Sangha Night

At the heart of the Birmingham Buddhist Centre is a community of people that are exploring and practising Buddhism – this is the sangha. Every Thursday night is Sangha Night, where we come together to create a place of friendship, connection and depth, whilst enjoying collective meditation, Dharma and devotional practice. Each year we dedicate a theme, and many of the evenings will revolve around this. You are welcome to join Sangha Night after completing the 2 introductory courses.

Please arrive around 7pm. Session will run from 7:15pm – 9:15pm, with a tea break in the middle.
No need to book. No charge – please make a donation.

UPCOMING EVENTS

30 November: Full Moon Puja

7 December: The Transforming Power of Conflict with Jnanasiddhi

14 December: WINTER SOIREE

Sangha Night has been running for 7 years, and now we have some new ideas, to make the evenings even better.

Starting in 2024, Thursday nights at the Buddhist Centre will be a little different. Thursday’s Sangha Night becomes “Dharma Night: The Buddha’s teaching for everyone”

The name change enables us more easily to encourage everyone, even those that don’t consider themselves as ‘sangha’ quite yet, to come along and learn more about Buddhism. It is still the main evening of the week where people with different levels of experience from across the Sangha can come together, and the new format will give more time to each topic so we can go more in depth, benefiting those who already have an established practice too.

What will change?
The main difference is that instead of mostly stand alone sessions there will be a series of four or five sessions on a particular topic – so that we can get into more in depth.
A new topic launches every seven weeks, seven topics in total through the year.
Every series starts with an introductory evening to the theme which is timed to follow the end of the previous introductory course.
Each series will have one order member hosting for those weeks, but they may not lead every session.
“Guest nights” will happen once every 7 weeks – where you can meet Order members from out of town or locals you don’t know so well.
Pujas (devotional rituals) will happen once every 7 weeks – sometimes this will be a mitra ceremony
Soirees will still happen twice a year around the solstice

What will stay the same?
Most importantly, the primary intention of the evening is still to build connections between people
Evenings will include presentations and discussions.
Evenings will still be stand alone to allow that lovely Thursday night flexibility.
This is a good next step for people completing introductory courses

The first series is “A Taste of Freedom” starting on Jan 11 and Maitrisara will be leading the series.

Dharma Night Theme: A Taste of Freedom

This series is based on a 1979 talk by Sangharakshita. The main themes are the fetters of habit, superficiality and vagueness. And these fetters are broken by becoming creative, committed and clear.

11 January 2024 Freedom as the goal
18 January 2024 Creativity: Finding freshness in our practice
21 January 2024 Commitment: Diving beneath the surface
1 February 2024 Clarity: The unobscured mirror behind delusion