"Just as the mighty ocean has but one taste, the taste of salt, even so the Dharma-vinaya (Buddhism) has but one taste, the taste of Freedom. "

In the Uddana, the Buddha describes the Dharma as the Great Ocean: strange and wonderful and containing eight strange and wonderful things.

Exploring these themes as elucidated by Sangharakshita in a celebrated lecture from 1979, we will together through meditation, ritual, talks and discussion, venture out from the safe, familiar predictable shores of our known world into the great mysterious ocean that the Buddha describes and discover these eight strange and wonderful things.

"Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough?
Have we not grovel’d here long enough, eating and drinking like mere brutes?
Have we not darken’d and dazed ourselves with books long enough?
Sail forth—steer for the deep waters only,
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me,
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all."
~ Walt Whitman