happens, and doing so has been appreciated by us all. And so I would like to invite you all to do so with me here in Moscow. My email is suvannavira@gmail.com. They may find it inspiring to know there is the possibility of continued involvement closer to home if and when they return to Russia - knowing it may even encourage them to engage more deeply with our Triratna Buddhist Community”.