Special

What is the Rainy Season Retreat?

During the Buddha's time the rainy season marked a pause from traveling and teaching - a time to gather, reflect, and deepen practice. For the past 25 years the SFBC has honored this tradition with a month-long non-residential retreat each January. By temporarily pausing our introductory classes we make time to deepen our practice and our connections with one another. This is also a time for healing, resting, nourishing the heart's wisdom and replenishing our inner resources ready for the year ahead.

Saturday February 5, 10am to 12 noon

Tejananda invites us to explore the qualities of love and compassion in their depths through meditation, discovering what is readily available to us when we are grounded in our senses and able to "look" at our experience in particular ways. 

The morning will include Tonglen compassion meditation.

Courageous Conversations about Race is a series of 3 discussions curated by Vimalasara where members of the Triratna Buddhist Order will be talking about race from their personal experience.  

Remembering a beautifully long day involving Triratna communities from New Zealand to the West Coast of the USA. You can relive the story of the day on this page.

The day was offered on a dana (donation) basis with all funds offered to our sangha members in India, who face great hardship as the coronavirus crisis disproportionately impacts their lives. The goal is to raise £150,000 – and at time of writing we have nearly £45,000 donated – many thanks!

Join the San Francisco Buddhist Center's Green Sangha for conversation with organizers from Stop the Money Pipeline. This broad coalition has been organizing to "demand that banks, asset managers, insurance companies and institutional investors stop funding, insuring and investing in climate destruction."

A spacious, mostly silent morning of meditation – walking, sitting, and lying down. Open to anyone with some meditation experience. 

We’ll also have an opportunity at the end for those who wish to share what we’ve learned and ask questions.

June 2019 - follow Triratna events online at https://thebuddhistcentre.com/action. See also Sangha Nights in June. 

Join us for a simple morning of meditation - sit, walk, sit.

No instruction - just perhaps a couple of poems or relevant teachings - but there will be an opportunity for anyone interested to hang out and talk about meditation afterwards.

Open to anyone with a meditation practice. 

AWAKENING TO OUR OWN IMAGINATION

Led by Prasadachitta

Our imagination is arguably to most powerful force that works upon the mind. We have only limited evidence of what is happening around us and we rely on our imagination to fill in the blanks. Even what is happening within the sphere of our own being must rely on imagination to have any coherent story or meaning. 

Our theme for October is Creative practice.  During this daylong workshop Acarasiddhi will share ways to connect with our natural creativity through writing.  

The workshop will be positive, friendly, encouraging and productive, with helpful and inspiring writing exercises to get us started, and reflections on the link between words and practice. 

No writing or any other experience required. Bring your curiosity and your favorite writing tools (although pens and paper will also be available if you need them).