Can you believe there’s been a Vajryana Buddhist centre a 20 minute walk away from my mum’s house this entire time and I’ve never visited til now??

(Well, I’ve walked there a bunch of times, they do an amazing goats cheese panini with an insane amount of goats cheese, but I’ve never actually attended a class)

It’s basically an act of divine grace that the small english village where I’ve been living for free (thanks mum!) has a vajryana buddhist centre within walking distance, I mean seriously, what are the odds, mental.

I can drive, but I haven’t owned a car for years, so apart from the odd bus ride to town to catch a train, I’ve been very much stuck in this village (mostly by choice, as I’m working on getting a great job so I can live somewhere proper, like London/Oxford)

So anyway. I’ve never actually done any vajryana before, but I feel positively towards vajryana because I know it’s David Chapman’s thing, and he’s one of my favourite post-rationalists (or I guess meta-rationalists, seeing as he coined that phrase).

I’ve also heard that vajryana is the most esoteric, wild, non-dry/conservative (unlike e.g. theravada). And they have cool things like deity practice (imagine yourself as a god) and I’m pretty sure tantra is vajryana too.

It’s 00:23 right now so I’ll just quickly say that I really loved how non-secular it was. Other than the Goenka vipassana 10 day silent meditation retreat that I did, the only meditation workshops that I can remember attending have been ultra-secular, ultra-westernised mindfullness stuff, focusing on the breath, where Buddhism is stripped of a lot of it’s cool factor (even Goenka kinda did this, just very kinda scientific).

Whereas this evening, the head guy wasn’t at all afraid to make claims about past lives, future lives, karma, various realms like the hungry ghost realm etc, the blessings of enlightened beings.

There were also cute and sincere buddhist hymns to purify the mind and etc. I didn’t know the melodies so didn’t sing along, but it made me happy (and the woman sat next to me had a lovely voice and knew the strange melodies very well).

The main focus of the session was on craving/aversion towards people, and cultivating warm lovingkindness instead of our usual prejudice, which felt very timely for me.

Loved it, really looking forward to returning ASAP! I feel really energised by the more esoteric, opinionated, unabashadly religious flavour.