Triratna Buddhist Order
Kamalashila
14 April 1949 — 5 October 2024
Fifty years of teaching meditation — in retreat centres, on moorland under canvas, and, at the end, to hundreds of people at once on a screen.
Kamalashila (14 April 1949 – 5 October 2024) was a teacher in the Triratna Buddhist tradition. He wrote: “I first learned the Dharma from Urgyen Sangharakshita and was ordained in 1974. I have lived in retreat for many years, mostly around Vajraloka where I lived from 1979 to 1994. I was also a hermit for several years from 2001, living under canvas. Much of my teaching has been about meditation, the basics of which are summarised in my 272-page Buddhist Meditation, but I’m interested in all aspects of the Dharma. Here is a Biography and here’s a bit about some influences, i.e. Sangharakshita and the Triratna Buddhist Order.
Here are what I hope are useful instructions for meditation. First for newcomers, the Essentials of meditation and for those who are more experienced, some more In Depth materials. There is also a lot more to be found on the Classes and Retreats page.
There is a little selection of Writing – on Enlightenment and Nature, the Elements, Ecology, Death and more. There are numerous archives here of retreats materials, with the pick of the crop on Classes and Retreats.”
Kamalashila
Where to start
Four ways in
Everything here is free to read, download and use.
Essentials
Clear written instructions for the mindfulness of breathing and the metta bhavana — the two practices Kamalashila taught first, for fifty years.
Read Go furtherIn depth
The system of meditation, dhyana, sustaining concentration, the six elements and insight — for practitioners of three years or more.
Read Read and listenWriting & talks
Essays, recorded talks and the full text of the six talks on Buddhist meditation, alongside autobiographical writing.
Read Browse everythingThe retreat archive
Materials from more than thirty online retreats: Prajnaparamita, the six bardos, the great elements, Vajrasattva and more.
Browse2024
My journey into the unknown
In April 2024 Kamalashila was diagnosed with cancer. He kept writing, publicly, until six weeks before he died.
- Whatever next? Sorry these posts are so sporadic. I’m back in hospital this week, Guy’s Hospital this time. I am awaiting a course of chemotherapy starting…
- Breathing My breathing should be much worse than it is. I was hospitalised with pneumonia at age three, in 1952 and the early days of the NHS, where…
- wood and trees
- waking, sleeping, dreaming, dying, then what? This period has for me been one of feeling off the hook, since Yashobodhi has been writing a new blog journal that is not only excellent in…
- ex-bubbles so… what happens when an assumption is seen to be empty is that a new, simpler perception takes its place, which itself is likely to contain…
Since his death
In April 2024 Kamalashila was diagnosed with cancer. He wrote about this in ‘My Journey Into the Unknown’. A memorial service for Kamalashila was held on 17 November 2024 at the North London Buddhist Centre. A recording can be found on this memorial page.
Update 6 November 2025: The Kamalashila Legacy Group is set up. This is a charity aiming to ensure Kamalashila’s work will remain accessible and to possibly undertake publishing more of his writings at a later date.