Tejananda
Tejananda has been practising meditation and dharma since the mid-70s. He was ordained by Sangharakshita in 1980 after which he participated in the setting-up of the FWBO Bristol centre and was centre chair for six years. After several years working for the Karuna Trust in Oxford, he joined the team at Vajraloka in 1995. His book,’The Buddhist Path to Awakening’ was published by Windhorse around that time.
Since then he has been leading and supporting retreats at Vajraloka and at other retreat centres in the UK and worldwide. Although no longer living at Vajraloka, he remains part of the wider Vajraloka mandala and is deeply committed to Vajraloka’s long-standing objective of helping create conditions for people to take their dharma and meditation practice deeper.
Tejananda’s website www.tejananda.net lists all of his forthcoming retreats, including online retreats for the Buddhist Centre Online and ones that he is running himself.
Upcoming Programs by Tejananda
Dhyana Through the Body
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. […]
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 […]
Dhyana Through the Body - Re-evaluating Dhyana
“Quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states… one suffuses, fills, and permeates one’s entire body with rapture and pleasure born of seclusion, so that there is no part of one’s whole body that is not pervaded by it.” AN 5.28 On this retreat, we’ll be offering embodied approaches to dhyana (jhāna) that people […]
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 […]
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. […]