Work in West Bengal

I am here in West Bengal with Adityabodhi, Nityasri and Nagamitra. We have been all over West Bengal from Kolkata right up to the border of Bangladesh. There has been a lot of people to meet and Dharma programmes to do. The work that NM & NS has done in the last few years is phenomenal. Triratna activities are slowly but surely growing and a good sangha is already established. 

We are close to renting a place for practice in the Northern suburb of Kalyani, north of Kolkata. Most of our activities are based there, plus the towns of Palta and Bagula. 

Last weekend, we had an excellent retreat and made our first Mitra. He now wants to be an order member. We have other mitra requests in the pipeline. We have had many other local programmes since then and I have given a handful of talks. The  interest in Triratna Buddhism is

clearly there. There is a range of social classes involved.

Travelling around this region has its challenges (not least the packed local trains) but we are received with so much warmth and hospitality. Tomorrow, we fly to Nagpur and attend the Indian Order Convention. I look forward to that.

The UK Christmas feels a very long way away.