Akashadevi
Akashadevi learnt to meditate 25 years ago, and was ordained into the Triratna Buddhist Order in 2011. Originally from a small village in southern Germany, she has lived, worked and travelled in many places over the years, first as a Primary Teacher and later as a child psychotherapist. She is about to retire from her paid work and very much looking forward to the freeing of her time and energy this will bring. Whilst volunteering as a teacher trainer in rural Nepal in the early 1990s, she became inspired by seeing Buddhism lived out in simple and profound ways and decided that she too wanted to actively apply the Buddhist teachings to the way she lived her life. Alongside this, Akashadevi has had a lifelong passion for the ancient wisdom of animist beliefs and practices in different traditional cultures – including our own old pagan heritage. The heart of her practice now takes place on that fertile and creative edge where animism meets the dharma. In her dharma teaching she would like to share her sense of the urgent importance for us humans of re-discovering imaginative ways to overcome our alienation from the rest of nature.
Alobhin
Alobhin was ordained into the Triratna Buddhist Order in 2006. He first came along to a Buddhafield retreat in 1996. He is currently an itinerant Buddhist practitioner who is tremendously grateful for the teachings he has received over the years and wishes to share them as widely as possible. Alobhin leads the Buddhafield Anuruddha Project, where a group of individuals practice together in community volunteering for Buddhafield for three months. He has been a part of many Buddhafield opening and closing ceremonies which are structured around the Wheel of the Year and the Buddha mandala. Alobhin has a deep connection to nature and enthusiasm to bring this into union with his dharma life.
Alokasara
Alokasara trained with Sudaka and Sadhita, founders of Bodhiyoga International in Spain. She explores a mindfulness approach to yoga, blending yoga with mindfulness and meditation as laid out in the Buddhist tradition. She fell in love with the Buddhafield Total Immersion and Paramananda’s teaching in 2016, and it has been an important part of her year ever since. She loves to practise yoga outside in direct relationship to the trees, the earth and sky, weaving in poetry, reflections and sound. She was ordained in 2026.
Amalasiddhi
Born in Mexico City, Amalasiddhi came across Buddhism at age 17 – immediately feeling at home and in love with the teachings. He moved to the UK in 2011 to pursue Ordination within the Triratna Buddhist Order -joining the Order in 2013. He loves sharing his understanding and questions on Buddhism in various contexts. He lives and works in Sheffield with his two children.
Amaragita
Amaragita has been in love with meditation for the last 33 years. Her favourite conversations with people are those that open up possibilities. As a mother of two children and a 20-year, ordained member of the Triratna Buddhist Order, she draws on her experience to lead retreats for mothers, inter-generational retreats and meditation courses. Day-to-day, Amaragita is a trainer and facilitator and teaches coaching and communication skills. She is also currently the Chair of Buddhafield – a charity committed to land-based Buddhist practices and ecological renewal.
Aryarakshita
Aryarakshita has been practising meditation since the early 2000s, after first stepping through the doors of Manchester Buddhist Centre in 1998. Meeting the three jewels in their late 20s, they felt the strong draw, yet remained in the shadows for some time before finally committing and becoming a Mitra in 2010 and then Ordained in 2021. They worked in team based right livelihoods for a number of years, before moving into cooperative work. Their main inspirations are drawn from their meditation practice, the intimacy with the energetic dimension of being, the mythic context and the liminal space between the seen and unseen.
Bodhamayi
Bodhamayi discovered the Dharma in her late teens through a casual book loan. The Dharma quickly became a golden thread — a deep refuge — and she met Triratna and meditation in the early 2000’s. Ordination training happened within the context of parenting two wonderful daughters, now adults, including attending family retreats with Buddhafield Village. Bodhamayi deeply values approaches to meditation and wisdom through relationship within the natural world, the body and imaginal realms. She lives in London and has taught and practiced reiki for 20 years, which both informs and inspires her Dharma life..
Dayajoti
Dayajoti first came in contact with Buddhism through meeting Buddhafield at the Big Green Gathering Festival in 1997. She has been practising since that time, with Buddhafield as her core spiritual community. She very much enjoys teaching dharma and meditation, including dance meditation – ‘Dharma Dance’. She especially enjoys co-creating retreats on the land, with the beauty of nature to hold and show how things are. In the last years she has particularly focused on teaching samadhi meditation. From 1st Jan 2023 – 1st Jan 2025 she was part of a small community doing a three year retreat in the Ardèche in southern France.
