Amida News

Inauguration of Leicestershire Interfaith Forum

Leicestershire is establishing an interfaith forum. The Amida Trust representative will be Amida-shu member Tony Stellmacher, one of the Trust's trustees who lives in the county.

Dharmavidya Attends Buddhist Teachers' Convivium

Dhamavidya attended by invitation the Convivium of Buddhist teachers in UK held at Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey in Northumberland organized by the Network of Buddhist Organisations 11-13 March 2008.

Highly Stimulating Arts & Culture Presentations

The arts and spirituality week has continued in a remarkably stimulating way and we all feel quite elated with it. Do continue.....

Spirituality & the Arts Week Begins

Our week of reflection on culture and the arts got off to a good start this evening as members of The Buddhist House community, including Dharmavidya, attended an event offered by the local Baha'i community at which film-maker Mark Bamford showed hie film The Hero and talked about the influence that being Baha'i had had upon his life and work. The meeting was also attended by novelist Rod Duncan. Much intense discussion resulted. What makes a work of art spiritual? How does spirituality change an artist's approach? Is there a danger is spirituality using art? Is art intrinsically spiritual? What is the nature of creativity? These and many more questions will fuel our inquiries over the coming nine days.

Dharmavidya & Prasada in San Francisco

Dharmavidya and Prasada are currently visiting Zen Center, San Francisco, before travelling to north California.

Amida Chaplain Chairs City of Sanctuary Event

Rev. Bhaktika facilited an evening event for Sheffield Faiths Forum & City of Sanctuary.

A funeral in Newcastle

Sujatin has attended the Service of Thanksgiving for the life of Rev Kit Widdows, the Master of St Thomas', in the city centre,who died suddenly on December 8th while giving a talk at another church. Kit was robustly involved in ethical action, enthusiastic about setting up the local inter-faith community and the Newcastle Make Poverty History group. He had a Fair Trade shop within his church. ::link

Northumbria University Buddhist Society

Events

Whirling Dervishes

Members of the Amida community last night attended a performance organised by the Anatolian Cultural and Educational Society that included a display of derishe dancing and many other aspects of Anatolian culture.

Service of Thanksgiving

As part of the Newcastle University Chaplaincy team, Sujatin attended an Ecumenical Service of Thanksgiving for those who have donated their bodies for Medical Education and Research.

Buddhist Chaplaincy at Northumbria University

Rev Sujatin Johnson, Minister with the Order, was appointed as a member of the Northumbria University Chaplaincy team on Friday.

Tree Planting

Amida Order Member Joan McCann went tree planting with London Fo Guan Shan.

Ambedkar Conference

Sr Modgala is attending the conference in London on the work of Dr. Ambedkar and the Buddhist "revolution" in India.

Newcastle Walk for Burma

At 5pm last evening Newcastle Buddhists For Peace walked slowly, chanting, down Northumberland Street, the main shopping street in the city, and then sat in meditation at Grey's Monument in the city centre. The group included members of Amida Newcastle and other groups including the Newcastle University Buddhists. We attracted much attention and all comments were supportive of the people of Burma. We intend this to be a regular Thursday event.

Karen Community Burma Protest in Sheffield

Photo by Sally Woods (MAS)

Prasada Speaks at Christians Aware Event

Rev. Prasada, deputy head of the order, spoke on "Dharma" at a meeting of Christians Aware this evening.

Prayer for World Peace

This afternoon Rev Sujatin attended the Catholic 'Commission for Inter-Religious Relations' event "Prayer for World Peace' at St Mary's Cathedral, Newcastle upon Tyne. She carried the globe in the entry procession.

