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Sangharakshita inverviewed on mindfulness

2009-01-30T07:18:00.000-08:00

an interview with Dorine Esser in Holland

The interview was first published in Dutch in the Dutch Buddhist magazine ‘Vorm en Leegte’, part of an issue of the magazine devoted to mindfulness.

Please note that some of what Sangharakshita says has been translated from English to Dutch and back again - bear this in mind when reading it!

It is available (in Dutch) on the Features section of FWBO News here.

WANTING TO CHANGE IS AN INDIVIDUAL THING.

Urgyen Sangharakshita is one of the elders of Western Buddhism. He recently visited Amsterdam, where Dorine Esser, a Mitra from the FWBO’s Ghent centre, interviewed him.

Sangharakshita came back to England in 1967 – after he had lived for twenty years in India as a Buddhist monk – and founded there the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO). The Western Buddhist Order is dedicated to establishing Buddhism in the West, unaffiliated to Eastern cultural tradition.

Sangharakshita is in Amsterdam for a short visit. I am on my way to the interview, curious about his insights into mindfulness and his motives for founding an Order. He is old, but his mind is clear and he radiates enormous loving kindness. With other Buddhist teachers like Joseph Goldstein and Stephen Batchelor, I felt the same radiant, mindful warmth.
This alone makes it an inspiring encounter.

What is for you the meaning of mindfulness?

Sangharakshita: The word has many connotations. English Buddhists, some of them anyway, see mindfulness as a translation of at least two original Sanskrit terms, sati and appramada. In the more broad sense it means awareness of what happens in your own mind and in the world around you. (sati) And on a higher level it also points to an awareness of the consequences of what you do. (appramada)

When I teach mindfulness, I discuss it in four different states or levels (based on the Satipatthana sutra) First there is mindfulness or awareness of our own body. We are conscious of our movements: sitting, standing, moving or talking, all our different body postures. But we are especially mindful of our breathing.

The mindfulness of breathing, (see anapanasati) leads to a specific concentration training. This exercise can lead to deeper states of consciousness. Then there is also mindfulness of feelings. We look at how we feel, in the sense of pleasurable, non pleasurable or neutral, and we have awareness of our emotions, for example whether we are angry or in the realm of loving kindness. After that comes mindfulness of thoughts. What are we thinking of? Very often we are stuck in some train of thought, which we let race on because we are not fully mindful of it.

So in the mindfulness training we try to be conscious of what kind of thoughts play through our mind. Finally we try to be mindful of the dharma, for example of the Four Noble Truths or the Eightfold Path.

In short, being conscious of the possibility of becoming enlightened yourself.

The training of mindfulness is essential to the teaching of the Buddha.

After all those years of practice are you able to stop the stream of your thoughts?

Sangharakshita: I have experienced that it is possible. But as you suggest, you need many years of practice first.

Why would we want to stop this train? What is the benefit of it? Where does it bring us?

Sangharakshita: (laughs heartily) It is very good to understand your own mind and to see what happens in it. But if you practise Buddhism and want to grow in it, it is essential that you first learn to understand yourself. Only then can you learn to change your mind in order to make contact with a different kind of consciousness. After you have observed yourself in that way for some months or years, you probably notice that you will keep repeating one or more of these thought trains. You start to know your habitual thinking. When you bump into it, it says something fundamental about yourself. You probably also encounter fantasies about yourself. Things that are not true. As soon as, through observation, you can put your finger on it you will get more insight into the things you can work on in order to change.

Are we not good enough as we are?

Sangharakshita: (laughs again) It is more a matter of not being content with who you are or how you function. If you experience that, you might want to change. In Buddhist terms being dissatisfied is called dukkha.
As soon as we experience this dissatisfaction we feel the urge to try something else. People who don’t want to change are just satisfied with how things are or maybe they are not aware that there is more than this.

Would it not be good for everybody to change?

Sangharakshita: Wanting to change is an individual matter. Some people keep doing the same things, even if it leads them straight to the abyss.
I do think that in the end it will bring a better result for us all, if more people decide to change in a way which the Buddhist teachings find necessary.

I spoke to a professor of comparative philosophy who said that all of us take part in a cosmic transformation process.

Sangharakshita: I do think that as well. In some of my talks and publications I speak about it in terms of a higher and lower evolution. We all know the evolution theory in a broad sense. Humans are the product of a biological process. But there also exists another evolution, the one of the consciousness. This one goes much further than what we call the biological evolution. My impression is that the general evolution process brought us to our existence as homo sapiens. This is as it were a collective evolution of men as a species. If we want to transcend it, an evolution at the individual level of consciousness must exist. In fact there are different levels of consciousness in individual people. Spiritual development for me comes together with spiritual life in a Buddhist sense.

You could see the Buddha as a forerunner of that higher spiritual evolution. The final result of that evolution we call enlightenment. But that is something which will not happen automatically and collectively. We have to work on it ourselves.

Is that why you founded a Buddhist Order?

Sangharakshita: The main reason for it was my desire to give expression to the teaching of the Buddha (dharma). I had been teaching the dharma in India, where I lived for many years. So when I came back to England I just continued with it as a meditation teacher. I particularly taught two meditation techniques: the mindfulness of breathing and the development of loving kindness (metta bhavana). Apart from that I also gave public talks. People started to come to them and slowly but surely a group formed.

Because of that I had to think about the need for an organisational structure. I did not think that a foundation was a good idea. People pay a fee to become a member without committing themselves one way or the other, while I thought that commitment to the Buddhist path was very important. That is why an order seemed the best thing to do. The basis for membership of that order is the wish to really commit yourself to the path of that higher spiritual evolution. It is expressed in Going for Refuge to the Three Jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha (the community of Buddhists). At first it was a very small movement, but nowadays there are some 1500 order members worldwide, and probably three times as many mitras (friends). It developed step by step. I just got on with teaching and was more concerned with what had to be done the next day than with the idea of growth. What happens next depends on the individual order members.

Let us return to mindfulness. After Jon Kabat-Zinn introduced MBSR it has become a popular term. MBRS attracts people who experience dukkha but are not attracted by Buddhism. What do you think about it?

Sangharakshita: I think it is a pity, but it is their choice. When people have experienced that being mindful is worthwhile, there might be more benefit waiting for them when they encounter Buddhism. The mindfulness training stems from the Buddha, it is as simple as that. In itself it is a fascinating fact. In India there are many religions and traditions, in this time and at the time of the Buddha, but he was the only one who noted the usefulness and importance of mindfulness, of training in awareness.

Of course you experience more benefit from it when you practise it as part of a spiritual path, as a means for the attainment of enlightenment.

Does mindfulness training make sense when it is not practised in the context of Buddhism.

Sangharakshita: Yes, it does, but it loses a large part of its value.

It is still useful and practical, but in that way it is less valuable then it could be. Mindfulness can be an entrance to the dharma. As well as that, being mindful makes us more soft, more mild. But it would be better if it brings people still further. Or like in an English proverb: The good is the enemy of the best. Something may be good in a limited way and you may remain just satisfied with that, but that will prevent you from making use of something that is even better. It can happen that people who have encountered mindfulness training, only years later remember that it has something to do with Buddhism. It mostly happens after the experience of a great loss or grief. The intention to seriously explore the connection with Buddhism often arises then.

Do you see any disadvantage in the hype around mindfulness?

Sangharakshita: For sure there is a dangerous side to teaching mindfulness out of the context of Buddhism. You see, it only gives one part of the dharma, which makes it one-sided and too technical. This can lead to a serious alienation from your feelings. I have seen that happen.

We humans have the tendency to exploit a technique infinitely. I think that it is dangerous to apply whatever traditional Buddhist meditation method only as a technique. Whether it is the singing of mantras or the examination of your mind through the practice of mindfulness. There must also be space for emotions and devotion.

Therefore I always teach mindfulness together with the practice of loving kindness. It now seems that people are presented with mindfulness training as Buddhism by a teacher who has made mindfulness training his or her profession. Of course that is very misleading, because the dharma is much more than that and meditation teaching is not a profession.

How can we ensure that Buddhism remains authentic?

Sangharakshita: What I find most important is to try and verify what the Buddha really said and taught. In the aeons since he died much has been added that in fact has little to do with what the Buddha originally taught. Therefore it is essential to read and study the old Pali texts. These are the texts which are the nearest to the historical Buddha, even when we know that every word that it contains was not uttered literally by Him. The best way to check if a teaching is authentic is to hold it against the light of these texts. But it is as important to verify if the teaching you receive is really helpful to you and does not go against reason.

Have you become happier through the Dharma?

Sangharakshita: (hearty laugh) By nature I am reasonably happy and I don’t think that you will become happier by chasing it. Happiness is essentially a by-product. If you do something in which you really believe you will become happier automatically. For me it is the Dharma. I have committed my whole life to it. I can indeed say that, apart from the problems I experienced, I have led a happy life. But practising the dharma with the only purpose to make yourself happy, will not work.

You commit yourself to the Dharma, because you believe that it is just the best thing that a person can do.

[ends]

‘The Essential Sangharakshita’ – a review

2009-01-13T15:21:00.000-08:00

‘The Essential Sangharakshita’ has just been released by Wisdom Publications.

At 792 pages, it’s a substantial work, aiming to present, under a single cover, something of the breadth and depth of Sangharakshita’s writings. Included is material from 38 of Sangharakshita’s books, including his poetry, early writings, sutra commentaries, spoken word, and autobiography. There’s therefore a great range of writing styles represented, and often the same broad topic is addressed from several points of view – making for a very multi-facetted reading experience.

Vidyadevi, or Karen Stout as Wisdom preferred to refer to her, is an Order Member of many years’ standing and the book’s editor. She’s been working on it for the past 5 years and has clearly lived and breathed it for much of that time – starting by re-reading all Sangharakshita’s books and marking passages for possible inclusion with little sticky notes. That produced a vast amount of material which, after first presentation to Wisdom, had to be reduced by almost half – and which still left the problem of how to organise it all! In her Preface she writes of how she tackled the problems of selection and organisation – and her masterstroke of using the Mandala of the Five Buddhas as the organising principle for the book.

This allowed Vidyadevi to separate the enormous amount of material at her disposal into five great divisions, corresponding to the qualities of the five Buddhas of the Mandala.

First, in the realm of Vairocana, come Sangharakshita’s writings on the central concerns of Buddhism: who the Buddha was, what he taught; what makes one a Buddhist and what one might lead anyone to become one; what unifies the Buddhist tradition. These naturally feature prominently his teachings on Going for Refuge

Next comes Aksobhya and a section on ‘Buddhism and the Mind’: the nature of knowledge and of the mind; the teachings of karma and conditionality, the need for clear thinking – and also some fascinating reflections on how Buddhism stands in relation to other religions and philosophies of the world.

In the south, Ratnasambhava presides over a section dealing with ‘Art, Beauty, and Myth in the Buddhist Tradition’: the relationship between Buddhism and art, the aesthetic aspect of the Buddhist life, and the place of myth and symbol in the Buddhist tradition.

The fourth section, in the Western direction, is where we find Amitabha and Sangharakshita’s writings on ‘Buddhism and the Heart’: the place of faith and devotion, the importance of friendship in general and spiritual friendship in particular, and the nature of the relationship between teacher and disciple. Also included here is meditation, and, somewhat arbitrarily, our relationship to the natural world.

Finally, some 550 pages into the book, in the northern realm of Amoghasiddhi, we come to a lengthy final section on ‘Buddhism and the World’: Sangharakshita’s teachings on compassion and the spirit of the Bodhisattva, the ethical life, vegetarianism (and its absence in much of the Buddhist world), confession, discipline, effort, the Buddhist relationship to society as a whole, the heroic and active aspects of the Buddhist life, the Buddhist approach to world peace – and much more… It includes such treasures as his early teachings on the need to go beyond ‘Buddhist respectability’ and the dangers of confusing natural and conventional morality.

One thing may puzzle the attentive reader. The book is sub-titled ‘A half-century of writings from the founder of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order’ – but neither the Western Buddhist Order (WBO) nor the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO) get more than a cursory mention throughout the entire work. Indeed the Western Buddhist Order is not even mentioned in the index, and the FWBO is only referred to in the introduction and in a simple blurb on the very last page, outside the text of the book itself and not written by Sangharakshita.

Why might this be? Two things may help explain it – first, much of the material in the book was produced by Sangharakshita as, or even before, the WBO and FWBO were coming into existence: he was, almost literally, talking them into reality. They were therefore hardly there to be referred to when he wrote. Vidyadevi reports that she was conscious of the relative absence of the FWBO and Order while choosing her material, but had resolved to focus firmly on selecting Sangharakshita’s most relevant and best expressed writings – and simply didn’t find very much that seemed to her suitable.

And second, in the same way that there is a ‘hidden pattern’, or mandala, behind the book’s structure; there is another pattern in front of it, as it were – namely the manifestation, in the real world, by real people, of Sangharakshita’s vision. It is here we will find the WBO and FWBO – we can see in them reflections of the Five-Buddha Mandala: for Vairocana, the Order, based so uncompromisingly on the centrality of Going for Refuge; for Aksobhya, ; the FWBO’s ecumenical approach and clear study syllabi; for Ratnasambhava, its emphasis on art, poetry, beauty and myth – embodied not least in places such as the London Buddhist Arts Centre or the paintings of Aloka and Chintamani; for Amitabha, the Order’s great emphasis on spiritual friendship and Kalyana mitrata, and finally, manifesting in some way the realm of Amoghasiddhi, the FWBO’s outward-going nature – its Right Livelihoods, its fundraising and work in India, its emphasis on the Four Right Efforts and regular and disciplined practice.

The book ends, movingly, with a ‘double-whammy’: Sangharakshita’s reflections on ‘the miracle of spiritual development’ and his uncompromising four-point action list for any Buddhist concerned with world problems. Between its covers there is a treasure-trove of Dharma that will satisfy the reader for many hours, a heap of jewels far too many to list. Many will of course already be familiar to Sangharakshita’s students, but it will be a rare person who does not discover something new. If you are familiar with ‘Sangharakshita I and Sangharakshita II’, his teachings on beauty may be new; if you are familiar with the distinction between ‘religion-as revelation’ and ‘religion-as-discovery’ then the four levels of Perfect Speech may be new – and so on.

Asked if she had any regrets now that the book is complete, Vidyadevi says it’d be that she didn’t manage to include anything from ‘Ambedkar and Buddhism’, reportedly Sangharakshita’s own favourite among his many books. And asked what she had learned from her labours, she says how struck she was by the way Sangharakshita always seemed to refer his teachings back to the Pali Canon, that most ancient of all Buddhist texts.

For some, ‘The Essential Sangharakshita’ will suffice, and may even be the only book of his they ever need. Certainly it is a more-than-adequate introduction to Sangharakshita’s thought and teaching – if not to the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order itself. For others, it will be a gateway, a taster, to the 38 works from which it is drawn, even to those not represented, and they will be led through it deeper into Sangharakshita’s thought – and perhaps into the spiritual community he has founded and nurtured for he past 40 years.

‘The Essential Sangharakshita’, ISBN 0-86171-585-3, is available from Windhorse Publications (www.windhorsepublications.com) in the UK, Wisdom Publications (www.wisdompubs.org) in the US, and Windhorse Books (www.windhorse.com.au) in Australia and New Zealand . For other countries please contact your nearest bookstore.

This review by Lokabandhu
January 12th, 2009.

Rijumati’s travels: Parts 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9

2008-10-10T14:32:00.000-07:00

FWBO News is pleased to present these excerpts from the travel diaries of Rijumati.

For nearly a year now he has been travelling around the world, almost entirely avoiding air travel.

Rijumati is an Order Member who for many years was one of the pillars of Windhorse:Evolution, the FWBO’s large Right Livelihood business in Cambridge, UK. The Western Buddhist Order has always contained people following a very wide variety of lifestyles, and they have always been able to move freely between them, based on the Sangharakshita’s dictum “commitment is primary, lifestyle secondary”. Rijumati’s diary is living proof of this. Some of the letters were originally published in Shabda, the Order’s monthly journal.

Enjoy…

Part IX: Into Mexico

Part VIII: On the Road in America

Part VII - in the footsteps of Kobo Daishi

Part VI - Japan: Hiroshima, Basho, and the volcano

Part V - a pilgrimage to the Japanese teachers on the Refuge Tree

Part IV - Central Asia, and beyond…

Part III - from Nepal into Russia

Part II - India: TBMSG and Bodh Gaya

Part I - setting out

Munisha on Young People and Buddhist Ethics: Tradition and Commonsense

2008-09-12T06:02:00.000-07:00

A year on from an assignment working for Bhutan's Ministry of Education, the FWBO's Clear Vision Trust (www.clear-vision.org) has just returned from an international conference on Buddhism and Ethics, held in Thailand near Bangkok.As education officer at Clear Vision, Munisha was invited to give a presentation on 'Using Video to teach Buddhist Ethics in British Schools' at the first conference of the International Association of Buddhist Universities (IABU). (The FWBO's Dharmapala College is a member of the IABU).