Dayaloka
Dayaloka has been involved with the Buddhafield Village retreat for over ten years. There, he experienced practising outside as both a revelation and something that made perfect sense. He believes that connecting with nature can be healing and liberating. In 2024, he led the first Sheffield Buddhist Centre yatra and has been involved on the teams of the Buddhafield 2025 and 2026 Yatras. He has been exploring the mysteries of the Peak District for over 30 years.
Jayasuri
Jayasuri has practiced as a Triratna Buddhist for thirty years and was ordained in 2022. She teaches meditation at the West London Buddhist Centre and the London Buddhist Centre and co-leads on Triratna retreats. She has developed POC retreats and meditation days and is a founding member of the leadership team for the POC Buddhafield community space. She is warm-hearted , a caring mother and grandparent, and an integrative psychotherapist and mindful movement instructor. She loves life: people, new places, dancing, music, art, and nature.
Joanna Spence
Joanna is a Mitra training for ordination, Natural Voice singing leader, voice teacher and musician, and brings her love for ritual and mantra to the retreat. Based in Sheffield, she’s been with Buddhafield since 2017 and coordinates the Dharma Parlour at Buddhafield Festival. Joanna is fascinated by sound and silence, and the magic that can happen if we can listen with our whole bodies.
Joe Hill
Joe has led song around the Buddhafield fire for over a decade. He’s a member of the Natural Voice Network, was Bass leader for Murmuration Choir in Bristol for 7 years, and had the great honour of leading Buddhafield’s first ever singing meditation retreat with Jo in 2023. There is no better expression of his Eros than cultivating wisdom and insight through the voice and body.
Kamalanandi
Kamalanandi has a deep confidence and trust in the transformative power of Buddhism and meditation: he has been teaching the dharma and meditation for over 20 years. He’s based in Sheffield, where he runs a small furniture-making business. He’s also a single dad to two teenage children and an ever-increasing number of house plants. Kamalanandi has been working with Buddhafield for 10 years in various roles. He currently holds the lead role in Publicity, is a Buddhafield Festival Director, and is a Triratna Buddhafield Charity Trustee.
Karunagita
Karunagita first learned to meditate in Nepal in 1990 and was ordained in 2005. She lives in London and leads classes, study and retreats at the North London Buddhist Centre. She raised two children, wrote a book on Buddhist practice as a working mother and led retreats for mothers. She loves Buddhafield and values time at the Buddhafield Festival. She first came with her young children in the 1990s and hasn’t missed a festival since. She also came to Village as a family retreatant and later as a team member. She has led two Yatras for women+. Karunagita recently retired from her working life and is delighted by the prospect of two weeks of Total Immersion.
Kirsty Porter
Kirsty Porter is a NHS paramedic with extensive experience of working in international, remote and challenging environments as a humanitarian and TV medic. Alongside her professional experience, she has a deep love of mountain walking. She brings a calm and grounded presence, warmth, and a wealth of experience supporting people through challenge and uncertainty. She has been an avid supporter of Buddhafield Festival & Triratna for 25 years.
Kshantika
Kshantika has been practising the Dharma and yoga within Triratna since the mid-90s in Newcastle, Croydon and then her home town of Nottingham, where she facilitates a study group and teaches yoga and meditation. She found a turning point through a quieter yoga practice, bringing a deeper connection with body and breath, allowing a softening and opening of the heart. She loves breath-centric asana practice, restorative practices, and the use of simple sound to find space and ease in the body to gently release the body’s armour. More recently she has trained in Biodynamic massage to deepen her understanding of how our conditioning manifests in the psycho-physiological aspects of our experience.
Maitrijyoti
Maitrijyoti began meditating in 2006 at the Bristol Buddhist Centre. Developing community connections to Bristol and Buddhafield, she enjoys an active role in running courses, study groups, and retreats. She has enjoyed facilitating Body of Bliss meditation retreats and events for a few years and more recently has an interest in exploring space in our direct experience; how opening a sense of space for the body, heart and mind can allow for deeper meditative absorption and ease in our day-to-day lives. In her yoga training and study, she has focused her work on how bodywork can effectively facilitate absorption in meditation. Through a playful, creative and responsive approach, Maitrijyoti appreciates uncovering and supporting the many ways in which individuals can deepen their personal practice.
