Padmavajra explores what it means to come together in a Buddhist centre to practice the Dharma and why we need such places in which to practice together. He touches on the importance of learning the Dharma, inspiration, friendship and the 'bodying forth' of the Buddha's teachings in our lives. Excerpted from the talk entitled The Wondrous House of the Dharma given at the London Buddhist Centre, 2023. ***
Subscribe to our Dharmabytes podcast: On Apple Podcasts | On Spotify | On Google Podcasts
Bite-sized inspiration three times every week.
Subscribe to our Free Buddhist Audio podcast: On Apple Podcasts | On Spotify | On Google Podcasts
A full, curated, quality Dharma talk, every week. 3,000,000 downloads and counting!
Subscribe using these RSS feeds or search for Free Buddhist Audio or Dharmabytes in your favourite podcast service!
Help us keep FBA Podcasts free for everyone: donate now!
Follow Free Buddhist Audio: YouTube | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Soundcloud
[music] Dharma Bites is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for your life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. Thank you and happy listening. You often have discussion groups, study groups. You engage in a practice, you're not just listening. You're engaging in a practice called "dhamma kata", which means literally talking the Dharma, or even talking the truth. Yes, you learn what the Buddha's vision of life is. You learn how that's applied through different practices, ethical practices, meditation practices, wisdom practices. But you also have to work out how that relates to your experience, to your life. And that happens through honest, heart-to-heart discussion and exploration. And it might even be quite fiery sometimes. Sometimes you have cherished ideas, views of things, and they start bumping up against what you find in the Dharma. They might appear to be conflict. Maybe there is conflict, maybe there isn't. But you have to kind of go through that process of a real, if you like, deep searching, a totally honest exploration of the truth together. So you have that here. Life in the center. It's harder to do that online. It's much better to do that when you're face to face, when you've got that live exchange. And of course, it's not simply to do with the words that you're using. It's the whole physical human presence. That whole interaction that goes on, it's gesture, it's everything. You know, maybe smell as well that we pick up on, I don't know. It's so, so important to engage in that. So much wisdom, I think, is distilled through that honest discussion as you learn to imply the Dharma to, you know, to your life. So that's instruction, discussion, practice. That whole area, that all develops. We hope you enjoyed today's Dharma Bite. Please help us keep this free. Make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. And thank you. (upbeat music)