Munisha's paper, titled 'Young People and Buddhist Ethics: Tradition and Commonsense' is available on FWBO Features here. This is a longer, written version of her PowerPoint presentation to the conference, which included video clips.

She writes:

“It was extraordinary to be part of a gathering of up to 3000 Buddhists, mostly Asian monks, as well as nuns and a small number of westerners. I went with Mokshapriya and Aparajita. Among the robes of yellow or brown or stylish grey linen, our kesas attracted a fair amount of interest, as did our display of Clear Vision DVDs for schools. The Dharma is not yet available in such formats in Asia!

"My strong sense is that young people of Buddhist background are losing touch with Buddhism, both in the UK and across Asia. You have to wonder whether there will be another generation of lay Buddhists as young people often know nothing of the Dharma and are less and less interested in tradition. To be fair, there were conference presentations from people who are running Dharma activities for young people in Burma, Thailand and Sri Lanka, one or two of them innovative, but still I suspect they are exceptions.Meanwhile, some very good teaching of Buddhism for young people is being delivered in British schools, by and for non-Buddhists, using modern teaching materials such as Clear Vision's. If Asian young people are to be interested in the Dharma, I'd argue Asian Buddhists could benefit from seeing what we are doing here in Britain.

"We went hoping to spread the word about our materials and invite sponsorship and dana. It was a bonus to meet Asian Buddhists who approached us to tell us of their respect for Bhante and the importance of his work for the future of Buddhism. Then there's my favourite souvenir from the conference pack: a mustard yellow umbrella with a limb of the Eightfold Path printed on each section!”

Click here to see what Clear Vision has to offer school teachers and students.

Smritiratna's letter from the Forest: Insight retreats in Scotland

2008-09-10T06:56:00.000-07:00

Smritiratna is an Order Member who has for some years now been a resident teacher at the FWBO’s Dhanakosa Retreat Centre in Scotland. Between retreats, he lives in the woods as a hermit, and has written FWBO News a ‘Letter from the Forest’.

In it he describes his coming three-month retreat at Guhyaloka in Spain and his hopes for the ‘Stilling and Seeing Through’ insight retreats he will be leading on his return. If you would like to know more about these retreats, you could either read his long and detailed article (click here) or a shorter one by a retreatant (click here) or else try the websites of Dhanakosa or Vajraloka.

“Dear All,

“I am writing this at the window of the forest cabin where I spend much of my time these days, a mile from Dhanakosa Retreat Centre in Scotland. Looking up, a profusion of green leaves meets my gaze, thousands of grasses and ferns, spruces and larches, oaks and willows, birches and rowans, lichens and mosses. This rich variety arises in response to the rains that come so often here. Without the rains there would be only rock and sand as far as the eye could see. But the rains give life to the earth and green things flourish.

“This puts me in mind of the first teaching of the Buddha, the one celebrated by Dharma Day at the full moon of the Indian month Asalha (June/July). I believe the torrential rains of the Indian monsoon commence around mid-June. So this first outpouring of the Dharma teaching of the Buddha was accompanied by ‘the soft thunder of the rain on leaves’. It came to be known as the Dhamma-cakka-ppavattana Sutta, (the ‘Dhamma-wheel-set-rolling’). The new Buddha has sought out the five ascetics who had shunned him before. Now deeply moved by his appearance and the quality of his presence among them, the five open their hearts once more and their teacher expounds the Four Noble Truths and Noble Eightfold Path. Transcendental Insight arises first in Kondanna. The Truth is out, the Dharma Wheel set rolling, and, eight-spoked like the Eightfold Path, it has rolled down the centuries, rolled through the lives of generations of the Buddha’s disciples and is rolling still.

"Two years ago I spent the Autumn at Guhyaloka, Spain, on the Vihara retreat for Dharmacharis. We were in silence for ten weeks. As the basis of my daily practice, I chose this first Sutta of the Buddha, together with his second. Following the Eightfold Path as my system of practises, I cultivated vision and devotion, made efforts to maintain good moods, practised mindfulness and a range of meditations in accord with Bhante Sangharakshita’s system. Day and night I returned to the theme of impermanence, a pile of animal bones on my shrine, laid out like a skeleton at the feet of the Buddhas. Every day I sat before them in meditations – letting go the aggregates as best I could, and opening my heart to the Buddhas and All.

"This system proved effective so the following year, when I introduced insight meditations on the ‘Stilling and Seeing Through’ retreats at Dhanakosa, they were framed within the Noble Eightfold Path. Practised as a spiral path, you wheel around it over and over. Each new glimpse of the Vision sends a new ripple through devotion, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, meditation, stirring new insights into the Vision that in turn send a new wave though the eight spokes or limbs of the Dharma life.

"By the time you read this I’ll be at Guhyaloka for another three month retreat. During the life of the Buddha, many of his disciples were forest renunciates for whom the annual Rains Retreat was regarded as an essential part of their practise. For nine months they’d wander from place to place, living the Dharma life in the open air, sharing the Dharma with the people. But for the three months of the monsoon rains, when the roads and paths were impassable, they would camp together in communities, dwelling in caves or temporary huts. These were the annual Rains Retreats. Inspired by their example, I plan to do a three month retreat every year from now on. This year at Guhyaloka seven Dharmacharis will attend for the whole three months while another nine will attend for one or two months.

"I’ll return by December, in time to lead another Stilling and Seeing Through retreat, and then another at Vajraloka Retreat Centre, Wales. These retreats assume prior knowledge of the mindfulness of breathing and metta bhavana, also a basic understanding of the Dharma and of the Sevenfold Puja. For the first few days we’ll be settling and softening, in mindfulness and metta. Then we’ll contemplate the natural elements and spend a day on ‘transience and true refuge’ before returning to ‘visionary devotion’ at the end. If you would like to know more about these retreats, you could either read my long and detailed article (click here) or Joe’s short one (click here) or else try the websites of Dhanakosa or Vajraloka.

"Bye for now!

"Yours truly,Smritiratna.

Environmental Audit and action plan at the London Buddhist Centre

2008-09-01T07:21:00.000-07:00

In 2007 the FWBO's London Buddhist Centre celebrated the year of Amoghasiddhi, the Green Buddha of Action and Fearlessness.

As part of this they focussed attention on taking practical action to address environmental issues, exploring how Buddhism teaches us to lead a more simple and less wasteful life, more in harmony with the environment.

Their report, titled 'Environmental Review of the London Buddhist Centre', can be read in full here. Thanks to the LBC for permission to reproduce it.

The report comes from a series of ‘environmental audits’ which were carried out in and around the LBC’s ‘Buddhist Village’, covering many of the businesses and communities that are linked to the LBC as well as the centre itself. It summarises the main findings of those environmental audits – all of which include commitments to action, whether reducing direct environmental impacts, working in partnership with others on environmental issues, or by raising awareness of why and how we can all take action on the environment.

Going on retreat - for three years!

2008-06-08T01:32:00.000-07:00

Vessantara was ordained into the Western Buddhist Order in 1974, and is well-known as the author of ‘Meeting the Buddhas’ as well as a number of other books. He’s led a long and active life in the Order, travelling and speaking widely – see for instance his talks on Free Buddhist Audio for a sample…

But later this month, he’s off – on a three-year retreat! Most people involved in the FWBO have done at least some retreats – often planned using our website GoingOnRetreat.com – but not many have done one lasting three whole years – and it could be longer. Not surprisingly he’s been asked many questions about it – and here are some of his answers.

FWBO News wishes him, and his partner Vijayamala, all good wishes as they embark on this major undertaking.

Vessantara says -

"I'm planning to do a long retreat, starting at the end of June. Here are answers to some of the questions I've often been asked about it:

Where are you going to do your retreat?

"In southern-central France in the Auvergne. It's about 2,000 feet (700 metres) up in the Massif Central. From near where we're staying you can see the range of mountains that includes the Puy de Dome. You can also see the golden roof of the temple of the Karma Kagyu Tibetan Buddhist centre founded by the late Gendun Rinpoche.

Why aren't you doing it at an FWBO place like Guhyaloka or Sudarshanaloka?

"I would be very happy to do so, except for one factor: I really want regular access to someone experienced who can guide my retreat. I have done quite a bit of solitary retreat over the years, as well as living at Vajraloka and Guhyaloka. Whilst they've been very useful, I've come to the conclusion that I would make much better progress with regular access to someone to help me sharpen up my practice, point out my blind spots and bad habits, and generally help me to 'steer to the deep'. So when Lama Lhundrup offered to help Order members who wanted to do long meditation retreat, I decided to take him up on his offer.

Who's Lama Lhundrup?

"He's a German-born senior disciple of Gendun Rinpoche, whom several Order members have got to know through meetings connected with the European Buddhist Union. Last year Subhuti and Dhammarati invited him to give a seminar on Gampopa's Jewel Ornament of Liberation at Madhyamaloka, where I met him. Lama Lhundrup's main work is guiding people in long retreats, so we talked a lot to him about meditation and retreat. Those discussions stirred up the aspiration to do a long retreat that I have felt for many years, but the conditions have never been right.

Why are you doing the retreat with Vijayamala?

"I'd originally thought of doing a long solitary retreat. When I talked to Vijayamala she was okay with that, but said it was something that she would also very much like to do. Lama Lhundrup's experience is that westerners can become too isolated and self-absorbed in solitary retreat, so all their long retreats are in groups. He himself did a three-year retreat with his wife. Then they both took monastic ordination and did further retreats in single-sex groups. (He has done nine years of retreat altogether.) That experience of practising with his wife, which he felt was very effective, means that he is open to helping couples, provided they are mature enough, to practise together.

When will you start your long retreat?

"We'll leave the UK at the end of June, and spend a couple of weeks or so getting settled in. Then we'll find an auspicious date to start. (The 18th of July is Full Moon.)

How long are you planning to do?

"Lama Lhundrup says that in the time-limited three-year group retreats that he guides, people often spend a year getting into it, a year deeply immersed, and then a year anticipating the end of the retreat. So he advised me to leave the finishing date of the retreat open. In that way it becomes just how you are living your life. So I'm telling people that I'm planning to do 'at least three years'.

How will you spend your time?

"On the trial retreat I got up at 5am and did ten or eleven hours' meditation a day in four sessions, as well as a small amount of Dharma study. I also did Hatha Yoga and went running every second day. I imagine my programme for the long retreat will be similar to that for most of the time.

What practices will you be doing?

"I'll carry on with the same practices that I do now. I'll focus mainly on visualization, as well as some formless meditation. On the trial retreat I concentrated on Vajrasattva practice, which felt like a good preparation for a long retreat. I did getting on for 40, 000 mantras. When I lived at Vajraloka in 1980 I did the whole Vajrasattva foundation yoga with 100, 000 mantras. It felt very different this time, less concerned with purifying specific negative karmas, more just with tendencies towards unskilfulness. As the weeks went by I relaxed more and more, and the light-nectar felt less of a purification and more just a blessing.

Will you leave the retreat at all?

"Apart from going for walks or runs in the local area, I don't plan to leave the place at all. As my parents both died in the early 1990s, I'm in the fortunate position of not having any dependents. I have two brothers, but if anything happened to them there are others who can look after them. If one of them died I wouldn't come back for the funeral. I would stay in retreat and dedicate practice for their benefit. I'm most likely to have to go out to see a dentist, as I'm a bit long in the tooth these days and I don't expect they will happily last three years without giving me any trouble.

Are you excited?

"No, I don't feel excited, just deeply contented at the prospect of being able to devote myself to the Dharma undistractedly.

What do you hope to get from it?

"I don't like that question very much. I don't like to anticipate what will happen, and I'm not doing the retreat in order to gain anything. I hope to strengthen the foundations of my practice, to come closer to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and to become more of a resource for other people. Years ago I gave a short talk on 'Solitary Retreat' at Padmaloka as part of a symposium chaired by Bhante. At the end he got up and said "That was a very good talk by Vessantara. There was only one thing that he didn't say, and that is that one goes away on retreat in order to come back." That was a very strong teaching for me. I had given a talk about retreat without setting it in the whole context of the Bodhisattva ideal. These days, thankfully, I am rather more in touch with the Bodhisattva spirit. So I hope that from the retreat I will gain experience of meditation and long retreats that I can come back and share with other interested Order members.

Will you be receiving letters?

"No, sorry. On a retreat as intensive as this correspondence and news of the outside world very easily become a distraction. Lhundrup particularly counselled me against keeping in contact with people for whom I fulfilled a particular role - such as private preceptor or kalyana mitra. In a way the whole purpose of the retreat is to let go of being 'someone', having a particular identity. Correspondence with people in relation to whom I have a particular position can easily interfere with that process.

"Of course I shall be thinking of people I've ordained, and all those to whom I'm KM as well as all my friends in the FWBO. (I currently make a practice of calling to mind in meditation all the men I've ordained and reciting mantras for them.) I won't be reading Shabda, or Sanghajala, or FWBO News,but Maitrivajri has kindly agreed to let me and Vijayamala know if Order members are seriously ill or die, so we can dedicate some practice to them. I will also write to Shabda from time to time, to let people know how I'm getting on.

"My experience of doing solitary retreats is that I feel very close to people - strongly linked to them on a mental level. So I shall be thinking of Bhante and all of you, will be wishing you all well with your lives and Dharma practice. Although there will be nothing obvious to show for it, I shall still be deeply involved in the life of the FWBO".

Vessantara's website is at www.vessantara.net

NVC in the FWBO: Heart-to-Heart Communication

2008-05-08T01:13:00.000-07:00

by Shantigarbha

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
- Rumi

An unlikely ‘guru’
The first time I heard Marshall Rosenberg talk was in London in 2002. I’d heard about him and Nonviolent Communication (NVC) from Prasannasiddhi (another member of the Western Buddhist Order), who first got interested and became a trainer. I’d also heard Sangharakshita, the founder of the Western Buddhist Order mentioning Prasannasiddhi and the work he was doing in the Order.

So there I was, in a crowd of around 400 people, waiting for the talk to start. There were several people standing at the front, to the side of the stage, talking. One of them was a man who looked to be in his late sixties, dressed casually, even a bit scruffily, and with what I would describe as a gloomy, even ‘hangdog’ expression. I hadn’t yet seen a photo of Marshall Rosenberg at that time, so if someone had turned to me and said, ‘Look, there he is, he’s the one who’s going to give the talk.’ I would have said, ‘No way!’

Anyway, after a while the man with the hangdog expression went up onto the stage, sat down, and started talking about Nonviolent Communication. Why was I there? Well, there was the obvious connection with Buddhism, with the First Precept of ‘ahimsa’ – Nonviolence. Marshall traced his use of the term to Martin Luther King’s ‘Nonviolent Direct Action’ and further back to Gandhi’s programme of Nonviolent Action. He said that NVC was not just about personal development and interpersonal conflicts – it was also about radical social change. I was happy to hear this, as I’d lost hope of integrating these two burning interests in my present life. I must confess I don’t remember understanding much else of what he said that evening. It sounded plausible, but there was nothing I could put my finger on and say, ‘Ah, yes, that’s it!’

When it first clicked
I had to wait for that moment until I’d done a Foundation Training with Gina Lawrie and was on a Deepening plus Empathy training with Bridget Belgrave (I mention these two UK trainers because, apart from Marshall, they have supported me the most in my understanding and practice of NVC). On this second training, Bridget was coaching a participant to deepening their understanding and skills in a life crisis. With a shock, I realised that this was where I came in – coaching people. I told myself that she was doing what I was already doing with friends and other Buddhists. The only difference was that she was taking 30-40 minutes to do what took me several months. And all the time she supported them so profoundly, they remained in control of their life, their inner world. So this was my ‘Aha!’ moment, watching Bridget coaching and identifying with her role and the profoundly sensitive way she contributed to life. I realised that if I learned her skills and used them, I would enjoy a profoundly meaningful life.

To my disappointment, I couldn’t just step into Bridget’s shoes. It took me a couple of years to find my feet with these skills, and during that time I went through a lot of heartache and inner growth! I needed to get in touch with my own needs before I could support others to get in touch with theirs. I also needed to learn some facilitation skills that weren’t apparent to me that first time, when Bridget was demonstrating them so effortlessly!