Maitriyodhini
Maitriyodhini first came in contact with Buddhism when she was a junior doctor nearly 20 yrs ago. She was ordained in 2024 and given her name, which means “she who is a warrior of love”. She lives in Edinburgh with her two children, where she works as a GP and mindfulness teacher. She is passionate about sangha and ensuring a welcoming, friendly and harmonious community, so that people can be supported in their practice, and the community can thrive, bringing benefit to all beings. She is the Women’s Mitra Convener for Edinburgh, where she is also part-Chair.
Mokshadharini
Mokshadharini has been involved in Buddhafield for over 25 years and was ordained in 2024. She is a qualified Psychotherapeutic Counsellor and supervisor who uses meditation and mindfulness in her practice. Her approach to people is creative and intuitive, with a strong sense of holding in solidarity. As well as being a mother to triplets, Mokshadharini is also a frequent retreat and ritual leader for Buddhafield, where she inspires with her radiance and sense of connection to the natural world.
Muditajina
Muditajina has been practising within Triratna since 2010 and was ordained in 2022. He works year-round for Buddhafield, manages the Buddhafield Festival, and serves as the men’s Mitra convenor for Triratna Buddhafield. He is passionate about meditation and ritual and enjoys exploring the Buddha’s teachings through team-based right livelihood and friendship. He is heart-centred and enthusiastic about sharing an expression of the Dharma that is rooted in tradition as well as shaped to meet the challenges of daily life through a compassionate, practical, and straightforward approach. Currently, Muditajina manages 12 acres of land and has lived and worked in a land-based, off-grid community. He is motivated by the principles of biodiversity, stewardship, and returning to our deep connection with the natural world.
Nagalila
Nagalila has been practising within Triratna since 2009, and has coordinated Buddhafield’s Green Earth Awakening Camp since its inception. She is a Processwork psychotherapist, conflict facilitator, and works in schools with young people using restorative tools for navigating conflict. Having lived in a land-based community, and now stewarding 12 acres, her practice is deeply intertwined with a connection to land and nature. Ordained in 2023, she is a strong practitioner who can hold challenging issues with grace and compassion. Currently, she is exploring relationships through the body- cultivating a deeper awareness of somatic cues while engaging with the world.
Padmanandi
A member of the Triratna Buddhist Order, Padmanandi has been part of the London Buddhist Centre Sangha for many years. She has worked in Triratna teams and lived in community for 13 years. She has a fascination with myth, fairy tales and stories. She delights in creating rituals and spaces that weave together metta, body-based practice, and the imagination.
Paramananda
Paramananda is an inspirational and much loved Buddhist teacher who has written a number of books on Buddhism and the craft of meditation, including ‘A Deeper Beauty’, and mostly recently ‘The Myth of Meditation: Restoring Imaginal Ground through Embodied Buddhist Practice’. He worked for a number of years as a psychiatric social worker and did voluntary work in the community for the Samaritans, in drug detox, and in a hospice. His time is now dedicated to teaching.
Ruth Love
Ruth is a GFR mitra who has lived with, worked in and helped to shape Buddhafield throughout the past two decades. They are currently the Buddhafield Festival Site manager and the Village mandate holder and have worked in many areas of the organisation, including the festival crew for many years. Known for their creativity, directness, and thoughtfulness, Ruth excels in community engagement and inclusive leadership. They bring authenticity and sincerity, along with a great deal of love, to everything they do. See them giving a talk at the Buddhafield Festival here. Ruth is queer, non-binary and AuDHD bringing a deep knowledge of themselves and the qualities they bring to the forefront of their work in the community.
Saffron
Saffron first connected with Triratna over 20 years ago, and lives in a Triratna women’s community. She is a Buddhist chaplain in a prison. She has a simple, practical way of engaging with Buddhist teaching and loves the combination of being on retreat, being outdoors, and doing practical work together to beautifully close the Buddhafield season.
Sara Annabel Riley
Sara first consciously met the Wheel of the Year eleven years ago at an intentional community in New Zealand. She took part in a Spring Equinox ceremony that changed the course of her life. Since then she has actively followed the Wheel of the Year marking the festival days with ritual practice alone and in community. For the past three years she has been writing the Wheel of the Year newsletter for Buddhafield blending the Wheel of the Year with the Buddha Mandala, bringing together pagan and Buddhist practice. She is training for ordination with Triratna. Sara is the Rituals Coordinator at Buddhafield Festival. For the past six years she has led a team of ten, plus around thirty volunteers, to create and conduct ceremonies and rituals at the festival for hundreds of people. These transformational collective rituals and ceremonies are created through a group process in relationship with the land, influenced by pagan and Buddhist practices, teachings, and mythology. Sara’s work emerges from deep dreaming and active imagination through a practice of meditation, study and ritual. She facilitates workshops that encourage connection to nature, myth and Buddhist practice, with a focus to untangle the conditioned consciousness and allow more space for our true authentic selves.
