Suvannavira's adventures in Russia

Suvannavira is an Order Member currently exploring the possibilities of establishing himself in Russia and teaching the Dharma there. for the past year or more he’s been visiting regularly, building up contacts and getting a feel for the land and its people.

Now he’s written to Triratna News, saying -

“The moment finally felt right to write a few words about my adventures in Russia.

“Having been born in Russia and having left the Soviet Union as a young child with my mother, maybe it was not surprising that I would be keen to return to re-discover the country of my birth.

“Arriving in St Petersburg for a few days, I plan to stay in Moscow for two months during which one important goal is to continue re-learning Russian which I forgot as a young child on my arrival in England.

“In mid-July, I plan to travel back to the UK overland by train, stopping to visit cities and friends in Kiev, Odessa, Krakow, Berlin and Paris.

“My longer term aim is to establish the teaching of my teacher Bhante Urgyen Sangharakshita in the land of my birth.

“In the meantime here's a photo taken on a sunny day in May around the celebrated Nevsky Prospect, St Petersburg's most famous street and amongst other things, the setting of some of the novels of Gogol.

“With metta,

“Suvannavira

Suvannavira’s keeping a more detailed blog of his travels, which you’ll find at http://suvannavira.blogspot.com. There’s also a very substantial Russian Dharma website, created by Suvannavira, available at http://buddhayana.ru

New Russian Dharma website launched

Suvannavira, a Russian-born Order Member writes with news of a major new Dharma resource for Russian speakers. He says -

“I do have one news item for you from Russia. There is a new Russian FWBO website - www.buddhayana.ru - which has just gone live. It is a stylish and substantial site with four complete books translated into Russian plus 300 or more pages of the first year of the new mitra study course.

The four books are:

"Vision and Transformation" - www.buddhayana.ru/путь-будды.html
"The Guide to the Buddhist Path" - soon to be available
"Who is the Buddha" - www.buddhayana.ru/кто-такой-будда.html by Bhante Sangharakshita
"Meditation" - www.buddhayana.ru/медитация.html by Kamalashila,

"The study material is at www.buddhayana.ru/учебный-курс.html; and there's samples of the artwork of Aloka and Chintamani at www.buddhayana.ru/изображения.html.

"Saddhaloka masterminded both the creation of Buddhayana.ru and the publishing project, with help with Russian from Nagadakini from Germany. The website itself was designed by Taivo Org from Estonia.

“The site joins two other FWBO websites in Russian - the main “fwbo.org” site introducing the FWBO, at http://russian.fwbo.org; and свободный дух, or the Russian version of Wildmind meditation teaching, at http://russian.wildmind.org.

"As well as making available a large number of Buddhist texts on the web for Russian speakers, Buddhayana.ru and the other sites will provide a valuable way for Order Members to make known their teaching activities in Russia. Saddhaloka, Nagadakini and Sarvamitra have all visited and taught in Russia, and early in 2010 I myself, Suvannavira, plan to live again in Moscow and start teaching activities.

“Much metta from snowy south Estonia,
Suvannavira".

Rijumati's travels, part IV: central asia, and beyond...

FWBO News is pleased to publish part IV of Order Member Rijumati's travel diaries, as he heads around the world after many year's work in Right Livelihood in Cambridge, UK.

Part IV follows him taking the slow train across the Russian steppes, visiting stupas in the remote datsans of Buryatia, and – after many adventures – taking the Korsakov ferry across the to Japan..

But it’s by no means all plain sailing – as he himself begins: “Arriving in Almaty was a shock, an almighty dose of culture shock…" Click here to read on…

The Adventures of Rijumati - part III

FWBO News is pleased to present part III of a series of excerpts from the travel diaries of Rijumati.

Six months ago Rijumati left his home town of 24 years and headed off on a freighter bound for Sri Lanka. These excerpts find him entering Kazakhstan en route for Russia.

He says "I now am on my way to Kyrgyzstan, which is probably the most unpronounceable sovereign state in the world. Try saying Keer-gish-stan but with a strong 'zzz' at the end of the 'gish' I hear you asking “How on earth have you ended up there, Rijumati...?"" Click here to find out...

FWBO Home page now available in Russian

A new translation of the FWBO's main website, www.fwbo.org, has been launched, this time in Russian. The address is -

http://russian.fwbo.org/

As with the other versions of FWBO.org, the site carries information on basic Buddhism, meditation practices, and the FWBO's distinctive approach, as well as a short biography of Sangharakshita, founder of the FWBO.

Russian is of course not the only languaged into which the FWBO's website has been translated; below is a list of some others -

Chinese
Dutch
Finnish
French
German
Polish
Russian
Spanish

The FWBO's Wildmind meditation website is available in many of the above languages plus Portuguese.

See our contacts section for a fuller list and for details of the local centres in each country...