The language of disconnection
So now, when I’m introducing NVC to a new group of people, what do I say? I start by saying, ‘Conflict is inevitable, violence isn’t’. What I mean by this is that I find it difficult to imagine a world where there is no conflict – conflict that arises from differences in temperament, outlook, religious beliefs, worldviews. However, I can imagine a world in which we find solutions to conflict, which don’t involve violence. (By the way, there doesn’t need to be a conflict present for NVC to work – it can deepen connections and understanding even when no conflict is present).

Here’s the situation: there are two people living together (they could be partners, could be community members). They are both standing in the kitchen. They are both in pain. One says to the other, “You’re a slob!” The other replies, “You’re OCD!” (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder – this translates as ‘You’re obsessed with how clean the kitchen is!’) So they tell each other their thoughts about what the other one is – they use labels: ‘slob’, ‘OCD’.

Hearing these labels, the pain in both of them increases, and the first one says, “You’re a bad person to live with.” The other replies, “You’re wrong about that.” So they make judgements of each other in terms of ‘good, bad, right and wrong’.

The pain increases and they start overtly blaming each other and imposing their judgement: “It’s your fault – you should be more mindful!” And the other replies, “This is your problem – own it! You should go and see a psychiatrist about it.”

Hearing the ‘shoulds’, the pain on both sides increases and they switch to the language of no choice, “You can’t carry on like this. It’s against the rules.” The other replies, “You can’t talk to me like that – it’s not allowed.”

And to finish they resort to demands (threats) to make their point, “If you don’t tidy up the kitchen this evening then you’ve got to leave!” And the other replies, “If you don’t back off right now, I will!”

Does this sound familiar? In my experience, this is the kind of language that comes out of people’s mouths when they are in conflict. I learned this language as I was growing up – at school, at home, in the various jobs I’ve had. It’s the kind of language that comes out of my mouth when I’m in pain – when I’m trying to express my pain to another person. And the sad thing is, it doesn’t serve me – it doesn’t get me the understanding and co-operation that I’m looking for when I’m in pain. In fact, it does the opposite – it increases the pain and creates disconnection.

So I call labels, judgements, blame, imposing my judgement, no choice and demands, the Language of Disconnection. And I’m curious what comes up for you when you hear this language? Sadness? Anger? Fear of losing connection? Wondering how to apply the speech precepts in this situation?

Heart-to-heart Connection
I’m glad to say that’s not the end of the story. I’m interested in what happens when we get connected at a heart level. There are many ways to do this, and NVC is one of them. So how do I go about creating a heart-to-heart connection – to find out what is in the heart of these two people? The way that I’ve found to be most effective is to get in touch with the basic needs on both sides – the ‘good reasons’ why they are acting and speaking in this way. And these ‘needs’ are distinct from any particular strategy that the two of them might have for fulfilling them.

What’s important to the first person, the one who said, ‘You’re a slob!’? People usually guess: a sense of order, care, mindfulness or awareness, perhaps health.

And what’s important to the other person, the one who said, ‘You’re OCD!’? People usually guess: a sense of perspective and self-responsibility, respect, autonomy, perhaps ease.

This is what I mean by creating a heart-to-heart connection: finding out what is important (what are the needs) on both sides. People usually have an “Aha!” moment just looking at these two lists of needs – realising that there are needs on both sides. OK, so maybe it’s easier for them to identify with one side or the other, but they get a glimpse that both sides are needing something, are longing for something that would enrich their lives.

I’ve found that when people are connected at this level, whether they live in a Buddhist community in the UK, the slums of India, war-torn Sri Lanka, or a US prison, they are only a short distance from finding a solution that honours the needs on both sides, where no-one gives in or gives up.

The intention of NVC
And for me this is the intention of NVC – that I act in this way because I have the intention to create the kind of connection that will lead to everybody’s needs being valued and met. And this for me is the deepest connection with the Dharma – this compassionate intention to connect with a view to enriching the lives of all beings.

List of life-enriching ‘needs’
So what other ‘needs’ would you add to this? What enriches your life? We’ve already got:

* a sense of order
* care for their living space
* mindfulness / awareness
* health
* a sense of perspective
* self-responsibility
* respect
* autonomy
* ease

What would you add to this list? Here’s what I would add:

* love
* honesty
* empathy
* freedom / release
* wholeness
* beauty
* peace
* harmony
* growth
* freshness
* vitality
* to contribute to life
* meaning / inspiration / purpose
* to be valued
* food, air, water, shelter, rest, movement
* safety
* control / choice
* power (empowerment)
* understanding (to understand and to be understood)
* support and encouragement
* consideration
* connection
* closeness
* to matter and belong
* recognition
* self-acceptance
* creativity
* play
* spontaneity / authenticity
* celebrating dreams/goals/values
* mourning (mourning lost dreams and lost lives)

Reaching out to humanity
When I’m doing this with a group of people, I usually ask them at this point: ‘Are there any ‘needs’ on this list that you haven’t been in touch with in the course of your life?’ I haven’t yet heard someone say ‘No’. Then I ask: ‘Do you think that there is anybody in this room who hasn’t been in touch with all of these at some point in their life?’ Again, I haven’t yet heard someone say ‘No’. Then I ask them to reach out in their imaginations to the people in the local town, the country, the continent, the entire world, and ask the same question, ‘Do you imagine that there is a human being who hasn’t been in touch with all of these at some point in their life?’ There’s usually a pause while people do this for themselves. I haven’t yet heard someone say ‘No’.

It’s at these moments that I quiver with a sense of common humanity – a sense of deeply belonging to the human race.

Needs and Enlightenment
I’ve heard some practising Buddhists who say that talking about ‘needs’ won’t get you to Enlightenment. They say that needs are mundane, and don’t lead to the ‘Transcendental’. I deeply appreciate their concern for complete freedom, the ‘inconceivable emancipation’ for the benefit of all beings, and their reluctance to accept a language that might fall short of this.

For myself, I’m confident in my intention: creating the kind of connection that leads to everybody’s needs being met (or ‘Going for the connection, hanging loose to the outcome’). It’s already brought unimagined richness into my life.

Through staying with this intention, I’ve become more present to myself and others. I’ve healed painful memories relating to my childhood. I’ve become healthier and stronger physically. I’ve supported hundreds of people to go more deeply into what’s important to them. I’ve found a way to contribute to life that gives me meaning and purpose, and supports me in other ways. I find that I’m not drawn to the idea of ‘Attainment’ or ‘Insight’ as much as I was in my teens, twenties and thirties. I seem to have found something in the present moment that is more nourishing, more fruitful than the ideas I had about these things. I’m still working on the language and skills to support my intention.

However, I do have two clarifications to offer:

* ‘Getting your needs met’ doesn’t just mean getting them met ‘externally’ – from outside. ‘Needs’ can also be met ‘internally’ by getting in touch with the particular living ‘energy’ of that need.
* My ‘need’ for food doesn’t get met fully by having food in my stomach. As I am interconnected with all beings at the level of basic needs, my ‘need’ for food is only met when all beings have food in their stomachs. Nobody’s needs get met unless everybody’s needs get met.

For ten years before I came across NVC, I was the co-publisher and co-editor of Urthona – the Buddhist arts magazine. For those ten years, and many before it, the Arts were the love of my life: a deep source of inspiration and connection. Now I find that I can get those things freshly and bountifully through my connection with myself and the people around me.

Perhaps I’ve just matured with the passing of time. I like to think that practising and teaching NVC has contributed. I don’t know whether exploring and practising NVC will take me ‘all the way to Enlightenment’.I am hopeful that exploring NVC will help me and others who follow the Dharma to communicate more clearly, more creatively and more compassionately.

About the author
Shantigarbha is currently writing a book on Buddhism and NVC, to be published in 2009.

He grew up in Croydon (UK) and studied Latin, Greek & Philosophy at Oxford University. He’s had a variety of jobs including charity fundraising for the Karuna Trust, managing Dharmachakra, working in a psychiatric hospital, working as the Sales and Marketing manager of a software company, publisher and co-editor of Urthona, the Buddhist arts magazine. While he was managing Dharmachakra, he co-wrote an audio-version of the life of the Buddha, which has sold more than five thousand copies. In 1996 he was ordained into the Western Buddhist Order and given the name ‘Shantigarbha’, which means ‘Seed of Peace’.

He’s been practising Nonviolent Communication for the last six years, teaching it for the last five, and been certified with the Centre for Nonviolent Communication since 2004. He works in the UK, the USA, India and Sri Lanka offering trainings and retreats for Buddhists; public workshops including transforming anger, healing retreats and Year Programmes; trainer development groups; training for prison inmates; training days for teachers and marriage guidance counsellors. He spends time each year running retreats for ‘Dalit’ Buddhists and others in India and working with mixed groups of Sinhalese and Tamils in war-torn Sri Lanka.

He has been a Chapter Convenor and Regional Order Convenor for men in the Eastern Region of the UK, and mediates as a member of the Order Mediators’ Pool (see below for contact details).

He has appeared on Sri Lankan TV to talk about NVC, and writes regular columns on NVC in two UK magazines: Juno (a natural approach to family life) and Funky Raw (raw food).

For more information about Shantigarbha, his trainings in the UK, India and the USA, and his writings, visit www.seedofpeace.org/

Resources
www.cnvc.org/ – the Centre for Nonviolent Communication: information, articles, email newsgroups and international trainings
www.nvc-uk.info/ – NVC Trainers in the UK
www.life-resources-shop.com – NVC books etc. online in the UK
Order Mediation Pool: (mediators with various skill-sets including NVC) Contact Dharmottara: dharmottara[at]ntlworld.com (please replace [at] with the @ sign)

Other members of the FWBO who are sharing NVC (visit www.cnvc.org for contact information where none is given):

* Abhayakirti (UK)
* Aniruddha (India, certified trainer):www.connect-2-life.com/
* Cittapala (UK) www.cittapala.org
* Jayaraja (UK)
* Kumarjeev (India, certified trainer)
* Locana (UK, certified trainer): www.life-at-work.co.uk
* Nuria Murcia (UK and Spain)
* Paul Crosland (UK): www.freelend.org/
* Prasannasiddhi (UK, certified trainer): www.nvc-resolutions.co.uk/
* Sinhaketu (Ireland): www.evolution-uk.org/
* Shona Cameron (UK, certified trainer): www.withunity.co.uk
* Sucimanasa (Germany and the UK)
* Sue Beardon (UK)
* Vajraghanta (UK)
* Vajrasara (UK)

New Buddhists in Hungary: two people's stories

2008-03-08T00:56:00.000-08:00

FWBO News is pleased to present interviews with two new Buddhists, both unusual in that they are Hungarian gypsies, part of a growing Buddhist sangha within the gypsy community.

To give a little background, a little over four years ago a group of Hungarian gypsies made contact with Subhuti and others from the FWBO. They had heard about the work of Dr. Ambedkar and had been deeply impressed by what they had read of his work and the suffering of his people, the Dalits, or ‘untouchables’ of India. They had in fact come to feel a deep connection with the Dalits of India, even, to see themselves as the Dalits of Europe and Dr Ambedkar’s message of social transformation as being deeply relevant for them.

Since that time Subhuti and others have made many visits to Hungary, most recently earlier this month, and some of Hungary’s new Buddhists have visited both the UK and India.

In his latest visit to Hungary Subhuti interviewed two of our Mitras there, covering a wide range of topics including their personal histories, the general situation of Gypsies in Hungary and how they came to connect with the Dharma and the FWBO. Below is a short excerpt from Janos' story -

“After one month in India, I came back convinced that I was a Buddhist. On a very big retreat in Nagpur for 5,000 people, in January 2006, I had become a Dhammamitra, publicly declaring that the Buddha is my teacher, that I will practise the five precepts, and that TBMSG/FWBO is my spiritual family.

“But back here in Hungary, there were only Hungarian Buddhists, and I could not identify with them. However, people from the Western Buddhist Order/Trailokya Bauddha Mahasangha, both Europeans and Indians, came to stay with us and they were completely different from the Hungarian Buddhists.

“It took me some time to work out what kind of a movement the FWBO in Europe is, because these were white intellectual people who took to Buddhism for reasons that I could not really understand. But they were different from the Hungarian Buddhists I had met, because they were genuinely concerned with social questions. When they come to Hungary they spend time with us, which Hungarian Buddhists don't do. They have become our friends and the connection between us is very good.”

Click here to read Janos' s interview in full, in which he tells in some detail of the conditions of life for gypsies in Hungary and how he came to become a Buddhist.

The second, with Benu, speaks of his personal struggles for a better life. He begins by saying -

"My name is Istvan Lazi. My nickname is Benu. I was born at
Kazincbarcika, in Northern Hungary, in 1987. My family are gypsies. It
is difficult for non-gypsies to understand what that really means. Most
non-gypsies think it is a matter of race or skin colour, but it is not. To be
a gypsy is a belonging. It is to be part of a community where everyone
knows, 'We are gypsies'..." Click here to read the full interview.

If you would like to know more about the FWBO’s work in Hungary or to contribute to it in any way, please contact subhuti.secretary@gmail.com.

You can read previous FWBO News stories about the Hungarian gypsy Buddhists here or on the Dharmaduta students' blog here .

Community, Nature and Buddha Nature

2008-02-14T14:26:00.000-08:00

Based on a talk by Kamalashila given in the Dharma Parlour, Buddhafield Festival July 2006

What does Buddhism mean by ‘nature’, and does the Buddhist vision of Awakening have anything to do with it? If it does, what is our relationship, as a Sangha, to the Buddhist vision of nature?

I recently became interested in starting some kind of large, land-based community. The idea arose after an eighteen-month retreat in a canvas dome above a Welsh valley. It was the most deeply inspiring time of my life, and three years later, I am still assimilating it. I was alone throughout, and lived simply, burning wood and drawing water from the hillside. I discovered something that thrilled me to the core: that being close to nature enlivens my understanding of Dharma like nothing else does. Now I want to live like that with others. I would like to help create a Dharma based ecological vision for the FWBO.

When I started my retreat, I was not at all interested in ecology. I was in the countryside simply to escape the distraction of other human beings. I expected insights and realisations to arise not from nature, but from meditation. Yes, I would learn how to light fires, tie knots, chop wood, and carry water, but I never thought natural things themselves would give insights into the Dharma. Yet in the event, every single insight came from these things, bestowed by the elements earth, water, fire, wind, space, and awareness. I had many deeply unsettling experiences, and they awakened my whole relationship to nature.

In other talks, I have mentioned the more colourful events that sparked off insights: the night I got totally lost in the fog, and the time I slipped knee deep into my shit pit. However, one experience grew to become a constant companion. I can describe it as a deeper relationship with nature in which the Dharma, the nature of existence, was more visible than usual. This relationship, and the experiences that arose out of it, gradually undermined my habitual pride and rigidity. I experienced an ongoing collapse of my idea of myself, and of the world I thought I lived in. That happened because in that situation, Nature is so uncompromising. If I needed to urinate or get water and firewood, I was forced go outside, whatever the weather or my state of health. I am in my fifties. I began my retreat in December. Over those freezing winter months, whenever I felt very cold or very ill, I longed for the convenience of piped water and mains electricity. I became impatient with practical matters, cursing the need to tie a knot or split logs. Eventually however, my tetchiness and anxiety about the realities around me dissolved. I began feeling at home in it all. I began to love it. I saw increasingly that my resistance to painful experience, the pain itself, and the person experiencing it, were all natural, unfixed realities that could teach me about the Dharma if only I could be open and curious about their nature. I finally came to inhabit my environmental niche, in accordance with my Dharma training. From that point, I came into a creative Dharma relationship with every local plant and animal.

Now it is over, I want to explore this more, with others. I imagine us establishing somewhere large, land based, unkempt, and diverse. It would perhaps be a bit like a mini Buddhafield festival, with writers, artists, hippies, yogis, yoginis, Buddhafield workers, Dharma teachers, activists, ecologists, poets, playwrights, mechanics, accountants, musicians, dogs, cats, and parrots, all living together. This great diversity of living beings would share their lives as single individuals, couples, and families. There could be women’s and men’s communities within the overall community. I suppose most of us would live in converted barns and farmhouses, but I would also like to see trucks, caravans, yurts, and benders.

I think such a community could develop a dharma philosophy based on collective experience. I imagine that would be lively, controversial in some respects, yet helpful and attractive. Indeed, it ought to attract visitors. People could come and attend retreats, meditate, and explore the Dharma from the point of view of nature and deep ecology. Within the community, we could help one another live harmoniously, raise a livelihood and maybe some children, teach Dharma, and work on ourselves individually. Over the years, Buddhafield have introduced thousands of ecological minded people to the Dharma. If large numbers of us actually lived together, we could take that much further, and develop an approach to Dharma that really explores and co-operates with nature.