News from Amida Hawaii

Paul and Judy are moving to Malu Aina, an organic farm. Several of the Amida Waimea group joined Malu Aina to march in the Honokaa Hongwanji's peace day parade. We had a very good "entry" and our photo actually made the front page of the paper. Paul gave testimony as part of a hearing to determine if a particular weapons system should be stationed in Hawaii speaking about concerns about the effects of the militirization in Hawaii on the Buddhist communites and in particular on our Buddhist Children. Buddhism does, after all, have a very strong ethic against killing and warfare. The media caught these comments and paraphrased them in an article on the hearings. The Waimea Group has plans for actions to support monks in Burma. Martha Hennessy, granddaughter of Dorothy Day, will be spending some time at Malu Aina starting in November. Marha attended the Waimea Group a week ago, and gave a nice talk about the Catholic Worker movement and Dorothy Day. This led to a good discussion.

Prasada to speak at Sharpham

Caroline Prasada Brazier, has been invited to speak at the Sharpham Centre for contemporary Buddhist Enquiry

Installation of Rev. Dr. Alan Race

Last evening, Dharmavidya attended the Christian ceremony of the Licensing and Commissioning of Alan Race as vicar of St. Philip's Church Leicester and Dean of Studies of the St Philip's Centre, a project dedicated to harmonising Christian relations with other faiths. The ceremony was conducted by Tim Stevens, Bishop of Leicester. Alan Race is an editor of Interreligious Insight magazine and author of books and articles on interfaith relations.

Report on Stupa Dedication

A report with pictures on last Sunday's event.

Service at Newcastle University

On Monday evening Sujatin attended a Service of Welcome and Commissioning for the Honorary Chaplains (Christian) attached to the Chaplaincy team at Newcastle University. As the only non-Christian chaplain on campus, she represented both Buddhism and All Other Faiths.

Supporting Burmese People in Sheffield

Yesterday evening members of the Amida School in Sheffield sat with sangha friends in the centre of Sheffield, in support of the Karen Community Association, a group of Burmese refugees settled here under the UNHCR's Gateway Programme. There were heartfelt speeches from a range of people in support of the people of Burma. We meditated with a banner saying: Sheffield Buddhists for a Free Burma.

Encounter with Christians Aware

This evening Dharmavidya, Prasada, Gareth and Miao-san attended a meeting of Christians Aware in Leicester. The speakers were Dharmavidya and Ramona Kauth, who is from the Karma Ling Buddhist community in Birmingham. There was a wonderful exchange between the audience and speakers which ended on a fine note to everybody's great satisfaction.

At Three Wheels Temple

Inauguration of Three Wheels Stupa

Rev. Dr. Dharmavidya, Rev. Prasada, Ven. Miao-san and Gareth went to Brookwood Cemetery this morning to assist Rev. Sato, his teacher Chimyo Takehara sama, and other members of the Three Wheels Temple in the ceremonies to inaugurate a stupa. The creation of the stupa has come about through the death of Rev. Zenko Croysdale, a Zen monk who left a bequest for this purpose. After the ceremonies at Brookwood in Surrey the party returned to Three Wheels Temple for further ceremonies and a Dharma meeting at which Takehara sama and others made speeches. Members of the Theravada sangha were also present at the Temple events. A warm atmosphere prevailed throughout.

Walk for Burma in Newcastle

80 people gathered at Grey's Monument and walked to the Millennium Bridge - students from Newcastle University and Buddhists from the umbrella group, 'Buddhists For Peace', which included members of several of the Newcastle Buddhist groups, the Burmese community in County Durham and academics from Newcastle, Durham and Sunderland Universities. We received several comments about the quietness of our walk attracting more attention than had been more vociferous. When we reached the Tyne we gathered in a circle while Ashin Nandapala, a Burmese monk, chanted the Metta Suta (teaching on Loving-kindness) in Pali, which was then chanted in English by a small group. We then filed onto the bridge, facing upstream and all dropped petals into the river and tied red threads to the bridge.

Arrival

Ven. Miao-san from South Africa arrived at The Buddhist House for a period of study.

Exchange of Books

Dharmavidya and Lama Shenpen Hookham have exchanged their respective books about death and dying. See item: Meeting of Minds