A day of talks, workshops and discussions exploring what it means to be Buddhist in Britain.
10am – 4pm on 21.10.2023 @ Birmingham Buddhist Vihara, 29-31 Osler Sreet, Ladywood, B16 9EU. Register here: https://bit.ly/3qvF3Dh
The organisers write: “A wonderful opportunity for Buddhists from all traditions and backgrounds to meet and get to know each other and discuss how Buddhism is progressing in the UK in all its magnificent diversity.”
The UK Association of Buddhist Studies (UKABS), the Network of Buddhist Organisations (NBOs) and the Centre for Applied Buddhism (CfAB) are hosting this one-day, in-person conference for academics, practitioners and guests exploring what being Buddhist in Britain means today. Bringing together practitioners from diverse traditions of Buddhism, including those born to Buddhist families and those not born to Buddhist families, for a day of group discussions, short talks, experience sharing, and friendship, the conference will cover some important topics including gender, race, social class, challenges for the Buddhist community of practice in a post-covid Britain, being young and Buddhist, and many more!
Guest speakers will include ordained/monastic leaders from various Buddhist traditions, lay-member Buddhist practitioners, academics from the field of Buddhist studies, PhD students and others.
The conference will open with brief welcome remarks by, Dr. Elizabeth J Harris, President of the UKABs Committee, Kaspa Thompson, Chair of the NBO and Jamie Cresswell, Director of the Centre for Applied Buddhism
Dr. Caroline Starkey, Associate Professor of Religion and Society at the University of Leeds, will begin the day with a brief introductory talk on Buddhism in Britain to give some context for participants who may be new to the topic.
A message from The European Buddhist Union
Dear Friends,
I hope that all is well with you, your families and friends. I am writing to you about the future activities and work of the European Buddhist Union. We now have many amazing and interesting projects and programmes taking place within the EBU. Many of these projects are focused on our stated aim of bringing Buddhist voices in to European society. You will see a list of some of these in the linked document. There is a great variety of projects.
At previous AGMs we have discussed the need for more involvement from individuals belonging to member groups. It has perhaps been unclear in the past as to what precisely is required in terms of support and help. In order to clarify I have included a list of projects and the number of volunteer helpers that we feel we require at present in order for this activity to succeed and move forward. This is a provisional list and of course in some cases more people will be helpful. Therefore the council is requesting that you send out information widely to people in your groups asking if they would be interested in being involved in any of these activities and projects. We are not expecting EBU reps necessarily to take on these volunteer roles., though you may indeed like to. Rather we are hoping that we can bring in new volunteers, who would be interested in helping and working with the EBU, from within member organisations, be those individual sanghas, National bodies, or European wide Buddhist organisations.
Jamie Cresswell