Tejananda
Tejananda has been practising meditation and Buddhism for nearly 50 years and has been a member of the Triratna Order since 1980. He has worked in a vegetarian café in Croydon, helped establish the Bristol Buddhist Centre, worked for the Karuna Trust, written a book introducing the fundamentals of Buddhism (‘The Buddhist Path to Awakening’) and taught meditation and Dharma in many parts of the UK, Europe, the USA and Australasia.
A member of the Vajraloka resident team from 1995 to 2023, he remains actively involved in teaching and leading retreats at Vajraloka, as well as at other Triratna centres both in person and online. All of his forthcoming events and booking details can be found on his website at www.tejananda.net.
Upcoming Programs by Tejananda
Satipatthana: the Buddha’s teaching on mindfulness
Also With Prajnapriya
The Satipatthana Sutta, one of the most influential of the Buddha’s discourses, shows how wakeful, insightful attention to body, feelings and mind can enable us to wake up to our true nature. This radically transformative teaching is described as a ‘direct path’ to the cessation of suffering. Offering effective approaches that address the alienation and […]
This, just this - with sesshin
In Zen, a sesshin is a period of especially intense all-the-time formal practice. For three days on this retreat, we will adopt - and adapt - this approach. Each day, there will be several two-hour periods of sitting and walking, and we’ll be opening to the presence of awareness in all of our activities throughout […]
Uncontrived Mindfulness & the Unreliable Witness
Also With Vajradevi
Central to our dharma life is a simple yet profound distinction; between our direct experience mediated through the senses, and the thoughts and ideas we have about those experiences. We are usually unaware that the concepts we base our sense of self on and navigate our world by, are frequently flawed in a deep and […]
Wisdom Energy
Also With Padmadrishti
Our ‘precious human body’ is the first and most important foundation not just of mindfulness, but of meditation and Dharma practice as a whole. The teaching of the Buddha’s ‘Three Bodies’ (trikaya) suggests that there is far, far more to the body than meets the eye. These could be summarised as the bodies of truth […]
Emptiness and the Heart Sutra
The Heart Sutra is one of the most familiar of all Buddhist texts and, inevitably, there are innumerable takes on ‘what it means’. How do we square the opening statement that the skandhas (our psycho–physical constituents) are ‘empty’ with the following one that ‘in emptiness’ there are no skandhas, no senses, no conditioned–arising? Early western […]
Dhyana Through the Body
Also With Advayasiddhi
Accessing dhyana (jhana), or absorption, seems to be very natural for some people, and a complete mystery to others. Dhyana is well worth cultivating as a way of deepening shamatha (mental tranquillity) as well as for the sheer psycho-somatic pleasure that some of these states afford. On this retreat, we’ll be suggesting approaches that people […]
Compassion and Emptiness
The Buddha taught the divine abodes – unconditional love, compassion, joy and equanimity – not just as states of calm, but as ways to liberate the mind. The Brahmavihara practices enable us to cultivate these qualities and to engage with our afflictive emotions – craving, hatred and ‘ignoring’ – in relation to them. In doing […]
The Awakening Heart and the Divine Abodes
Also With Rijumitra
Bodhicitta – the awakening heart – is both the heart–response of wisdom to the suffering of living beings everywhere and the urge to realise full awakening for the benefit of all. This retreat will focus on love, compassion, joy and equanimity – the four ‘divine abodes’ or brahmaviharas – in the context of cultivating bodhicitta. […]