All are welcome to this conference/workshop run by the UK Association for Buddhist Studies, to bring scholars and practitioners of different traditions together in exploring themes of shared interest.
Saturday 20th May 2017
10am-5pm
Manchester Centre for Buddhist Meditation
19-21 High Lane, Chorlton
Manchester, M21 9DJ
See here for a map: https://www.samatha.org/what-we-offer/classes/manchester
Programme
10.00 Registration
10.15 Welcome, Peter Harvey
10.30– 11.15: Cathy Cantwell, UKABS President, will talk on practising Tibetan liturgies in the UK.
11.15–12.00:Dharmachari Ratnaguna of Triratna’s Manchester Buddhist Centre, and author of The Art of Reflection and Great Faith, Great Wisdom: Practice and awakening in the Pure Land sutras of Mahayana Buddhism will talk on the performative aspects of certain sutras and suttas and how this might be relevant to translating these texts.
12.00-12.15: tea/coffee
12.15-1.00: Workshop 1: The languages of British Buddhist groups: issues around the uses of Asian languages and/or English in chanting, and the style of language used in expressing Buddhist ideas and practices – how ‘religious’ is it? How do Buddhist groups relate to the boom in secular mindfulness?
Workshop 2: What range of activities are British Buddhist groups involved in? What can they learn from each other, and are there areas of scholarly research that would help practitioners in some aspects of this range of activities?
1.00–1.45: Lunch
1.45–2.15: Tour of the building and introduction to the new library and the scholarly collection bequeathed by Lance Cousins, influential scholar of Pali Buddhism.
2.15–3.00: Samatha Trust’s Keith Munnings, Chair of Buddhist Healthcare Chaplaincy Group and Network of Buddhist Organisations’ chaplaincy officer (https://bhcg.wordpress.com/buddhist-chaplains- and-the-nhs/ ), will talk on issues relating to Buddhist Chaplaincy.
3.00-3.45
Workshop 3: How do Buddhist groups deal with illness, death, and personal difficulties of both members and those who come to them for help?
Workshop 4: How might Buddhist groups best preserve and develop their distinctive lineage(s)?
3.45-4.00: tea/coffee
4.00-5.00: Workshops report back, and panel discussion.
The cost of the conference is £15 waged (£10 unwaged) and includes lunch. If you would like to reserve a place, email Caroline Starkey: ukabsmembership@gmail.com.
Getting there
Chorlton can be reached from central Manchester by Metro: lines F, G and H. A map of Chorlton showing the Metro station is here. Coming from Barlow Moor Road up High Lane, the Samatha Centre is around a hundred yards on the left.
See http://ukabs.org.uk/ ‘current conferences’ for any programme updates.