Shraddhasiddhi
Shraddhasiddhi (he/him) is an experienced Buddhist teacher who has practised for over 25 years in the Triratna tradition. Ordained in 2012, he co-leads the LGBTQIA+ sangha days and retreats at the London Buddhist Centre, and is a co-founder of the Gender Diverse Buddhist Project, which supports the development of spaces for gender-diverse people in Triratna. He is the CEO of Spectra, a health and wellbeing not-for-profit based in London, which runs health initiatives for queer and marginalised communities. He also runs a small private counselling practice in North London. Shraddhasiddhi loves creating practice spaces together and loves being on retreat.
Suryamani
Suryamani is a bodywork practitioner by trade, encouraging a loving awareness, ease and intuition in the body. She also loves to share nature inspired meditations and rituals and regularly leads yatra’s (walking meditation retreats) within the local landscape. These activities help soften the imagined boundaries between our senses and all this here and now opening us up to our indigenous wisdom and the wisdom of the Buddha.
The Dharma Team
The thread of Dharma at the Village is held by the Dharma Team, who then run sessions and groups and are part of the working teams, thus ensuring that the Dharma is present everywhere. Each team, from arts and rituals to the washing up, is part of, and contributes to, that thread. We have practice-based kula groups on site, and a Dharmic theme for each day that supports all groups. In addition to Village’s yearly cycle of practice, honed over many years, we weave in the overall theme of Buddhafield each year. The Dharma Team are Viriyanaya, Amaragita, Shantikara, Danaraja, Dharmakara and Dayajoti.
Upayavira
Upayavira first visited a Triratna Buddhist Centre in 1990 and was ordained in 2000. In the early days he struggled with meditation, having to find a way that worked for him. Letting go and feeling into the body were the gateways that worked. Since becoming a parent in the early 2000s, he has developed and taught an approach to meditation for parents – how to meditate when your young kids are around you. He has presented this at the Buddhafield Festival most years since 2005. For the last four years, he has been developing a secular approach to inner inquiry work, to help people unravel their habits and unhelpful patterns, and has been working full-time on this project since autumn 2024.
Vidyasakhi
Vidyasakhi has been a meditator for 20 years. For most of that time her Buddhist practice has been at the centre of her life. She is passionate about meditation, poetry and loves storytelling. Vidyasakhi has a background in the theatre (as an actor, director and writer), academia and editing. She grew up in the countryside around Stratford upon Avon, has lived in Sheffield, Cardiff, Finland (7 years) and London, where, amongst other things, she worked (for another 7 years) for Triratna’s erstwhile retail arm, Windhorse, in the Bethnal Green Evolution shop. Now, however, she has started to put roots down in Dartmoor, where she runs a guest house and reads a lot of poetry. She agrees with the Devon-based poet Ted Hughes when he says that we neglect the mythic elements in our landscape at our peril, and seeks to remedy that in her practice.
Viryadeva
Viryadeva has been practising with Triratna since 2008, and currently works full time at the Croydon Buddhist Centre as Men’s Mitra Convenor. He is also a contributing editor of the Western Buddhist Review, the scholarly journal of the Triratna Buddhist Community. In his practice and teaching, he’s exploring practical ways to make the visionary, imaginal and mystical dimensions of the Dharma more readily available – both on and off the cushion.
Viryanaya
Viryanaya taught and ran A level courses in Philosophy, Religious Studies, Critical Thinking, English and World Development for young people and adults for over 20 years. She is an ordained member of the Triratna Buddhist Order and has been co-running a Buddhist centre, teaching meditation and leading retreats for over 10 years within that tradition, including camping retreats with Buddhafield. She is particularly interested in leading workshops and retreats which weave together different aspects of practice, including intellectual, emotional, physical and creative elements, as well as enjoyment of the natural world. For example, retreats on developing ethical awareness through linking discussion, mindfulness, meditation, gentle bodywork and mandala-making.
Viveka
Viveka is based at the San Francisco Buddhist Center where she was chair for 16 years. She is a highly trained facilitator and teaches internationally. A co-founder of Triratna’s Total Immersion longer meditation retreats, she is also trained as a somatic coach. Currently, Viveka is President of the New York and Mexico City Triratna Buddhist Centers.