Daily Dhammapada

A while back I came across a downloadable program that places a random extract from the Dhammapada on your computer's "Desktop" every time that you start your PC. I've been testing it for a while to see if it would drive me up the wall or bore me to tears, it has done neither of these. So I've put a link to it under "STUDY TOOLS" on the Dharma Studies page.

More Travelling Buddhists

At the beginning of December last year Nicole & John from the Newport Soto Zen group left for a cycling tour of Australia. They have been posting an ongoing journal with pictures on their blog at Wilhelmina's Crew , I've also put the link under "Favourite Sites".

This follows on from Val & Alex's trip "To the Himalayas" . Val is also a member of the Newport group.

Calculate those Festival Days!

There is now a link under "Favourite Sites" to a site for calculating the phases of the Moon "Moon Phase Calculator". So for example in Mahayana countries the Buddhist new year starts on the first full moon day in January, by using the calculator you find that this is on the 22nd, in Theravadin countries, Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Lao, the new year is celebrated for three days from the first full moon day in April, which this year falls on the 20th. There is also a link on the "Dharma Study Archive" page under STUDY TOOLS.

Not forgetting the display of the present Moon phase which is located at the very bottom of this page!

There is also a new Search Box at the top of the right hand column that uses Google's Custom Search Engine. This will search the blog and all the "Favourite Sites".

Buddha Dharma - Practice of Meditation by Ven. Ajahn Brahmawamso

Ven. Ajahn Brahmawamso, Abbot, Bodhinyana Monastery in Western Australia discusses practice of meditation.