My retreat helped me imagine how nature must have informed the Buddha’s own feeling for the Dharma. I even wonder if this understanding is only available to those practising, in some way, in a natural environment. It is a matter of actual connection. Certainly, that kind of sensibility has been in Buddhist teaching right from the beginning. The Buddha chose to live in nature even though, after his Awakening, he could easily have returned to a conventional indoor life and made that his basis for teaching. No one would have thought any the less of him. His decision to remain in the wild indicates that it supported his realisation better. Certainly, after his awakening, the Buddha became as considerate of the needs of non-human beings and plants as his own kind. He taught his disciples how to cultivate love for snakes and other fear-inspiring creatures. His instructions were abundant with examples drawn from practical experience in the wild. And his central teaching of vipashyana is a revelation of the nature of things, of the vastness and profundity of Nature as it is beyond all concepts of space, time, location, and relationship. Yet we can apply this profound revelation right here in the so-called real world, through ethics, love, and helpful activity.

A new, nature-based approach to Dharma will need considerable articulating. As well as living in nature with mindfulness and curiosity, we need to talk about the experience, study others’ writings on it, reflect on it, write, and argue endlessly. Discussion and comparison help us deepen our Dharma relationships. Obviously, we also need to work, and keep our personal practice alive. Nevertheless, relationships are the natural world; nature is an infinite field of inseparable, total relationship. Awakening to reality must involve inquiring into the meaning of relationship. We each have a personal history that is unique, and which we cannot alter. The connections we have made with others are inescapable; we reinforce them with every meeting, thought, and decision. As Dharma followers, we also have inescapable connections with the Buddha, through the tradition of practice that he founded. These connections are all very much alive; as I also discovered on my retreat, our waking mind, and our dreams, are populated by a universe of relationships.

Because ecological awareness is about relationship, the ideal eco-dharma community would include families and sexual partners – and, of course, many single individuals. Obviously, it would also be excellent for monastic or single-sex communities to cultivate an ecological ethos;[1] but a mixed-sex environment reflects the whole of life, and for certain individuals such as myself, offers stirring material for reflection on the nature of things. There are socio-historical arguments for this, too. For approaching forty years, despite the fact that there are many families in the FWBO, almost every FWBO community has been single-sex. Most of us have partners, so why do we prefer living single so much of the time? This obviously has a lot do with the lack of mixed community opportunities, but that itself is rooted in circumstance.
A tradition of single-sex activities has nourished the F/WBO Sangha since the early 70s. Since the Western Buddhist Order is non-monastic, single sex situations have provided our main setting for intensive dharma practice. There the young and unattached, especially, enjoy a safe haven, where they can practise less distracted by the powerful forces of affairs and relationships. However, the system has proved unsustainable in the last decade. Many seasoned practitioners have left their community to live alone or with a partner. Why is this? For one thing, single sex communities are often geared to the needs of newer and younger people, and so can become less rewarding for the more experienced. Moreover, single-sex environments are not automatically friendly places, despite the standard rationale, i.e. that the absence of the opposite sex relaxes emotional inhibitions, particularly in men, thus fostering friendship. That rationale works, in my experience, and I believe it does for many women too. I have personally benefited tremendously from my time in single sex communities and would do most of it all over again. However, long-term experience shows that there is something important missing. Many have had to face the disappointment of realising that their home over the last ten years is actually rather cold and uninspiring. It is difficult to leave when one has invested so much hope and energy, knowing that outside the mainstream Sangha one may encounter stigma, loss of Sangha contact, and isolation. Yet for many, leaving has become a spiritual necessity.

It is a shame so many people have undergone such conflict, when couples and families could very easily found Dharma practice communities. At first sight, it seems amazing that there are none in the FWBO. However, family and sexual ties do involve strong attachment, and it can take considerable collective experience to manage these within a larger group. There were some spectacular failures in religious communes, for example, in the 80s. Buddhist organisations other than the FWBO, such as Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing, have reportedly found mixed communities harder to establish. Yet it can be done. No doubt it helps when a trusted teacher lives close by; I think of Dhardo Rinpoche, Sangharakshita’s friend and teacher in 1950s, whose community in Kalimpong included a large school for Tibetan refugee children.

It seems clear there is a need, and that various forms of mixed community living will soon be upon us. It is to our advantage that our formative years taught us so much about community dynamics. We are so familiar with that opposition between the ideal of ‘spiritual community’ and the tendency to fall into ordinary ‘group’ patterns. Yes, ideally, each member of a spiritual community consciously works on him or herself. They reflect, meditate, practise the precepts, and thereby come to understand essential truths about themselves. However, in a real life situation, people lose interest in such truths, cease to cultivate meditation and ethical principles, and become insensitive to the thoughts and feelings that are actually motivating their actions. This strengthens the tendency to ‘group’ behaviours, of which there is an infinite variety depending on each individual’s past conditioning. Typical examples are bullying, deference, favouritism, and competition. Behaviours like these arise within a group, when over-dependence on others obscures the general capacity to take initiative in communication. We may be unconsciously relating to a perceived ‘pecking order’. We might be over-compliant, unwittingly afraid of offending some authority, or have an unnoticed tendency to manipulate others who put us in that position. Everyone is subject to group patterns like these; but at least ideally, spiritual community is a space where each person has the freedom to discover them and learn to relate as an individual.

In practice, this is a challenge. In families and sexual partnerships especially, it is not easy to be so free. The attachment we feel towards a lover, parent, or child can enclose us in a kind of bubble. A couple beginning their relationship may look to one another for emotional support in such an exclusive way that they disengage from community life. Or parents, feeling intensely protective of their children, may keep them away from other community members. Group-based feelings are natural enough, yet they can undermine community life: when others react, we can start feeling isolated and unable to share. In our disconnected state of society, where increasing numbers live lonely and die alone, it seems worth our making the effort to form communities of all kinds, including the kind I am advocating. As Sangha members get older, the possibility of sharing with like-minded friends offers a richer quality of life, not to mention the mutual inspiration to practise. The alternative is hardly attractive: people living isolated from the Sangha in old age will easily lose their vision of Dharma. So personally, I would like to live with other Sangha members; I cannot think of a more interesting or more pleasant way to live.
From a practice point of view, I would find a monastic or single-sex community less useful as an object of meditation and reflection. I want to be around some kind of microcosm of society, to see men, women, and children of all ages – animals too - growing up in an ecological Dharma realm, and exploring our connection with the earth. Mahayana Buddhism and Deep Ecology unite around the point that all biological organisms have needs. All beings whatsoever need others to support their existence. The Bodhisattva appreciates this. He or she knows the need of everyone in the web of life, and especially what is needed most of all: enlightenment. Obviously, very few are able to see enlightenment as a need. The majority of humans, not to mention other organisms, have to occupy themselves with far more basic issues. These issues certainly need attending to. Our accumulated neglect of nature, both human and nonhuman, is an unparalleled disaster. It is most unfortunate that we have so naïvely, and appallingly, exploited the earth and its peoples. Yet there is no point descending into despondency. A Buddhist ecological community can educate itself about these needs, practise Dharma, help wherever possible, and avoid doing further damage. For example we can generate as much of our own power as possible. We can eat mainly local, organic food. We can also be more politically active. In short, we can set a much-needed example of how everyone will need to start living in a sustainable future.

Currently, however, despite our Mahayana tradition, the FWBO often seems to reflect the self-interested values of the prevailing industrial growth society. It was typical of a Buddhist that I had virtually no interest in ecology when I started my retreat. Buddhists excuse themselves from such concerns: suffering is the result of karma, we say, so surely the overriding need is to deepen one’s awareness. Yet a very effective way to do so is to give to other beings, and the need of humans, animals, and plants is currently crying out so loud for our attention that it is getting through even to some Buddhists. It does surprise me that, as I write, none of the large FWBO centres in the UK supports the need to supply local, organic food. I understand that an efficient charity runs on a tight budget, and I agree that the economic priority for Buddhists is to spread the Dharma. From a public perspective, however, our style can appear short on compassion. It is quite possible to be both ethical and economic. Buddhafield, for example, always provide organic food on their retreats. They manage it simply because they have committed to organic food a basic ethical priority. Others could easily do the same.

A Buddhist community will be looked to as an example in its attitude to nature, at a time when contemporary living is looking like a project to get us as far away from nature as possible. In the west, in our comfortable homes, we have come to feel that nature hardly touches us. Our technology has given us a sense that we are somehow more powerful than nature, even beyond it. This seems very self-absorbed; one only has to consider the effect of natural disasters like hurricanes and epidemics to see that nature is bigger, beyond all bounds, than humanity. American ecologist Frank Egler also famously expresses this fact: “Ecosystems are more complex than we think—they may be more complex than we can think.”

Why, though, is life getting increasingly artificial? Why is it that we want it so – as it seems, in many ways, that we do? By what process did we get to this point, with such strong feelings of need for whatever is the latest, fastest, and most stylish? Our very effective technological development has brought us extraordinary convenience, efficiency, and safety, and that has no doubt disconnected us, in various ways, from our roots in natural reality. That disconnection, especially our loss of feeling, does seem partially responsible for our abuse of the natural world. However, in our justifications for that abuse, we also seem influenced by the inherited monotheistic view that nature is evil, something to master and rise above. Christianity’s two-thousand-year suppression of pagan values, and its dictum that nature is a god-given resource for exclusively human use, seems, in retrospect, to have caused unbelievable suffering. In a society seeking freedom from all that, Buddhism becomes attractive in that it makes no separation between humanity, nature, and God. All humans are potentially God; god-like qualities are natural; and nature is simply reality. Nothing, not even God, is considered to be outside nature. Nor are Buddhas, who simply have their own particular ‘Buddha’ nature, i.e. the general quality and dynamic of Awakening.

However, western Buddhists, including some FWBO folk, say that nature is something one transcends on the Buddhist path. That could appear, wrongly, to support the ‘nature is bad’ view. At the core of what the Buddha taught was ‘that which is beyond the world’, which he realised through vipashyana or insight. The Pali word is lokuttara, which Sangharakshita has translated as ‘The Transcendental’. One enters the Transcendental at the point of insight. It would be easy to mistake this crucial transition as transcendence of nature – however, in Buddhist terms, what one transcends through insight is identification with samsara, the endless round of birth and death. One cannot, in fact, transcend nature. Nature is something bigger; nature itself transcends samsara. The Transcendental itself is natural.

Lokuttara means the transcendence of concept. It involves cutting through dualistic awareness to realise the ever-present nondual nature of awareness, ‘Buddha Nature’. Thus, enlightenment is not something outside nature, but like everything, has its own very particular nature. Nature is not only season and cycle, death and rebirth, flowering and dying. It is also capable of other manifestations, as for example the ‘spiral path’ of 24 causal links, the Buddha’s description of the process of awakening as a natural process, which I will attempt briefly to summarise. Initially (and at a stroke summarising the first twelve, cyclical nidana links) one realises not only that one feels dissatisfied with our unquestioned, baffling existence, but also that it must be possible to discover its nature and find satisfaction. On bringing sustained awareness to that dissatisfaction by practising ethics, meditation and wisdom, there arises a special kind of interest, joy and happiness. Then, when reflecting on the nature of reality, this emotional expansion provides the individuality, the mental space, and the concentration of being necessary to seed and sustain experiences of insight. As these build up, and one enters the full, transformative experience of insight, one awakens fully to the nature of reality. This awakening is not ‘beyond’ nature. It is the discovery of real nature, big nature, the reality that is always there behind the hard shell of our concepts. Reality is, of course, simply reality, and never our idea of it. However, we spend most of our time totally identified with our ideas of it, with all the attendant ego-protecting emotions. We see these emotions and concepts as real. However, reality is what is revealed when the delusion collapses, and wisdom arises. It is called by such names as Dharmakaya, Dharmadhatu, Tathata, and Buddha Nature.

Talk of ‘collapsing delusion’ could give an impression that this Reality or Nature is not especially positive; yet on the contrary, it is positive beyond belief. The Buddha taught not only that nature is without an essence, that it is impermanent and insubstantial, but also that that is something good, something amazing. He taught that life is unsatisfactory only when we grasp it as permanent and substantial. Real nature only shows itself when we let go ideas and constructions of that kind. Even the notion of causes and conditions turns out ultimately to be our construction. The rich simplicity of reality is what has always been there beyond the constructions. Because we do not recognise it, we cannot help but continue constructing and reconstructing our reality. That may be a heaven, it may be a hell, but whatever our experience, is not truly real unless we have woken up and recognised its nature. For once you spot it, reality is the most attractive object, the sexiest thing, the most intriguing and fascinating thing, in the universe. You have to learn to recognise it, but if you see it even just once, that will be the end of all hesitation. Once you see it, reality will have you hooked.

Buddhist tradition expresses this ‘hooker’ aspect of the Dharma in a number of different ways. Some Bodhisattvas actually hold hooks, for example. However, the enlightened being who most of all exemplifies this quality is Kurukulle. Kurukulle is a red dakini, a female Buddha. In terms of myth, dakinis live in cremation grounds; they live around clattering bones. They turn up at the awe-inspiring crossroads between life and death, manifest in the critical situation, where our practice suddenly goes deeper than ever before. Dakinis often appear, in a visionary way, to practitioners like us, at crucial points in our spiritual lives. And all dakinis have a special connection with Prajnaparamita, the mother of enlightenment experience, the perfection of wisdom. They are concerned with the collapse of ego, with the terrifying moment of spiritual death and the brilliant and colourful life that is then born. For these reasons, dakinis are sometimes called ‘mothers’, though perhaps they function more as a midwife.

There is a male dakini form called a daka, but the female form is far more common. This may be because to our minds, pleasure connects more naturally with the feminine. Whether or not it is true that girls just want to have fun, dakini symbolism certainly evokes the pleasure of enlightenment. Dakini dancing expresses the blissful enjoyment of perfect wisdom. They stretch themselves out, shockingly free, in the sky of the liberated mind. Their appearance is often also terrifying, but they are clearly enjoying themselves, often in a very sexually open and explicit manner. They are naked, totally exposed, and they love displaying themselves. Being real is immensely pleasurable, it seems, and they do not want to hide it.

The dakini Kurukulle is all of this, but she is also especially concerned with love and attraction. She is of course young and very beautiful, and her complexion is a deep rosy red. She is flushed, she is aroused, and indeed, she is very, very excited. For example, the sadhana text I know describes her as having erect nipples. To express the feeling even more, she is holding a flowery bow and arrow just like Cupid. This is because her enlightened activity is to cause people to fall in love. Of course, I mean to fall in love with the Dharma, go for refuge to the truth of awakening. Though it does seem that one may also invoke Kurukulle for arousing ordinary sexual love, so the question arises: what do we want, Dharma Sutra, or Kama Sutra? Yet we should not answer too quickly, since there is an important of connection between the two kinds of love. What Kurukulle does essentially is to focus our strongest desires. She is concerned with what we really, really, want, more than anything else in the world. Essentially, she knows that in our hearts, what we are dying to do is fall in love with Dharma practice, or even for our practice to be a kind of lovemaking.

That might sound a little exaggerated, but it points to the big issue with Dharma practice: motivation. Each of us has problems with not wanting to do it that much, with being a bit limp and half hearted, with not being in the mood tonight. However, if we could fall in love with reality, with big nature, there would be no problem of motivation at all. We would not wish to do anything else; we would be at it all the time. We would continually be meditating and reflecting on the Dharma. This is what we really, really want, in our heart of hearts. Yet desire needs an initial spark, and that is why Kurukulle holds the flowery bow and arrow in her hands, and spends her time firing love arrows into the hearts of all beings.

I mention Kurukulle because she expresses in such a delightful form the positive nature of ultimate reality. We can sometimes be rather nauseated by (the notion of) ultimate reality, repelled by (the notion of) spiritual death, browned off by all the difficulties of practice – for example by the way spiritual insight seems to ruin people’s lives and change a person permanently (making some lose interest in pubs, occasionally even in football). However, when we can really let go our constructions and habitual concepts about life and who or what we are, the reality we let go into is intensely delightful and fulfilling. Not surprisingly, one experiences the nature of reality – big nature – as the resolution of the unsatisfactoriness that characterises samsara. The reality that is all there ever has been, but which we hide by our clinging to concepts, is far from being some abstract nothing, some ‘emptiness’, to use that misleading term: it is something amazing.

