Would a secular dharma book reading group interest you?
What is this? Ancient questions for modern minds
by Martine and Stephen Batchelor
A reading group
From Sundays 21 Jan to 28 Apr 2024 on Zoom
For people in the Americas, Europe and Africa … and elsewhere
What is this? contains a series of talks given by Martine and Stephen Batchelor during a Sŏn (Chan/Zen) retreat in England. Leading us through the practice of radical questioning at the heart of this Korean Buddhist tradition, the authors show how anyone at all can benefit from this form of radical inquiry today.
Facilitated by Gaia House teacher, Tony O’Connor, this reading group will go through the reading group guide and discuss one chapter each week.
Martine Batchelor will take questions during a special final session on Sunday 5 May 2024.
Practicing meditation since the mid 1990s in both the Insight Meditation and Korean Sŏn traditions, Tony O’Connor trained under the guidance of Martine Batchelor, and completed the Bodhi College Dharma Teacher Training Programme in 2022. He lives in Cornwall and is interested in exploring how dharma teachings inform the issues of our time, and can be integrated into our daily lives.
For more information and to reserve your place send us an email.
If you don’t already have this book, you can get one here.
To download the Guide for Reading Group and Individual study, click on the image above … in fact, you might try clicking on all the images and see what happens.
The Giant’s Trough Press
Sixty Something Volumes 1 & 2 by Bernard Cadogan, a new book from a brand new publishing imprint – The Giant’s Trough Press – can now be purchased from Tuwhiri’s online store.
But a small sample from Bernard Cadogan’s body of work, the 120 poems in Sixty Something Volumes 1 & 2 are imbued with the personality of the poet as well as the times we live in. His themes are both specific and universal, with a creative mix of philosophy, history and personal storytelling. Traversing joy and loss, hope and anxiety, love and despair, they reveal a poet at the top of their game.
Bernard Cadogan’s previous books, Crete 1941: an epic poem and The loss of madness: a tribute to Hölderlin, are also available in Tuwhiri’s online store.
https://tuwhiri.nz/products/sixty-something-volumes-1-2-paperback
https://tuwhiri.nz/products/copy-of-sixty-something-volumes-1-2-epub
Tuwhiri on Wikipedia
Many of us use Wikipedia regularly nowadays, don’t we‽
You’ll find Tuwhiri authors Bernard Cadogan, Stephen Batchelor and Martine Batchelor on Wikipedia.
Are you able to edit Wikipedia pages, or create one? Please get in touch.
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Revamp is appreciated
The author of Attention: Beyond Mindfulness, A Philosophy of Emptiness and Buddhism AND: Interdependence, Emptiness, Non-Duality, Gay Watson writes:
Revamp is enjoyable and enlightening. Winton Higgins has done a wonderful job of both describing and presenting secular Buddhism as a practice suited to today. I much admire the clarity he brings to the subject, pointing to the historic, academic and textual excursions of Stephen Batchelor and David MacMahon, and also stripping away all that might obscure the practical or novice reader who can delve into their works later, if they so fancy.
However, getting Revamp into Thai
…is taking longer than we had expected. Recently, publisher Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal of Samyan Press let us know that:
We have edited the translation, and I am eager to publish it. But we are short of printing cost; your fund we have given to translators. We are waiting to negotiate with someone or trying to find some support here.
Can you help us get a Thai edition of Revamp published and get it onto the shelves of Thailand’s bookstores? Send a donation now through Paypal to generosity@tuwhiri.nz – you can safely use PayPal without opening a PayPal account.
Netiwit is an undergraduate student at Chulalongkorn University and a democracy activist. Thailand’s first conscientious objector to mandatory military conscription, he is 27 years old. The author of five books, he has translated the work of Isaiah Berlin, Timothy Snyder, Tony Judt, Rebecca Solnit, Gene Sharp, Noam Chomsky, Liu Xiaobo, Cass Sunstein, Hannah Arendt, Vaclav Havel, Tony Benn, and many other inspiring, great minds into Thai.
Farewell Karla Medrano, hello to …
Well, we don’t actually know, yet.
Very soon Tuwhiri editorial board member Karla Medrano will have her second baby. Understandably, she has decided that now is the right time to stand down from our editorial board. We look forward to keeping in touch, seeing the photos, and wish Karla all the best for the future.
Would you like an idea of what’s involved in being on our editorial board? Send an email to Winton Higgins.
Sydney, Australia: one week retreat – in person and online
※ Secular dharma and ethical living –
How to live in a world in crisis
Led by Winton Higgins, Stephen Batchelor and Lenorë Lambert
3 to 10 December 2023 at St. Joseph’s Retreat Centre, Kincumber, NSW
On this residential study retreat, we will explore through talks and discussion how the dharma taught by the Buddha 2,500 years ago can help provide the ethical perspectives and practices we need to engage effectively with the various interconnected crises our world faces in the 21st century — economic, environmental, social, psychological and spiritual.
You can also attend online by Zoom, following as much of the retreat schedule as your inclination and circumstances permit.
For more information and to register go to:
https://sydneyinsightmeditators.org/secular-dharma--ethical-living.html
To support Tuwhiri’s work please consider paying for your newsletter subscription – become a Keen Supporting Member and you will be helping Tuwhiri offer so much more.
Sydney, Australia: two one-day workshops – in person and online
Martine Batchelor will teach two one-day workshops at the Buddhist Library in Camperdown, Sydney.
※ Knowing how it feels –
Mindfulness of feeling tone
Saturday 25 November 2023
Exploring mindfulness of feeling tones, the second foundation of the practice of mindfulness, we become aware of feeling tones as they arise extremely quickly and how they have a profound impact on our behaviour.
※ Creatively engaging with strong emotions
through the lenses of the three characteristics
Sunday 26 November 2023
The three central insights into impermanence, dukkha and not-self offer powerful doorways that connect us with a sense of stability, wellbeing, and confidence. When we explore them in meditation practice and the light of our own life situation as we search for balance in challenging times, they can be really helpful.
For more information and to register go to:
https://sydneyinsightmeditators.org/martine-batchelor-workshops.html
Wellington: Aotearoa New Zealand – one-day retreat
※ One Mindful Breath Spring meditation retreat
Sunday 12 November 2023 • 8.45am to 4.00pm
The Home of Compassion, Island Bay, Wellington
Retreats provide a chance to step away from the busyness of everyday life, find calmness, and deepen your meditation practice. All are welcome and the meditation will be secular, i.e. non-religious.
For more info and to book your place send an email to the retreat organiser.
Website refresh
Tuwhiri’s website is being recreated on a new platform: Shopify. No matter which country you live, you will now see the prices of books in the local currency. Very much a work in progress, you can find it at:
Please support Tuwhiri
Our intention is to publish books on early Buddhism, its retrieval and a secular adaptation to 21st century conditions PLUS thought-provoking books that are not obviously dharma books but which serve the ethic of care that is central to the dharma.
How would you like to support this project? Please consider buying our books, sharing our work, and donating so that we can keep publishing innovative secular dharma books.
Thank you for your continued support.
Ngā manaakitanga,
Ramsey Margolis ❖ Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand
for Tuwhiri