Forthcoming Events:
The Festival of Avalokiteshwara Bodhisattva

On Saturday the 13th of September we will be celebrating the Festival of Avalokiteshwara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. The name Avalokiteshwara is Sanskrit (Japanese: Kanzeon, Chinese: Kwan Yin, Tibetan: Chenrezig), and means “The one who hears the cries of the world”. To live with compassion is to hear the cries of suffering within ourselves and within all beings, and to be willing to respond, and the festival will focus on this centrally important aspect of Buddhist practice.

Leeds Regional Sangha Day

On Saturday the 21st of June the Leeds meditation group hosted a Regional Day Retreat at the Jamyang Buddhist Centre in Leeds. It was very nice to practise with monks and lay trainees from many different areas, and altogether there were just under 30 of us there.

Rev. Sanshin and Rev. Kōjō, travelled down from Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey for the day. Rev. Sanshin is the group monk for the Leeds group, and Rev. Kōjō is the group monk for the Huddersfield group. Rev. Mugō from Telford and Rev. Alicia from Sitting Buddha Hermitage also travelled to Leeds for the day, as did Rev. Aiden.

We started with a meditation period, followed by …

The Festival of the Buddha’s Birth

The highlight of our calendar in May is always Wesak, the Festival of the Buddha’s Birth, and this year we will be celebrating Wesak on Saturday the 17th of May.

Wesak will be a full day event, from 10am to 4pm. The festival and Dharma talk will both be in the morning, so you can come just for those if you would prefer. There will then be the option to stay on for a bring-and-share lunch and a social afternoon, which will also include a meditation period followed by tea and biscuits. Rev. Alicia from Sitting Buddha Hermitage in Derbyshire is planning to join us for the day.

On Thursday the 13th of February we celebrated the Festival of the Buddha’s Parinirvana at the temple. This festival commemorates the death of the historical Buddha Shakyamuni, and this year for the first time we had a proper Parinirvana statue of the Buddha on the altar for the ceremony. This statue came from the recently-closed Reading Priory, and the photo below shows it on the front of the main altar, together with the three candles which represent the three refuges of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Behind it you can see the base of our usual main altar Buddha statue; the main altar statue is traditionally obscured behind a curtain during the Parinirvana ceremony.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year

Thank you to everyone who has shared their practice,
and supported the temple in so many different ways,
during the past year.

Wishing you all a healthy and peaceful 2025.
Let us offer the merit of our practice to all beings;
may all beings be able to realise the truth.