One of the Mahayana Sutras compares this Nature to honey. Reality is like some honey that is available to us all the time. We could lick it, taste it, and enjoy it at any time – if only we could see it! Unfortunately, we do not see any honey at all, because it is covered with furiously buzzing bees. That is all we see. We never think, even for a moment, that there might be something enjoyable there. It just looks busy, scary, and dangerous. The buzzing bees represent our strong attachment to concepts about our reality: all our tightly held attachment to a hard-shell personality and a fixed, artificial, little world. The actual reality, the peaceful and delightful dakini dancing reality, is only revealed when we un-stick ourselves from these habitual concepts and emotions. Only when we let them fly away does the buzzing stop and we can start enjoying the sweet honey, the sweet love of Dharma that was there, unrecognised, all the time.

Kamalashila is currently on a four-month retreat at Ecodharma, Guhyapati's mountain retreat centre in Spain. He plans to move there in the autumn of 2008.
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[1] This seems to be the kind of community the Buddha himself preferred, though he sometimes lived alone or with one other person. Since the scriptures make occasional references to female wanderers, it may be worth investigating the possibility that the Buddha’s Sangha was not as exclusively single-sex as portrayed by the monastic oral tradition.

Climate Change: towards a Buddhist response

2008-02-04T14:23:00.000-08:00

by Akasati

WATER, ESSENCE OF LIFE

One hot August day at Buddhafield a couple of years ago, on a site with very little shade, we temporarily lost our water supply. It was the start of a retreat and we were expecting some 30 women to arrive. As the afternoon wore on I realised that we were down to our last few litres. What if someone arrived, hot and sweaty, picked up the container and emptied it over themselves, not realising that there was no more? I felt stirrings of fear – a primeval recognition that life can’t exist without water for long, especially under hot sun. Eventually our water supply was restored; nobody died. But I learned two things - the preciousness of water and the extent to which we take it for granted.

This experience has informed a more visceral response when I read about one of the most universal concerns about climate change – that as temperatures become more extreme, the water supplies of millions of people will be increasingly in jeopardy and that the major wars of this century are predicted to be about water, not oil. Receding glaciers and mountain snows mean reduced melt waters, those spring torrents which form so many of the planet’s rivers, great and small. Raised sea levels can lead to inundation with salt water of the natural underground water stores from which much of our fresh water is drawn. When I imagine whole communities finding themselves without water, fought off by neighbours who are themselves defending scanty and diminishing supplies, I begin to get some feeling for the suffering likely to result from climate change.

CLIMATE CHANGE: CAUSES, EVIDENCE AND IMPACTS

I do not find this an easy subject to write about. I am not an expert, just someone who has been reading around the subject and discussing it with others. I do not want to communicate gloom and doom. Neither do I want to shrink from the truth as I understand it. I hope that my readers will not feel ‘got at’ or that I am adopting a preaching tone or being overly political. This is not intended to be an exhaustive treatment of the subject. I welcome feedback and debate.

There has been much in the media recently about this subject and in this article I assume some basis of knowledge. I include a list of resources and suggested reading at the end, for the benefit of anyone who would like to be better informed.

Suffice to say that there is far greater consensus amongst the scientific community, which has been held for substantially longer, than the media would have us believe. Scientific organisations have issued repeated calls for action. The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, agreed by hundreds of scientists across the world, states, in typically cautious scientific language, that human activity is ‘very likely’ to be responsible for most of the observed warming in recent decades. This effectively means that the link between global average temperature and human-produced greenhouse gasses from the burning of fossil fuels is no longer open to dispute by individuals and by government bodies. There is now no doubt that our energy-hungry lifestyles are directly linked to drought, forest fires, rising sea levels, unprecedented species extinction and the extreme weather that is becoming more common. Our addiction to oil, manifesting as travel, consumer goods, exotic foods, steadily increasing heating levels in our leaky buildings and so on, is causing suffering on an increasingly widespread level.

Alongside this ever-increasing energy use since the industrial revolution, the other major backdrop is the destruction of rainforests and ecosystems that act as carbon ‘sinks’, capable of absorbing huge amounts of CO2. We are still losing an area of rainforest the size of England and Wales each year. In many cases this is to make way for soya bean production, also maize and palm oil, which ironically and tragically are being grown to meet massive new bio-fuel targets. *(1)

Environmental writer and activist George Monbiot at a recent book launch made the point that we are the last generation to have the power to prevent the most devastating impacts of climate change. Although we cannot know exactly what form those effects will take, we know for sure that to pursue our present behaviour patterns unchecked will have a catastrophic impact on life on Earth.

Last week I met an environmentalist who reckons that we probably have less than 5 years to turn the situation around before we hit the ‘tipping point,’ beyond which the whole thing moves completely beyond our control. He is convinced that we still have time, by a hair’s breadth, to avert the worst-case scenario. His view is that as a collection of individuals with a deeper awareness and a world-view not based on materialism, spiritual communities have a vital role to play in embodying and communicating the necessary shift in attitudes. This accords with my own view. Speaking at an earlier time with reference to untrammelled materialism and proliferation of weapons, but not specifically about climate change, Bhante expresses a similar sentiment, quoted in the penultimate chapter of ‘What is the Sangha?: ‘the alternatives before us are, in my opinion, evolution – that is, the higher evolution of the individual – or extinction. That would be my overall diagnosis of the situation facing us.’

James Lovelock is the co-author of the ‘Gaia theory,’ which sees the Earth as a complete, self-balancing eco-system functioning in many respects like a single being. He believes that we have already passed the point of no return, in terms of ‘positive feedback’ effects. That is, the knock-on effects already set in motion by the impact of industrialisation to date. For example, melting ice caps reduce sunlight-reflecting icy regions of the planet, adding to the warming factors that are already occurring. Lovelock, even predicting a massive eight degree temperature rise, believes that human life will, in some form, survive, principally at the poles. His view is that it is civilisation that is at stake.

Personally I prefer to stay with Monbiot and my environmentalist friend and not be one of those people who move directly from denial to the view that it is too late so there’s no point in doing anything, with no creative response in between. We banned CFCs. The Berlin Wall came down. Apartheid ended. Huge shifts happen. Looking back to the Axial Age, it seems that huge shifts in consciousness happen also, if not to the whole populace, enough to have a massive impact on society as a whole.

SOME OBJECTIONS & ARGUMENTS

I’ve heard a few arguments to the effect that there is no point in acting to try to prevent the destruction of our planet as a viable home for ourselves and our fellow beings. One is ‘everything comes to an end anyway’. Well, people die, but we don’t see it as OK to actively participate in their demise! As a rationale for the continuation of an unethical and untenable lifestyle, this is surely a nihilistic and inadequate response.

Another is ‘it’s already too late, so why bother?’ As cited above, expert views differ on this subject. The truth is that we just do not know. Reports from the scientific community state the impossibility of making exact predictions, precisely because so much depends on how we respond, right now and in the coming years.

Another argument is ‘there’s no point in doing anything because China & India won’t’. In fact we still produce massively more CO2 emissions per head in the rich West than either of those countries, and have been doing it for vastly longer. It is to a great extent us, the West, who have got the world to this point. Without ourselves making significant change, we don’t have a negotiating leg to stand on. *(2)

OFFSETTING?

There are now companies offering to ‘offset’ the CO2 emissions of individuals or companies by planting trees or subsidising energy-saving activities. This is certainly better than doing nothing, however planting trees now will not ‘offset’ the impact of emissions produced in the present for many years to come. *(3) Even fast-growing species take several decades to reach maturity. Emissions produced in the present are having impacts right now. It’s later than we think.

Planting trees is an essential thing to be doing for the future. I would encourage anyone thinking of planting some trees to go ahead. Buddhafield are committed to a tree-planting programme. The problem with the whole concept of ‘offsetting’ is that it is too readily used to avoid the ethical conflict that in the absence of legislation or economic necessity is the only prompt for us to change our behaviour. As a justification to go on with a carbon-heavy lifestyle that is having real, measurable effects in the present – for example to go on taking long-haul flights that we would otherwise think twice about, it becomes counterproductive. We need to plant trees AND we most urgently need to change our fossil fuel-hungry ways.

The vexed subject of air flight, one of the fastest-growing causes of humanity’s carbon footprint, is a cause for ethical conflict for many people. We are part of a global culture that has developed through increasingly cheap and readily available flights. For example it is the norm for leading figures in organisations of all kinds, including ours, to have international responsibilities requiring them to clock up of huge numbers of air miles. Of course, there are undeniable benefits from this freedom of movement. However I would argue that the destructive effects to living beings of our unprecedented energy consumption, of which in the lives of individuals high air miles are in many cases a major component, are now sufficiently profound as to outweigh the benefits in many cases. This is not a simply resolved issue: our whole paradigm needs to change. Nonetheless, two decades ago when I was in my twenties, aviation was more reserved for special occasions. We managed to go about our lives just as productively. Organisations were of necessity more locally based. There are great benefits in that approach as well.

SUSTAINABILITY: ‘THE THIRD REVOLUTION’

Around 10,000 years ago the agrarian revolution transformed human lifestyles and the face of the planet. Over the centuries the human population steadily grew, and 200 or so years ago the industrial revolution began in England with the substitution of coal for dwindling trees. Rapid change was upon us and lifestyles that had remained broadly unchanged for centuries were swept away. We now live in an Industrial Growth Society. As unlimited growth is not possible on a planet with finite resources, our current society is, as we know, unsustainable. If we fail to creatively adapt, the human and environmental systems on which we depend will collapse. What is needed is a third revolution of equal magnitude to the agrarian and industrial revolutions – a ‘sustainability revolution’, leading us into what could be termed a Life Sustaining Society.

THE GREAT TURNING

One term current within ‘deep ecology’ circles for this third revolution is the ‘Great Turning’, which has essential three aspects:

1. Holding Actions in defence of life on earth
2. Analysis of structural causes of the problems and creation of alternative, sustainable institutions
3. Shift in perception of reality, both cognitively and spiritually (understanding the interconnectedness of life)

The Great Turning is already underway. There has been a massive shift in public awareness in recent months and years. In fact there are still many people on this planet living at sustainable levels. Even in the most industrialised countries there are numerous eco-communities; renewable technologies; campaigning groups; insightful literature and so. The question is whether it will happen soon enough and broadly enough.

The point about the Great Turning is that people engage with it in very different ways. One group may lobby Parliament. Another might set up sustainable communities. Another might teach the Dharma, countering the views on which materialism is based, making links with how our actions affect other living beings and so on. Others might communicate through song-writing or fiction: the possibilities are endless.

CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE CONTEXT OF TRADITIONAL BUDDHIST TEACHINGS

So when it comes to the challenge of climate change, what does the Dharma have to offer by way of guidance? This is a big subject, which I hope will be elaborated on by others in these pages and beyond.

ETHICS

Clearly ethical principles are relevant. Citing the first precept seems almost too obvious to even warrant a mention. One point that may be worth drawing out here is that the consumer society is by no means ethically neutral. The resources that go to make up each and every thing we consume, from food and drink to the electricity required to leave a hall light on, come from somewhere. They have an impact somewhere down the line. This is the nature of things. The first precept is about actively experiencing one’s connection with all of life and living our lives in that awareness. In the Dhammapada the Buddha uses the beautiful imagery of the sage going through town like the butterfly going harmlessly from flower to flower. It is in reality impossible to be ethically active without some level of renunciation.

The second precept is equally relevant. Apparently it would take roughly three whole planets to support the world’s population at the average rate of consumption of people in the UK. Basic maths tells us that we must be taking the not-given.

The third precept, being fundamentally about contentment, likewise has an obvious bearing on this subject. It also brings us into the whole area of child bearing and population. Exponential population growth, especially now in poorer countries where a large family can be one’s only assurance of being supported in old age, is a major factor in the current world picture. This is directly related to the inequalities on a broadly North-South divide, which are such a feature of the current global relationships. Population is a complex issue, which I am not proposing to explore here, beyond one reflection. Countries such as pre-invasion Tibet with wide support for a celibate, monastic community have succeeded not only in enriching the spiritual depth of their culture, but also in maintaining a steady population and therefore, until recently, making substantially less demands on their environment.

Truth telling involves sharing our real feelings about issues that matter to us. My impression is that many of us feel strongly about the levels of destruction we are at present confronted with, however we often hold back from expressing our real feelings, especially those of a painful nature. If we are unable to open up to painful feelings about the state of the world, either within ourselves or to others, we are likely to remain shut down and unable to find the emotional energy to act on these feelings. ‘The work that reconnects’, which has been developed by Joanna Macy and colleagues, is aimed at creating conditions in which we can experience and communicate our deeper emotions in response to the world we live in. In my experience this is an effective and energising process.

A surprisingly large percentage of the carbon footprint of industrialised countries is from ‘leisure activities’, which of course make up the thousand and one things we use to distract ourselves, some of which are more wholesome than others. This could be seen as being linked in with the addiction to intoxicants that we all experience to some degree, for example sessions of mindless TV watching. On that subject, it is a little known fact that plasma screen TVs and monitors use on average five times the amount of power as old-style screens.

One of the ethical issues we face in our current global economy is that we are in almost every case removed from the sources of the things we consume. If we actually saw people working in horrific conditions in sweatshops, our appetite for cheap high-street clothes would be dampened. However because we have to take steps to actively inform ourselves about these things, it is only too easy to maintain, at least on a superficial level, a state of ‘blissful ignorance’. If we could actually see great plumes of CO2 issuing from the back of the car or plane, or streaming out of our leaky houses - and with our own senses perceive the connection with dying coral reefs; polar-bears drowning in search of ice, or children drinking polluted water - we would, I trust, act to change our lifestyles. But making these connections requires information and it takes imagination. Ethical choices that would be clear-cut at first hand have to be made in a more abstract context.

HIDDEN DUKKHA

Edward Conze uses the term ‘hidden dukkha’ for the suffering that we experience, knowing that our pleasure and good fortune is on the back of someone else’s misery and misfortune. Knowing we are consuming more than our share, unconsciously, we feel bad. I am of the opinion that a lot of the mental suffering in the West is rooted in this. Ultimately, there is no such thing as ‘blissful ignorance’.

NO SEPARATE SELF

The evidence that we cannot separate our lives from the lives of other beings and the eco-system we are part of is incontestable. The rainforests are our lungs, from the point of view of the species as a whole. We are part of nature. We do not exist in a split-off, separate department. As Joanna Macy vividly puts it, we would not need to remonstrate with someone to desist from cutting off their own leg on grounds that it was unethical. Ethical exhortation sadly doesn’t generally work. Making deeper connections does work. Putting the same basic point another way: ‘there is no “away” to throw things’.

EMPTINESS AND COMPASSION

From the point of view of emptiness, none of this is real in the way we think it is. In the vast context of kalpas and innumerable world-spheres, the problems facing humanity in the 21st century are relatively insignificant. Yet at the same time our beautiful world, with its miraculous diversity of living creatures, does matter. Compassion says life matters. In this article, I am attempting to say ‘this matters’.

REVISITING THE SIMPLE LIFE

My own reflections have led to a reclaiming of some of the basic methodological principles that Bhante has laid out for us with such clarity, particularly questions of lifestyle. One theme I keep coming back to where I see an overlap between environmental concerns and a Buddhist life is the aspiration to lead a simple life. I rejoice in the extent to which we in this Order and movement are able to demonstrate being happy living relatively simply. Ratnaprabha wrote recently about the pleasures and ecological benefits of living in community and sharing resources. Buddhafield, at its best, demonstrates this for me – a group of people living together on the ground, along with innumerable non-human beings in all their amazing forms, small and large. Getting wet when it rains; getting warm by a fire; sheltering from hot sun under trees: there seems to be a level of alienation and neurosis that drops away in this materially pared-down environment, in virtually every case. I have recently been reflecting on the extent to which I am capable of being easily contented, even joyful. Our culture so strongly reinforces discontent. The forces of greed have never been more pervasive, cunning or well organised. But when I think of the most joyful moments of my life, some flavour of letting go, of renunciation & quiet contentment, has been part of that experience.

LEVELS OF ACTION

WORKING ON A PERSONAL LEVEL - HABITS

It is clear that each of us needs to do what we can to reduce our energy use and therefore our carbon footprint. In spite of giving a lot of attention to this subject, I have found that learning to appreciate the link between my own energy-use and these profound global consequences seems to be a slow business, given what’s at stake. However it feels essential to me that I keep making incremental attempts to change my behaviour. A friend recently illuminated the ethical dimension of life as potentially that dimension in which one can see time as a whole: the actual future consequences of ones actions, clearly laid before one. How am I going to feel, witnessing species, lands and who knows what else disappearing? I know I must at least try.

