Dharmavidya

Do have a look at the Sukhavati site

Great new website for Sukhavati, the Amida Trust centre in London, designed by Sumaya, the community leader there. 

how would you like to mix your Buddhism?

I seem to have stimulated quite a discussion on Buddhism UK with comments about mixing traditions in Buddhism

Writings from David

I'm feeling some satisfaction about the launch of my Facebook group Writings from David. The group is very wide ranging and somewhat provocative aiming to stimulate intelligent debate as well as broadcast news of my publishing activities. I started off as you do with these things adding a lot of my friends and some, of course, immediately left, but others have joined and there are currently way over 1500 members. More importantly, it has stimulated some really vibrant discussions. 

Popular items have been:
# On the possibility of the collapse of the dollar economy: 71 responses; 
# Impermanence causes and cures depression, 32 responses;
# On Buddha's compassion (drawn from my The Feeling Buddha book), 29 responses;
# On talking to angels, featuring Susan Phoenix, 19 responses;
# What is the optimum length for a book? 19 responses;
# announcement of contact for my autobiography, 16 responses;
# depression, anxiety and hysteria, 14 responses;
# Is Twitter populism the democracy of the future, 11 responses;
# Writing "small stones", 10 responses;

New discussions on
# ritual and duty to ancestors
# the economic strength of Europe
are already attracting attention.

Other items concern
# the poetry of Anna Akhmatova
# a forthcoming book on mindfulness in Italian
# feedback on the Garrison Conference of Buddhist teachers
# Compassion Therapy
# harvesting lavendar
# fear and enlightenment
# a haiku on impermanence
# the forthcoming Japanese translation of Love and Its Disappointment
and lots of smaller items

In effect the group has become a kind of small scale on-line journal. My thanks to all who have contributed.