Buddhist Society of Western Australia

Published with permission of Treasure Mountain Podcast. Please visit Treasure Mountain Podcast, Treasure Mountain website and Treasure Mountain Facebook page. 

Our return guest today on Treasure Mountain Podcast is Bhante Akaliko who is an Australian monk in the Theravada forest tradition. He is the spiritual director of Little Dust and founder of the Rainbodhi LGBTQIA+ Buddhist Community. Bhante Akāliko is also the spiritual advisor of Central West Buddhists and a chaplain at Western Sydney University. He sits on the boards of the Buddhist Council of NSW and the Federation of Australian Buddhist Councils.

Bhante Akaliko’s inspired project that we will be discussing today is Rainbodhi.

Rainbodhi is a spiritual friendship group for LGBTQIA+ Buddhists and an advocate for more inclusion and diversity in the broader Buddhist community. They offer meditation, Dhamma discussion and social events in a safe, supportive environment. Rainbodhi welcome everyone regardless of race, gender, sexuality, or ability. Rainbodhi is a non-sectarian Buddhist group, welcoming people from all faiths or with no faith. And all their events are free.

The Rainbodhi name combines two words; rainbow representing our diverse community and bodhi the Buddhist concept of Enlightenment. And it’s Rainbodhi that we will be discussing with Bhante Akaliko in this interview. So join us as we seek for the treasure within…

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Links from this episode:

• Rainbodhi
• About Bhante Akaliko

Treasure Mountain Podcast links:

• Treasure Mountain Podcast
• Treasure Mountain on Facebook
• Everyday Dhamma Network

Thank you for listening to the Treasure Mountain Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode please share it with you friends. If you'd like to support me to produce this type of content in future, you can support my work by offering a tip or becoming a Supporter or Member of Treasure Mountain Podcast via the Ko-fi payment applet.

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

Published with permission of Treasure Mountain Podcast. Please visit Treasure Mountain Podcast, Treasure Mountain website and Treasure Mountain Facebook page. 

Our guest today on Treasure Mountain Podcast is Bhante Akaliko. Akāliko Bhikkhu is an Australian monk in the Theravada forest tradition. He is the spiritual director of Little Dust and founder of the Rainbodhi LGBTQIA+ Buddhist Community. Bhante Akāliko is also the spiritual advisor of Central West Buddhists and a chaplain at Western Sydney University. He sits on the boards of the Buddhist Council of NSW and the Federation of Australian Buddhist Councils.

Bhante Akāliko went forth as a monastic in 2016 and received full ordination with Ajahn Brahm at Bodhinyana monastery in 2017. He lived for several years with Bhante Sujato at the Monastery at the End of the World in Sydney and now lives as a wandering monk. He is now working on setting up the Little Dust Buddhist Community.

Little Dust connects communities across Australia to the Buddha’s teachings. It is aiming to create Dhamma and meditation events for Buddhists from diverse cultural backgrounds, as well as new Buddhists and the Buddh-ish. Little Dust aims to make Buddhism available to everyone, especially in regional and country areas where access to the Dhamma is limited.

So in this episode of Treasure Mountain Podcast we’re going to look at the work of Little Dust in working to develop communities of practice in outback Australia, but also to address the broader question of what to do to develop practice of Buddhism as both and individual and as small groups and communities to support one another in the dhamma.

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Links from this episode:

• Little Dust Buddhist Community
• About Bhante Akaliko

Thank you for listening to the Treasure Mountain Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode please share it with you friends. If you'd like to support me to produce this type of content in future, you can support my work by offering a tip or becoming a Supporter or Member of Treasure Mountain Podcast via the Ko-fi payment applet.

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

Tuesday 2nd May 2017 was a special day for the Armadale Meditation Group.  We celebrated 30 years of meditation and guidance by the monks of Bodhinyana Monastery in Serpentine.  For this special occasion Ajahn Brahm and Venerable Akaliko graced us with their presence.  Ajahn Brahm likes to refer to the group as Club Med.  Being typically Aussie, we like that.  Venerable Akaliko once remarked that on his way to Club Med one evening [his first teaching at Armadale], he was considering a topic for his Dharma talk when he realised that there is "no fail in Armadale".

The group has adopted these slogans and now we have T-shirts that clearly state who we are and how we feel about meditation.

For the benefit of the five new people who joined us for our celebrations, Ajahn gave us a guided beginners meditation.  Ajahn used his wit, humour, common sense and stories to describe the purpose of meditation and why worrying about the future or reliving the past, is pointless.  We can't change the past and we can't control the future, so why do we worry so.  Give it a miss and meditate instead.

After meditation Ajahn gave a Dharma talk and joined us for our 30th Year celebrations.

Venerable explained Buddha’s Eight Worldly Winds by giving real world examples such as our need for praise and to blame.  Venerable then led us through a body sweep meditation to truly relax us.  Venerable then gave a talk on how to avoid suffering and the "Buddha’s Eight Worldly Winds".