Personally I feel that as an individual it’s important to ‘walk the talk’. I have managed not to fly for the last 6 years *(4). I have a heart-connection with the ‘Akasa’ element. I feel disturbed that as I look up, wherever I am, whatever the time of day or night, invariably I see contrails relentlessly pouring forth into our overloaded atmosphere. It’s an area I have chosen to try to make real change, even though I am overall still leading a roughly ‘two planet’ lifestyle. However this is a situation that faces the human race as a whole and I’m not under any illusions that my little actions on their own are going to have any meaningful effect - not without being part of some bigger, synergistic trend sweeping the globe. That may not be as fanciful as it sounds. It happens with fashion, of all things! *(5) And where else can that critical mass possibly arise from but individuals?

COMMUNITY NETWORKS

It is virtually impossible to opt out of the society we’re part of. To have any positive impact on these issues, we need to look at ourselves in the collective. It’s basic Dharma that we all have an effect on the world. But one thing is for sure: ‘the whole is greater than the sum of the parts’. In my view it is time to re-explore the notion of the new society, in which we collectively work together to form a nucleus of something more healthy. The process begins with visioning. What kind of society and world do we really want? Vision without action may be useless, however action without vision is directionless and likely to follow habit and least-resistance tracks of greed, hatred and ignorance. According to systems theorists, vision, when widely shared and kept in sight, does create new systems.

I wonder if some of us have been put off notions of the new society because when we were younger we fell into a spirit of arrogant separation from the rest of the world: ‘We have THE answer!’ Complacent, cynical age is hardly an improvement on arrogant youth! There must be a creative middle path.
Our particular network is the WBO and the FWBO. Moreover we are each part of various other networks too. As with all human beings, we have a sphere of influence. That sphere may be a lot bigger than we realise. As Buddhists, changing consciousness is what we engage with. The shift in consciousness described as the third level of the Great Turning for many of us could be a sphere that interests us, as opposed perhaps to political action. We are accustomed to the idea that sitting with dukkha is essential to spiritual progress. I believe that one essential role Buddhists can take is that of witnessing. I mean holding a steady gaze at the difficult realities of being alive at this time on this planet, without falling into denial, horrified anxiety or whatever. This is a task of heroic dimensions. Difficult, but not to be shrunk from: we can only act appropriately to the extent that we face the truth, no matter how scary or unwelcome. I believe that this process needs to be done in communication with others, not just in the privacy of one’s own mind.

THE GLOBAL LEVEL

In the big picture, meaningful action on the level of governments and international bodies is necessary if we are to prevent the most catastrophic of the predicted outcomes. The national and international levels are important points of leverage. Some of us need to be campaigning on this level. My environmentalist friend would like to see every one of us give up a few hours a week for the next four years, which he believes are ‘the most important in our 400,000 year history as a species’ to campaign relentlessly and at as high a level as possible on this issue. *(6)

Governments, however, will only make the genuine changes needed if they are getting the message that this is what their voters really want, even at cost to their own material prosperity. To the extent that they sense that the majority of people are not prepared to make any sacrifices over this issue, they will be unwilling to act. This quantum shift has to come from the populace. By working together and changing patterns in our own community, we in turn have all kinds of broader effects. Buddhism is a much respected and growing religion in the Western world. I believe that we can have a huge positive impact if we can work creatively and collectively on this.

RITUAL AND MYTH

The myth of the thousand-armed Avalokitesvara could be seen as the myth of transcending individualism and achieving collective action at the highest level of Bodhicitta. Thinking whether there is a myth that encapsulates the Great Turning, for me this comes close, with each hand extending, offering its own particular gift. On a more popular level, the ‘Lord of the Rings’ encapsulates an archetypal battle to save the world, drawing on the language of archaic European myth. Personally I believe it was no coincidence that the recent films were so spectacularly popular - they tell a story of the spirit of the age.

HONOURING THE ELEMENTS

One of the most interesting authors I’ve read in the last few years is Maledoma Some (pronounced ‘Somay’), a Western-educated West African Shaman and ritualist who has worked with Robert Bly. Some is interesting partly because he spans two cultures and is a translator, a bit like Bhante, but in his case between African indigenous and industrial Western society. I find some of his comments on our society illuminating, particularly when it comes to our relationship with the elements. In ‘The Healing Wisdom of Africa,’ observing that Westerners frequently come to him wanting to do fire rituals, Some expresses reservations, because in his view the negative aspects of the fire element, representing ‘speed, restlessness, radical consumption, and eventually death’ already predominate to such a destructive extent in our society. Some believes that we are much more in need of the calming effects of water:

‘…to the indigenous, challenge or crisis is cosmologically and spiritually symptomatic of a rise in fire. When someone is in crisis, regardless of the nature of that crisis, that person is said to be returning to fire. The distress of a person drifting toward fire is a plea for the radically reconciling introduction of water. When there is no water around, we are vulnerable to crisis. People, especially people in crisis, are naturally attracted to water. Many recognise that when they are agitated about something in their lives, they find peace at the waterfront. Just the sight of a large body of water brings a feeling of quiet and peace, a feeling of home. Water resets a system gone dry in which motion is accelerated beyond what we can bear. African healing wisdom looks at physical illness as a fire moving a person’s energy beyond the limit of what he or she can bear. This suggests that we all need water, and need rituals of water to stay balanced, orientated and reconciled.’

Going on to talk about balancing the water element, Some moves on to the subject of emotion, and the profound importance of expressing our grief, individually and collectively.

‘Until grief is restored in the West as the starting place where modern man and woman might find peace, the culture will continue to abuse and ignore the power of water and in turn be fascinated with fire…From the point of view of my people, the growth, expansion, and progress by which the modern world measures success is a conflagration, a fire burning out of control and consuming everything it touches. It is essential that the modern world stop burning itself and the rest of the planet and to learn to see the aspects of fire that can lead to transformation, healing and a renewed connection to…our [life] purpose’

Some is not saying there is something wrong with fire, he’s saying that the water/fire balance is out of kilter. One small thing I have noticed over the years is that although we still universally light candles on our shrines, the seven offering bowls filled with water, which used to be pretty universal, are no longer in evidence on many of our shrines. Is this an unconscious expression of our fascination with fire and non-valuing of water?

CONCLUSION

However we approach this issue, it is clear that we members of the human race are being called upon to work together. The consequences of not doing so are unthinkable – and real. This could be a time of breakthrough. The co-authors of ‘The Limits to Growth’, drawing on 30 years of analysis of current data and computer modelling exploring potential future scenarios, cite several different ‘mental models’ or views that we can choose for our working hypothesis. Each of these has a different logical outcome.

One view, widely held by people who have not given much thought to these questions, is the assumption that there are no actual limits to economic growth or to our current consumption habits. Scientists have indicated that to run with this view and to carry on with ‘business as usual’ will result in the destruction of life on this planet as we know it.

Many better-informed people hold the underlying view that there are severe problems already, worse problems to come, and no hope of solving them. This is liable to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A third view hold that the limits are real and close, but there is - just - enough time, energy, environmental resilience, human virtue and adaptability to bring about a planned reduction in the ecological footprint of the human race – a sustainability revolution resulting in a better world. Forecasts suggest that this is still possible, if we act now. The only way to find out if this view can be made true is to try it.

NOTES

*(1) It costs £25 to buy half an acre of rainforest through ‘Rainforest Concern’ http://www.rainforestconcern.org/

*(2) According to the world development movement, by the 9th February 2007 the average UK citizen had already emitted as much CO2 as the average Indian will in the whole year. If the whole world emitted at the same rate as India, there would be no climate change problem.

*(3) According to the UK Forestry Commission: 'the rate of carbon accumulation is relatively low in [the trees’] establishment phase (and may even be negative as a result of carbon loss from vegetation and soil associated with ground preparation). This is followed by the full-vigour phase, a period of relatively rapid uptake, which levels off as the stand reaches its mature phase, then falls'.

*(4) For example it is possible to travel overland within Europe by coach or train, producing half or less emissions than by air flight. (See Eurolines for coach travel and Eurorail for trains)

*(5) see ‘The Tipping Point’ by Malcolm Gladwell

*(6) Two key areas are global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and protection of ‘carbon sinks’ especially old-growth rainforest. A good question to ask your MP is what emissions target (if any) they support and what they are doing to help ensure these targets are met. Organisations such as Friends of the Earth conduct well-organised lobbying campaigns.

FURTHER READING

Robert Henson ‘The Rough Guide to Climate Change‘
George Monbiot ‘Heat: how to stop the planet burning’
Joanna Macy ‘Coming Back to Life: practices to reconnect our lives, our world’
Akuppa ‘Touching Earth: a Buddhist Guide to Saving the Planet’
Meadows, Randers and Meadows ‘The Limits to Growth’
Andrew Harvey ‘The Way of Passion’ Chapter 2
Maledoma Some ‘The Healing Wisdom of Africa: finding life purpose through Nature, Ritual and Community’

OTHER RESOURCES

Al Gore’s excellent film ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ documents the evidence for climate change in an accessible, even entertaining manner.
http://www.climatewire.org/ gives up to date press clippings from around the world
http://www.stopclimatechaos.org/ is a coalition of concerned groups
Check out the Royal Society website http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/ for a more scientific viewpoint

Or just do your own internet search, however be wary of anything connected to the website http://www.junkscience.com/ or the associated ‘Advancement of Sound Science Coalition’ which are proved to have received £30,000 from the oil company Exxon for the express purpose of spreading confusion about this issue).

New Wave of Parents in the Western Buddhist Order

2008-01-04T10:19:00.000-08:00

Karmabandhu, himself a new parent, takes a thoughtful look at Buddhist parenting

The FWBO’s London Buddhist Centre (LBC), with its long-established businesses and communities, is the largest and most developed urban Buddhist centre outside India. Where it leads the rest of the FWBO in the West tends to follow. The last year has seen a minor baby boom there - the birth of six babies to Order members and their partners around the LBC. Starting families never used to be a popular activity for members of the Western Buddhist Order and even the great LBC baby boom of the mid-1980’s only saw a few pairs of tiny feet enter the world, so what has changed?

Why not?
Before hearing in depth from two of the new parents and in brief from a couple of others, let’s first look at some of the reasons why people heavily involved in the FWBO have tended not to have children. One obvious factor is going to be the higher than average number of gay people. Also, until recently very many Order members lived in single sex communities, so even if they had outside partners would not have the secure home generally needed for starting a family. Then of course is the fact that few of us have tended to have very much money and bringing up families does cost a lot. However, underpinning all of this is the Buddhist tradition, which clearly enough starts with Siddhartha’s going forth. And what was he going forth from? The dusty sphere of the household life – the settled, habitual, pleasant enough, but limited conditions that he considered unconducive to liberation. He left his wife and son behind in the palace to walk the roads of northern India in search of the end of suffering, the deathless state, nirvana.

Unlike some other faiths that see marriage as a sacrament and family as fundamental, Buddhism puts overriding emphasis on treading the path to the end of suffering, to existential and spiritual freedom, to the attainment of wisdom and compassion and its use for the benefit of all beings in this contingent, rickety, flawed world. Although the various traditions allow for lay practitioners, most importance is given to the monks, forest renunciants, mountain hermits etc., who, at least in theory, are engaged in full-time spiritual practice. If going for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha is the defining Buddhist act, then going forth from the false (in that they are impermanent, insubstantial, and ultimately unsatisfactory) ones is its essential precursor. There may in practice be infinite shades of subtlety and ‘wriggle room’, but at least the principle of leaving worldly concerns behind is clear enough. None of this of course is to deny that there has also been a tradition of highly developed and realised lay practitioners - for instance, many of Padmasambhava’s main disciples were laymen, who, indeed, started lineages of lay yogis that continue to this day. And Atisa’s main disciple was a layman. It is just that the main thrust of the tradition encourages the very literal going forth from all worldly responsibilities and not their accrual.

This does not mean that the Buddhist tradition in general or the FWBO in particular has (at least officially) ever regarded children and families as bad, naughty or evil – indeed, Sangharakshita gave a talk entitled ‘15 Points for Buddhist Parents’ back in the early 1990’s, which is available on Free Buddhist Audio – but more that if you really want to concentrate on the spiritual life, which is no easy thing, it is probably best not to take on such demanding worldly responsibilities if you don’t already have them. Starting a family for most of us means having to work full-time, spending much of our free time with the children, with little space for retreats, meditation, reflection, study, or indeed for very much of anything else. Obviously, we can and indeed have to practise in any situation, but it would be obtuse to argue that it is going to be as easy to meditate with two children crawling around watching telly tubbies on the TV as it is with a couple of friends who are also meditating. Conditions can either help or hinder us. If they didn’t, what would be the point of ever going on retreat? We might just as well go down the pub.

Becoming a parent
So how come there has been this mini baby boom? Why do committed Buddhists have children when the tradition does not exactly encourage it? As with everything, it seems that people are complex. We may make a commitment to do something in line with our highest aspirations, but we can either fall away from it or other aspects of us come to the fore. Also some people at times will also reassess their former views, now seeing their former beliefs limited and to some degree lacking. Talking to the new parents, as well as being one myself, it strikes me that the issue is generally clearer amongst the women. In most cases they have had children because they have felt a deep, undeniable and even desperate urge to do so as their biological clocks ticked on towards 40. Not all women experience this, but those who do will in some cases do almost anything to have a child, especially if their instinct and emotions tell them they have met the “right” man.

I have talked to a few new Buddhist parents about their experiences, some in depth and a few more in passing. I first talked to Prasannavira who has been involved in the FWBO for 17 years and was ordained in 1996 He used to manage the LBC and after more recently earning his living as a Tai Chi teacher and Shiatsu practitioner has recently joined the Bodywise Natural Health Centre management team. He is father to fifteen-month-old Rhea and lives with S---, his wife.

I spoke to him on last summer’s WBO convention and was fascinated to hear how his views on parenthood have changed. He described a visit to Ladakh two years ago when he was struck by how healthy and happy the people were. One aspect of this seemed to be the family relations, which gave them emotional stability and solidity. Reflecting on his own life he felt that he had not managed to create such strong and durable connections while living in men’s communities. While in India he continued reflecting on this and on the issue of marriage. He consulted an oracle who advised him to marry and this helped him make up his mind.

On returning to England he proposed to S--- who was floored and happy. Neither of them though were entirely without their doubts, not about each other, but about marriage per se. This is hardly surprising given the FWBO’s traditional ideas of Buddhist practice and status, which if we were to translate them into football terms would put homeless wanderers and genuine monastics at the top of the Premiership, with marrieds seen as firmly stuck in the lower divisions, with no realistic hope of promotion. Not many of us want to be languishing there whether for real or just in the eyes of others, so just from that angle alone it is not a light decision to take.

Anyhow, having decided to marry and start a family, Prasannavira says that he realised that his ideas of the spiritual life had to change. Speaking to me, he was clear that, “you can practise as effectively with a baby as without one”. He said that the first thing for him was to keep up some sort of meditation practice along with Tai Chi. It has also become much more apparent that “spiritual life is the whole of life”. “In a way it is more intense. It is a potent situation if I can engage with it.” He described how his options have narrowed and that some preferences and ideas, such as travelling, have had to be shelved.

Has it been worthwhile so far? “It has been a blessing; beautiful, enjoyable, tiring. There is hardly any space and I am a wage slave. Retreats are difficult to get. Yet at the same time I experience it as a real blessing.”

How do you go forth while living the family life? Prasannavira was adamant here, stating that, “Times have changed [since the Buddha]. There is great individualism, which is maybe what we really have to go forth from. In some ways family can do that. Maybe Bhante [Sangharakshita] is missing a trick here.” He then talked about his Sufi shiatsu teacher, a man who has been practising in that tradition for 30 years, who advocates excelling in all areas. On reflection, Prasannavira thinks that his previous position was to some degree one of naïve idealism and is happy to stand on the ground he now occupies.

Vajradakini is 41 years old, 5 years ordained and practising for 22 years. She is the mother of Thomas, aged 16 months, who is also my son. Her urge for a child first emerged when her own mother died in 1991 and then reasserted itself with a vengeance as she neared her forties. So how is she finding motherhood?

Her first point is that it is too general a question as motherhood is not a constant thing, but rather it changes all the time as the demands change. She then went onto say that, “I have never known such love for another human being as I have experienced for Thomas. It’s as if it has opened a whole other aspect of my humanity. I know what it is to love another so much that I’d lay down my life without any hesitation.” However, it has been very demanding: “I have never worked so hard, never engaged with anything that is so totally demanding and constantly full-time…a 24 hour job…. I didn’t realise it would be that hard. But then I think he is quite an active baby as well.”

She added that it has also been a steep learning curve: “I have had forty years to do exactly what I want when I want, to be utterly self-regarding. I have realised how much more I could have used that freedom now that I don’t have it.”

