Hi,

Does anyone know of any non-religious community dedicated to meditation and located in Europe?

Thanks a lot for any hints or pointers.

Hello Clemente,

Could you be more specific what you mean with non-religious?

Meditation in what sense? In the sense of just sitting/doing nothing, in classic Zen/theravada sense or in tantric sense?

I am involved with a non-sectarian and pragmatic tantric yoga method which is philosophically close to buddhism (four noble truths, ethics, compassion, emptiness, karma, samsara, nirvana). We have a few practitioners around the world but the core sangha is located in Finland.

Baba

Hi Kim,

Thanks for your reply. By non-religios I guess I mean not associated to a specific body of believes and rites. I'm more acquainted with zen/theravada/mindfulness types of meditation, but I'm open to other practices.

Is your sangha a permanent group, and do you live together as a community? Can you give me more information?

Thanks!

I was just watching a video of Stephen Batchelor in which he talked about the rites and beliefs of Buddhism. I suppose he is somewhat a controversial figure but he made excellent points. I have 4 years of professional training background in Zen and 8+ years in this method of pragmatic tantric yoga dharma. To me it has always been about personal experience, never about dogma or mere beliefs.

We have a close knit community, and more importantly, I'd like to say, an open-minded one. When we are not in touch in person at courses and retreats, we have constant discussions over Facebook among people who have received teachings and practice. As a teacher, I encourage everyone to speak up their minds. We don't have any belief system, although my understanding has evolved and ripened in the guidance of several masters who are well known in the vajrayana buddhist tradition. I see myself attracted towards the mahayana buddhism/middle way philosophy but we don't have such rituals as in mahayana lineages. Of course everyone is free to come and go as they wish.

You can find Samadhi Path-website in English here. It needs a lot of editing but as we don't have but a few practitioners outside Finland, the English-side kind of tends to get postponed: http://en.samadhipath.com/

Baba