How might the Four Gifts be best explored in your Area or Strand?

Inspired by the upcoming 50th anniversary of the ‘Brighton Lectures’, which were edited and published as Buddhism for Today – and Tomorrow, the idea emerged to suggest a 2026 Triratna-wide exploration of the material.

Now out of print, the original lectures are being re-published, initiated by the International Council in cooperation with the Literary Executive, and will be available for Triratna Day next year.

Bhante’s poem Four Gifts evokes the key themes underlying those lectures, and allows us to approach the material in an imaginative, flexible way that gives scope for a fresh consideration of what they might look like for us now. We thought we might discuss this, though the focus changed to exploring how our Area Councils could be even better.

The video below was an introduction to the session from Jnanagarbha and Jnanadhara.

In the video from the meeting, feel free to jump to the parts that interest you:

• first 42 mins is people from both sessions introducing themselves and a little introduction from Jnanagarbha
• 42:30: introduction to the ‘miracle question’ followed by plenary
• 1:05:30: a little about Vishvapani’s role with communications (a few seconds at start missed on video)
• 1:08:00 plenary of ‘baby steps’ (small achievable actions) that we could do to make our Area Council better, followed by some more expansive discussion…