What do you think about having a child so late?
“I would still have had him even though it is hard and would in some ways preferred to have had him at 24. I can see the sense of having a child when young, but I was very idealistic and riven. It would have logically been better to have gone for the family thing then and be freer now in my 40’s. However, the advantage of having a child late is that although I may not have the same energy and am probably tied up until I’m 60, I do have a lot more self-knowledge, spiritual practice, friendship, patience, and am happier in myself. I have a lot more to give my son by having him late. I see definite pros and cons.”

What about your spiritual practice?
“Well, parenthood is a practice in that I have had to very strongly give up my old identity – who I am and my priorities in life – because there is this overriding necessity to be available and to be ever loving and present to another human being. That is quite a practice actually. I could choose not to do it as well as I am. I am making it both my mundane job and my spiritual practice to do it as well as I can within my limitations. It is also a great delight to see Thomas develop thus far into a secure, happy, humorous, hugely energetic, little person.”

What about meditation?
“Meditation has been more or less impossible since I was pregnant and hormonally effected. It was also quite an upheaval moving back to the UK from Italy when seven months pregnant. Now that I am out of the habit of meditation I find it hard to get back into. I appreciated the mixed convention [of the WBO] and the meditation workshops and felt like coming home to a long lost, dear beloved when doing my visualisation practice. Mostly over the last year I have just chanted the Padmasambhava mantra in the morning with Thomas bouncing up and down excitedly on my lap looking at pictures of Guru Rimpoche. It seems to do us both good. I have brought Padmasambhava to mind at some point every day. I have also been trying to see the Dharma in everything I do as advised by my friend Kamalashila. That has been very useful up to a point but you do need some more direct practice to sustain it. Now that Thomas is over one year old I am hoping to get back into the habit and create the conditions with the help of my boyfriend to support my meditation practice, which will feed into being a happier better mother too. It is hard to get on retreats but there are child friendly ones that I will make use of from now on.”

Have you found support from the local sangha?
“My friends have been kind and supportive, but mostly obviously enough they have had their own lives to deal with. Prajnadevi though has been particularly present as my friend and as an auntie to Thomas. One delightful aspect of coming back to live in the East End while Thomas has been very young has been a growing friendship with fellow mother Jyotishmati. We were kind of ‘around’ one another in the LBC sangha for years without making a particularly strong connection but I have got to know her somewhat now and have hugely appreciated her company taking the babies out together to playgroups, the park, the café and each other’s houses. We have boys only three weeks different in age so there is a lot of shared experience and understanding between us and I have found her to be a wise, very kind and generous spirited person – also good fun. The parents group at the London Buddhist Centre on Wednesday mornings has also been something of a lifeline.”

Any regrets?
“Generally speaking I feel I’ll miss out on a lot of opportunities to do a variety of more independent things in terms of my practice. However, I have accepted that I really want Thomas, this child, and am not going to resent the time that I spend with him. It is precious. I am going to engage with it with as much positivity as I have built up over previous years of freedom –of course with the help of Karmabandhu.”

Does motherhood bring wisdom?
“I don’t think motherhood makes you wise in itself, but engaging in the life and death process of giving birth I think strips away a lot of the fripperies and pretensions. You see worldly and spiritual pomposity and self-importance more clearly.”

Chintamani has been ordained for 30 years and is one of the WBO’s most prominent painters and sculptors. He is father to fifteen month-old Gowan. Talking to him on the WBO conventions where we both spent the mornings looking after our respective babies, he expressed a more complex and ambiguous position. On the one hand he said how much he was into being a dad. His face lit up in innocent delight as he said how much he adored Gowan. However, in his mid-fifties his own path to fatherhood had been a long one and clearly enough it was not where he had expected to arrive at. He said that having been in a really good relationship with his partner, J---, for ten years, he felt that he could have either said no to children and probably seen the relationship end, or that he could let this heterosexual relationship go on to its natural next stage. He decided on the latter and does not regret it. However, like many men, childcare does not seem to come naturally. He anticipates that changing when his son can talk and reason and there can be a more ‘intellectual’ sort of communication. He is happy to do some child care and as Gowan grows and develops, increasingly enjoys his company, but needs to spend plenty of time in his studio, both for his emotional health and of course because it is a major source of his income. As to whether it is the “right” thing for him spiritually, his teacher and old friend Sangharakshita advised him to treat it as the best thing that could have possibly happened. While it is doubtful that Bhante meant that this really is the best thing to have possibly happened, it is certainly a very healthy and helpful attitude to take.

Then, a few weeks later, I spoke with J--- Gowan’s mother in London’s Victoria Park as Gowan and Thomas played around on the grass. The main point she wanted to make was how very intense and demanding parenthood is. She has so much less time now and it is has become very precious to her. She said that she wondered what she used to do with all her free time. She described being the mother of a small baby as a mixture of heaven and hell.

Any conclusions?
Personally speaking I don’t think the Buddhist tradition is wrong in its encouragement of the homeless and therefore family-less life. However, I could never say I regret becoming a father. Firstly, this is because it would be monstrous to ever regret the existence of another person, let alone my own son. However, more broadly, the spiritual life can be a rather abstract business. We learn to meditate, we go on retreats, we may even live in communities and work together, but often we end up going through the motions, living slightly disconnected lives, with nothing really substantial to ground us. Personally speaking, having failed in my quest to be a Buddhist ‘missionary’ in Italy, I needed another big project to engage with. Being a dad certainly is one. As with all responsibilities it is maturing. Deep and passionate care for the welfare of another person is not to be sniffed at either humanly or spiritually.

Windhorse:Evolution and their Social Fund: two new projects

2007-11-04T10:00:00.000-08:00

by Samata, UK

Windhorse:Evolution is the largest and most profitable of the FWBO’s many Right Livelihood businesses, with a turnover of some UK £10 million and employing over 200 people. They have always aimed to make a profit and to give that profit away as dana. At first they simply asked Sangharakshita to direct them in this; in recent years they have created five independent funds and distributed their dana among them. One of these is the Windhorse Social Fund which aims to invest in social projects close to their main suppliers, and they now contribute around £20,000/year to this as part of their ‘Trade for Aid’ initiative.

Samata writes about two new social projects supported by Windhorse -

The Wheatfield Plan
Niall is a buyer who visits some of our regular suppliers. Earlier this year he visited Fok Kwong, in China, one of our main suppliers, who provide Windhorse with the metal windchimes that account for 10% of their turnover. Niall wrote: “This company is owned by an intriguing Hong Kong couple, Cecilia and Simon, who are both very dedicated to a number of educational and social projects. A few years ago, Windhorse joined Fok Kwong in setting up a 'Relief Fund’ that provided scholarships to children at Koa Chau Primary School in rural North China. The fund also provides for computer training for their 800 pupils, hoping to match the opportunities that children in urban schools would have. Since then, Cecilia and Simon have spent a week there most months teaching English and life skills, and encouraging the teaching staff in their efforts. However, they now feel that this school is managing well and on it’s own it is time to turn their attention to a new project called the Wheatfield Plan”.

This initiative, to which Windhorse will contribute £5,000, supports temporary teachers. China has around 250,000 temporary teachers, many of whom serve in remote and underdeveloped areas. They lead a difficult life with little pay. In parts of mountainous western China, a temporary teacher may earn only 300 to 400 Yuan a month (£20.00 – £26.00 a month), and that is often delayed, sometimes for 20 months.

Peng Shafu, one such teacher, moved to a remote village after his graduation two years ago and became a temporary teacher. He had to spend two hours each morning climbing up a mountain to reach the children. He almost gave up; he couldn’t imagine a life of walking four hours every day, just for 400 Yuan a month (£25).

Peng taught 12 students at the beginning. The schoolroom was a temporary space off a farmer’s courtyard. It wasn’t until February 2006 that the village had its first ever primary school, complete with a classroom, an office, and a bedroom for Peng - all with the help of The Wheatfield Plan, a local NGO.

Mo Fan, 25, set up the Wheatfield Plan in 2005. When he saw the children who lived in the rural mountain villages without much to live on and with no education, he decided there was an urgent need to build schools and provide teachers for them. This is achieved mainly through providing subsidies to temporary teachers. In these areas “kids drop out of school not because their families, though poor, can’t afford to pay, but because there aren’t any teachers,” said Mo. “When we help teachers, we are helping kids”.

The other aims of the Wheatfield Plan are to help children who have ‘dropped out’ to return to school and continue their education; to build a library of books; to build schools; to subsidise students; to provide clothing and books to students; to provide assistance to teachers and students with physical disabilities.

The Kupu-Kupu Foundation
During a buying trip to Bali in September Vajraketu (windhorse:evolution’s chief buyer) made his first visit to the Kupu-Kupu Foundation’s Centre in the town of Ubud and met its director, Begonia Lopez. On his return he said “One cannot help but be struck by seeing these disabled kids happy and lively, knowing that without this Centre provided by the Foundation they would be stuck at home and out of sight”. He was also struck by Begonia’s emotional positivity, her ability to communicate with the children and adults, and her capacity to get things done.

The island of Bali has more than 13,000 people with physical and mental disabilities and Vajraketu was at pains to point out that the Kupu-Kupu Foundation is a small non-profit project with no consistent source of funding. It relies on ad hoc funds from sources ranging from Provincial Councils in Spain, to individual tourists who return home and begin fundraising for the Foundation. Begonia herself is a social worker from Spain and first became aware of the plight of disabled people in Bali while visiting as a tourist in 2000.

Through the work of its Centre in Ubud the Foundation is helping children, teenagers and adults with physical and mental disabilities.

Mobility for the Disabled
Mobility is one of the most important needs for a person with a disability and is the first thing the foundation tries to achieve. Mobility means opportunities to make friends and be a part of their own communities while using a wheelchair. In its first 6 years of operation the Foundation has given wheelchairs to more than 85 people.

Begonia writes; ‘For most of them it is the first time that they see a wheelchair. Giving a wheelchair is not enough, we have to make sure that each person is trained how to use one on a daily basis and to gain confidence to develop their full potential with it. Being in a wheelchair they have to learn how to go up and down ramps, and what to do in front of steps etc. First we train them over a period of time at school and at home, then we make ramps in their houses and after we continue to encourage the family to use the wheelchair with our disabled friend otherwise we know that without persuasion and continuous encouragement the wheelchair will be left to rust in the back garden. Families with disabled children often keep taking their kids in their arms because it is more comfortable for them and easier. We try to make them realise that doing it this way makes the child more dependent and feel more disabled. Using the wheelchair is most important. We have as well organized programmes to take them out of their compounds while using the wheelchairs’. One such program that Vajraketu mentioned is a monthly visit to the house of an Australian couple to use their swimming pool – an outing that is eagerly anticipated by children and adults alike.

Begonia continues; ‘Many of them upon joining the Foundation feel ashamed, shy and scared of their conditions. They don’t want to be seen but little by little their lives are changed. We have seen beautiful transformations over time. Sometimes it is hard to believe that they are the same people we initially met’.

These crucial wheelchairs, and spare parts, provided by the Foundation have been provided through sponsorship from Japanese schools, as well as from individuals from Australia and New Zealand who bring wheelchairs from their countries.

Kupu-Kupu Gallery
In 2004 the Centre opened a shop in Ubud, an important cultural centre on the island that attracts many visitors. The shop is called Kupu-Kupu Gallery and sells handicrafts made by the foundation’s disabled friends in order to help them earn their own income and eventually gain economic independence. The shop also provides work for three disabled adults who before starting their jobs were constantly in their family compound and had little contact with others outside their immediate family. One is a painter, one is a wood sculptor and one is a coconut carver.

The Future
The hardest thing Begonia finds is raising money for on-going running costs. The £3000 donation Windhorse sent the Foundation in May 2007 has been put towards running costs and on his visit Vajraketu was satisfied the money had been put to good use. Our supplier PT. Sumiati, based in Bali, are also supporting the Foundation and helping with the administration of finances.

Begonia would very much like to open a second Centre and school in the Bangli District of Bali, in order to reach disabled people they currently just cannot get to. She has received a grant from the Council of Vitoria in Spain to buy a piece of land and now needs to raise the money to build the school-cum-Centre.

Vajraketu would like to see windhorse adopt the Kupu-Kupu Foundation as a project that we support in an on-going way and we have promised funds to build the school in Bangli once the land has been purchased. Vajraketu said: “I’d happily support Begonia’s work, she’s inspired and very genuine. What she’s doing really does bring sunshine into people’s lives and a little money goes a long way in Bali”.

Wabi Sabi - cultivating the art of imperfection

2007-10-17T11:47:00.000-07:00

by Sally Radnor, Cambridge, UK

He asks her if she would like to watch the most beautiful thing he has ever filmed. She says yes. A white plastic bag is caught by the wind. Whirled upwards with the last of the autumn leaves, it dances against the backdrop of a brick wall. He films the bag dancing for fifteen minutes. To him, it's a little kid begging to play. And he has realised that there is an entire life behind things: an incredible, benevolent force wanting him to know there's no reason to be afraid - ever.

You may know this scene from the film American Beauty (directed by Sam Mendes, 1999). At the time I first watched it, I still thought Wabi Sabi was a sachet of eye-watering green paste that comes with sushi. It wasn't until several years and many viewings later - with friends, with children in the classroom, and finally on a Wabi Sabi retreat with the FWBO at Tiratanaloka - that I realised that this bag scene is often an 'aha' moment for people. It's a Wabi Sabi moment, a moment celebrating the beauty of ordinary things.

Wabi Sabi is 'the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent and incomplete.' It is a Japanese approach to life, a comprehensive world-view. It's about things which remind us of imperfection and impermanence.

Reading this as a Buddhist, you'll probably believe that suffering, impermanence and insubstantiality are the hallmarks of everyday existence, although Wabi Sabi tends to focus on incompleteness rather than insubstantiality. Indeed, the roots of Wabi Sabi go back to Taoism and Chinese Zen Buddhism. With its origins in the minimalism of ninth century Chinese poetry and painting, the Wabi Sabi ideal began to enter Japanese society in the 14th century. This was partly due to the wandering hermits who were a feature of the landscape at that time. Initially pitied for their poverty and loneliness, people came to understand that these wanderers experienced a spiritual beauty in their lives - a beauty which led to contentment.

The term Wabi Sabi is idiosyncratic and slippery to translate: 'wabi' is linked to 'poverty' and to the verb 'wabu', to languish. 'Sabi' means loneliness, solitude, and in modern Japanese, 'rust'. Perhaps a simple translation of Wabi Sabi might be 'sad beauty'.

I asked a friend who lived and worked in Nagoya what Wabi Sabi means to the modern Japanese. She had heard them describe certain things as Wabi Sabi, but when she asked what was meant she never received a clear answer. I had just been on the Tiratanaloka retreat, and told her about a week of gazing at rotting vegetables and rain clouds, a dead shrew on the shrine, and an installation of litter suspended from a tree, pierced with holes and leaking water, all to evoke transience. My friend sighed: she's a mother of three young children. Patiently, she told me how much time she spends wiping noses and bottoms. But, we finally agreed, there is plenty of Wabi Sabi in the art of bringing up children. Her children are small beings: Wabi Sabi celebrates small things. The children have their moods and odd behaviours - Wabi Sabi celebrates the idiosyncratic. They are ambiguous in some ways, a source for her of both pleasure and pain. They are spontaneous and natural. As my friend mops up snot and vomit, she's reminded of the preciousness of things private, things natural, things of the earth. I wondered if she could appreciate the fleeting nature of this period of her children's lives, because soon they would be grown up and different. She laughed - no, the shorter the better, this intensive, exhausting parenting - and this reminded me of another principle: rather than objects or experiences 'having' Wabi Sabi, it's down to us to decide whether these things provoke in us a feeling of sad beauty, of Wabi Sabi.

To return to the development of the aesthetic, it gradually attached itself to the Japanese tea ceremony. By the sixteenth century, the sado was a great artistic event. The garden design, tea-room architecture, flower arrangements and tea utensils were of great significance. The story is told that two men, one a saucy but devout monk, Ikkyu, and Rikyu, a tea-master of refined sensibilities, began to suspect that the ceremony no longer represented the simple spirit of tea. They transformed it to an event of plain rusticity. The tea room shrank, taking for its model the Japanese farmer's hut. Tea utensils became rustic, indigenous ceramics. They made the tea drinkers crawl through a small opening to the tea room, which brought everybody down to the same level. Rikyu's powerful employer, a man of peasant origins, was not impressed. He ordered Rikyu's ritual suicide. As a politically indiscreet trafficker in tea utensils, and now accused of poking fun at a Japanese shibboleth, Rikyu had no choice but to oblige.

