Noticing what is already there – us, deluded as we are – and the limitless Illuminator, Buddha Vairocana. Trusting our relation to the limitless, whether we feel it at that moment or not. From ‘True Entrusting 2024: Shinran, the Buddha and Bhante’.

This evening we are blessed to have Vajratara speak at Sangha Night on Dr Ambedkar, one of our 20th century Great Buddhist Teachers, who has ongoing influence and significance to the practice of millions of Buddhists, including ourselves. Dr. Ambedkar’s vision supports our Sangha friends in India to strive for a more enlightened society based on Buddhist values, with social, economic, and political justice. Vajratara is based at Tiratanaloka, the retreat centre for women who have asked for ordination. In the early 2000s Vajratara lived in Sheffield and worked at the Sheffield Buddhist centre as the Mitra Convenor for women. It is always a joy to welcome her back.

Between the idea,

And the reality,

Between the motion,

And the act,

Falls the Shadow.

Inspired by some verses from T. S. Eliot's 'The Hollow Men', Akasajoti explores the relationship between vision and transformation, and the mediating role of 'Perfect Emotion', drawing on Sangharakshita's original lecture from the Noble Eightfold Path series.

She suggests that to notice our faith responses is to find where vision and emotion already relate to each other in our experience. And that we can apply the 'three levels of wisdom' - to hear, reflect, and become - to listen to our responses to ordinary kinds of value as 'distant echoes of the deepest ideals within reality', and gradually amplify these moments by making connections with how they point beyond themselves to something more, until they become more integrated into our experience.

Given at the London Buddhist Centre Sub25 Class, February 2024