Does the mischievous spirit of Rikkyu and Ikkyu live on in Wabi Sabi? Leonard Koren is an American artist who struggles to resolve his dilemma about creating beautiful things without becoming too focused on the materialism which can surround creative acts for today's artist. He treats Wabi Sabi as an antidote to 'a pervasively slick, saccharine style of beauty' that he sees in American culture. For him, Wabi Sabi is related to the anti-aesthetics of Beat, punk and grunge, which originate in 'the young, creative soul.' Perhaps Koren is referring more to the spirit of the creative process than the finished result, more to the Beats' questioning of traditional values, rather than the druggy paranoia of some of their work, more to the isolation of the grunge bands, rather than the angst and heavy feedback of some of their music. Perhaps it's just difficult, in our twenty-first century culture, to find both purity of artistic process and purity of form.

Some of the film scores of Thomas Newman, a commercially successful American composer, evoke a spacious, pared-down beauty which both soothes and disturbs. He uses un-tuned mandolins, animal calls and small sounds. If you listen to his soundtrack to American Beauty, perhaps the edgy strangeness will bother you - or perhaps the restricted sound palette will evoke the loveliness of the ephemeral and the insubstantial.

For those of us who may be prone to perfectionism - relative, samsaric perfectionism - and I am one, would an exploration of Wabi Sabi be helpful? I wonder whether it can loosen attachments we may have to things logical and absolute, to technology; to things well-maintained, sharply focused, geometric, or slick. Recently, I rented a converted barn in Wales for a short holiday. After getting used to the odd combination of plasma widescreen (inside) and sheep (outside) I began to enjoy myself. How seductive: the smooth lines of the DVD/music centre, the deep leather sofa, the softly-gliding kitchen drawers, the lustrous bedlinen and neat asphalt farmyard. A week later, I arrived back home to a mash-up of tatty 80s TV, stereo and video (remember video?) a threadbare sofa, gaps between the kitchen work surfaces harbouring ante-diluvian meal fragments, and a shaggy, sullen garden. It was all unsatisfactory - every bit.

It took time and recalling of the third positive precept, of stillness, simplicity and contentment, to start to straighten things out. The electrical stuff works. The sofa is an old friend. The kitchen has a secret life and the garden has a real history. My imperfect home holds a mirror to my superficiality. It reminds me that everything is either evolving from or devolving towards nothingness. No amount of newness, interior design or cleanliness can change this.

So much for matters close to home. But isn't the most direct route to loving imperfection and impermanence through the traditional Japanese art forms? Through the poetry of Ryokan and Ikkyu, ikebana, the tea ceremony, the Zen garden, bonsai, and honkyuku, the traditional music of wandering Zen monks? Possibly - for the Japanese. For me, though, the challenge lies in remembering to take out my Western eyeballs and to look differently at the things in front of me. I look for things ordinary, off-centre and off-key. Things organic, incomplete and blurred. Things asymmetric and pared down, simple but not simplistic; things modest and humble, things in flow.

Perhaps the most important thing about Wabi Sabi is that it's not a nihilistic philosophy. It's an antidote to consumerism, urbanity, intoxication, unthinking proliferation, instant gratification, and all things vulgar, obvious and pimped out.

Wabi Sabi is an emotionally warm state of mind, and a state of grace. Like the plastic bag, if you're open to it, you'll see it and feel it.

Mindfulness for Everything

2007-07-11T07:19:00.000-07:00

by Vishvapani
Picture an FWBO meditation class and you imagine a room full of people sitting quietly on cushions in front of a Buddha image. But an increasingly common variation is a room of people lying down, relaxing deeply as the leader guides them in taking their attention through the body.

The body scan is a distinctive element in the six, eight or ten week courses that are proliferating in FWBO centres as they engage with the world of Mindfulness-Based Therapy (MBT). The faculty of mindfulness—broadly defined as non-judgmental present-moment awareness—has always been a key element of the Buddhist path; and in recent years psychologists and healthcare professionals have been recognizing its value for people experiencing conditions ranging from stress and depression to addiction, chronic pain and ill health. A natural crossover exists between this growing medical interest in mindfulness and the skills that FWBO meditators and teachers have developed in their years of practice. So how are people from the FWBO engaging with MBTs, and what issues are emerging as they do so?

Mindfulness-Based Therapies
Although the world of Mindfulness-Based Therapy is fairly new, it is already rather complicated, at least on the surface. Prepare to be bombarded by acronyms. There is Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR); Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT); Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP); Mindfulness-Based Pain Management (MBPM); and more. As the names suggest, these therapies apply mindfulness to various conditions; others, such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) or Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) use mindfulness in conjunction with other forms of treatment.

The alphabet soup was first stirred in 1979 when Jon Kabat-Zinn wondered if the mindfulness meditation he practiced at the Insight Meditation Society could help the patients he was seeing at the University of Massachusetts Medical Centre. These were people for whom the doctors could do no more. Despite extensive medical treatment they still suffered chronic pain or illness, or one of the many kinds of dis-ease that we call ‘stress’. He developed an eight-week course that engaged them in regular and fairly intensive practice of body scans, mindfulness of breathing meditation, hatha yoga and other exercises aimed at developing awareness. He called his approach Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).

The effect of MBSR courses was carefully monitored and results were remarkable. People reported lower levels of stress, and even a reduction in their symptoms. Above all, they felt hopeful and empowered because mindfulness enabled them to affect their experience for the better. What’s more, follow-up studies showed that years after taking the course many participants continued to use the techniques they had learned.

Medical authorities and funders were impressed, and they were delighted by the course’s cost-effectiveness. While conventional treatments involve expensive drugs or lengthy one-to-one therapy, MBSR can be taught to groups of up to thirty people at a time, and it uses the cost-free resources of the participants’ own minds. If this sounds mercenary, it is important to note that for Kabat-Zinn, himself, MBSR’s effectiveness springs from its spiritual depth. As he writes in his best-selling 1991 book Full Catastrophe Living, ‘What we really offer people is a sense that there is a way of looking at problems that can make life more joyful and rich … and also a sense of being somehow in control.’

Kabat-Zinn’s activities developed into the Center for Mindfulness, and their influence spread. One example is described in the book, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression by three cognitive psychologists, two of whom are British. Their work with people suffering from depression showed them that, while drugs could help alleviate depression, seventy percent relapsed if they ceased taking the drugs. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) could also help, with more lasting results, but there is a UK-wide shortage of qualified therapists. In any case depression, once experienced, is highly likely to recur - a new episode starts when someone starts to ruminate on thoughts of unworthiness or frustration, and this produces depressed moods, which in turn produce further negative thoughts. The result is a descending spiral that creates a strongly depressed state of mind. But if the person can notice that these thoughts are starting to recur before they have gained in strength, they can choose not to pursue them.
The psychologists concluded that their patients needed a technique that would help them to be aware of their thoughts; and their search for such a therapy led them to Kabat-Zinn, meditation and mindfulness. Some years on, MBCT has been approved by the UK’s National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) for treatment to prevent relapse into depression - which is known to affect around twenty percent of the population of developed countries at some point in their lives. Masters degrees in MBCT are taught at the Centre for Mindfulness Research And Practice in Bangor, and another course is being developed in Oxford.

Mindfulness has also been used to treat addiction, eating disorders, anxiety and numerous other conditions. Breathworks is a home-grown approach, developed by Vidyamala, a member of the Western Buddhist Order, which I will describe below.

How Mindfulness-Based Therapy Works
Most Buddhists are familiar with techniques for developing mindfulness, such as the mindfulness of breathing meditation practice, but how can they help with conditions such as chronic pain or depression? In an excellent talk entitled Mindfulness for Just About Everything (available online from Free Buddhist Audio), Paramabandhu, who is both a consultant psychiatrist and the Chair of the London Buddhist Centre, identifies four main therapeutic uses of mindfulness.
Firstly, he says, mindfulness enables people to notice what is happening in their experience, especially when they are engaging in compulsive patterns of thought such as escapist fantasy, rumination and fixation which can prompt destructive or addictive behaviour. Secondly, mindfulness offers a way for people to stay with experience including whatever may be difficult, rather than pushing it away. This produces a change in perspective on those thoughts or experiences, enabling people to see that their thoughts are just thoughts, not facts or reality, and they need not be driven by them. Finally, the new perspective allows choice. Rather than being driven by compulsive reactions to experience, mindfulness creates the mental space that enables people to respond differently.

The practices taught on mindfulness-based courses support people’s efforts to move away from depressive thoughts, accept physical pain, or respond to challenges with creativity rather than stress. Learning to pay attention to the breath helps in learning to notice thoughts and feelings, and in meditation brings calm, in which state it is easier to notice experience and stay with it. MBTs also emphasise grounding awareness in a sense of the body and the breath, and this is naturally healing in itself.

Mindfulness-Based Therapies in the FWBO
The two main FWBO MBT projects are Breathing Space at the London Buddhist Centre (LBC), and Breathworks, which is based at the Manchester Buddhist Centre but trains people from many different places. The two projects engage with the MBT field in rather different ways.

Breathing Space
Paramabandhu first ran an MBCT Meditation for Depression course at the London Buddhist Centre in 2004, drawing on his experience as both a meditation teacher and a consultant psychiatrist. The first course quickly booked up, so he put on a second—and the same thing happened. His Health Service work is with drug and alcohol addiction, and in 2005 he started to offer a six-week course, which he adapted from MBCT called Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP).

Members of the LBC sangha responded enthusiastically to Paramabandhu’s initiative, in part because it was helping people who otherwise would not attend the Buddhist centre, and Paramabandhu supervised experienced meditation teachers as they trained to run the courses themselves. The courses enabled the centre to make new contacts with the local community, and Tower Hamlets Council has given almost £10,000 to fund free places for local residents. By mid-2007 over 300 people had attended MBT courses at the LBC.

As activities developed, they acquired a name—‘Breathing Space’—and Maitreyabandhu became the Director while Paramabandhu guided the teaching aspect. As the number of courses grew they decided that they needed a large dedicated space for these activities, which wasn’t dominated by a Buddha figure. They decided to convert the LBC’s basement—currently a warren of offices and storerooms—into a large, therapy room and activity space with a reception area and disabled access. They launched an appeal, including £150,000 to be raised from the LBC sangha to refurbish the existing ground floor facilities. In summer 2007 a government-backed investment agency awarded the project a £25,000 grant and £260,000 loan for the basement conversion. This is enough to ensure that Breathing Space can go ahead; but there is a long way to go before the team realise their vision of teaching mindfulness courses to thousands of people and dramatically expanding the scope of the LBC’s activities.

Breathworks
While Breathing Space uses a version of MBSR and MBCT, Breathworks’ approach has grown out of the experience of Vidyamala, an Order member with severe chronic pain. Chronic pain affects around fifteen percent of the population, and it confronts them with a raw version of the existential dilemma about which Buddhism speaks so much. The challenge is to respond constructively to suffering, rather than trying to escape it or reacting angrily. Having learned, through years of struggle, to engage mindfully with her own condition, in 2002 Vidyamala started to share her experience with other chronic pain sufferers by running courses in her room.

A year later Vidyamala teamed up with Sona and Ratnaguna, (whose working name is Gary Hennessey), both of whom are experienced practitioners, to form Breathworks, a not-for-profit company dedicated to making this work more widely available. They ran courses at the Manchester Buddhist Centre and elsewhere, and quickly attracted attention from both health professionals and other Buddhists. Since then Breathworks activities have ballooned. The team often run courses for health professionals and make presentations at conferences.
They have devised a training course that takes place over two weeks, and four such training weeks will be held at Taraloka Retreat Centre in 2008. They have also led training retreats in New Zealand. Twelve people have qualified as Breathworks trainers, and Breathworks courses are being run in Brazil, New Zealand, Ireland and Germany, as well as Cardiff, and Manchester in the UK. In London, Prasannavira runs Breathworks activities through his company, Body of Health, which works with Breathing Space. The Breathworks team anticipate that by the end of 2008 there will be 30 qualified Breathworks trainers. While most of those training are FWBO Buddhists, some are Buddhists from other traditions and some are non-Buddhist health professionals.

The intention of the Breathworks team is to create a ‘Breathworks community’, that includes many trainers around the world who will meet for retreats, sharing of experience and further training. While the work’s initial focus was on people suffering chronic pain, in 2005 Ratnaguna and Sona started the ‘Living Well’ course that adapted Breathworks techniques for others. In 2007 the course was extensively revised by Ratnaguna in the light of MBSR and its offshoots, and a new version called ‘Living Well: Mindfulness for Stress’ was piloted in Manchester, Cardiff and Auckland, NZ.

The demand for what Breathworks offers is seen in the success of their guided meditation CDs, which have sold 12,000 since they were launched in 2004, despite being self-published. Vidyamala is currently writing a book about her approach to pain management (I am her editor), which will be published by in September 2008 by Piatkus, the UK publishers of Full Catastrophe Living. Breathworks is increasing known within the worlds of pain management and mindfulness, and several research projects into its techniques are currently being conducted.
The Breathworks programme differs from MBSR and MBCT in several interesting ways. The Pain Management module includes elements drawn from other pain management courses, such as training in ‘pacing’ oneself through the day. The suggestion that participants might decide to actively change their behaviour gives a subtly different message from the MBSR emphasis on noticing without judging or changing. The biggest difference, however, is that, in addition to the body scan and the mindfulness of breathing, all Breathworks courses include a ‘kindly awareness’ practice. This is an adaptation of the metta bhavana (loving kindness) meditation practice, which is taught at FWBO centres alongside the mindfulness of breathing. The kindly awareness practice starts with reflection on one’s own suffering and uses it as a key to develop empathy with others. Vidyamala sees this other-regarding dimension as an important adjunct to mindfulness for people seeking a more creative response to difficult experience.

Other Projects

Mindfulness Works

Kulananda, a senior member of the Western Buddhist Order who co-authored Mindfulness and Money, took the MA in Mindfulness-Based Approaches at Bangor. After graduating he was invited to teach a Buddhist psychology module on the MA programme. He also set up a company, Mindfulness Works, that offers mindfulness courses to companies, business coaches and senior executives as well as in healthcare settings. He works under his civil name: Michael Chaskalson.

Mindfulness Works activities have developed successfully and Kulananda has led courses in the NHS, at business schools, and for corporate clients—including several large professional service firms. As the Mindfulness Works website points out, over half a million people in the UK say that stress, depression or anxiety was caused or made worse by their work, and employers increasingly realise that this affects their businesses. There is clearly a demand for mindfulness in the corporate sector.

Other FWBO Centres
Karunadaka, the Chair of the Dublin Meditation Centre and Viryasara (Dr Kate Healey), who is a GP, run a successful programme of mindfulness courses at venues in Dublin under the name Blue Sky Mindfulness Meditation Dublin.

The Cambridge Buddhist Centre runs MBSR courses led by Kulananda and Ruchiraketu, who is currently taking the Bangor MA. They have also sometimes worked with John Teasdale, one of the founders of MBCT. Another Bangor student, Taravajra runs MBCT courses at the Evolution Arts and Natural Health Centre in Brighton. In fact MBT courses are popping up on centre programmes around the movement—the North London Buddhist Centre recently ran MBT courses focusing on stress, depression, and chronic pain, all more or less concurrently, with a good take-up for each.

Issues and Prospects
The growing interest in MBTs in mainstream healthcare and psychology creates opportunities for FWBO centres and individuals, but also brings some risks. Depression, stress, anxiety and chronic pain affect large sections of the population, many whom attending would never think of attending a Buddhist centre or a meditation class. We are probably only at the start of the influence of mindfulness on healthcare and on society at large. In time, if research evidence mounts and health budgets adapt to include mindfulness, there may well be formal health service support for these therapies, whether they are taught by Buddhists or health professionals. Jon Kabat-Zinn reportedly described his work as ‘stealth Buddhism’, introducing Buddhist attitudes, experiences and values into the mainstream of society and potentially affecting many millions of people.

Teachers of MBT courses report that participants are often more motivated than those attending other classes at Buddhist centres because they have a real difficulty in their lives for which they need help. The courses are more intensive than other meditation courses, and people often experience benefits to match. I know from my own experience as a teacher that MBT course can be very rewarding.

MBT courses can also help centres and individuals financially. Buddhist centres are usually empty during the day, and at least some MBT courses can take place then. Because MBTs are bracketed with other healthcare offerings the amount that people expect to pay is higher than for other events, especially where they are paid for by health authorities or employers. This is particularly true in the corporate sector. However, MBT is a new area and there are few recognised ways of reaching the people who might benefit. For example, although Breathworks is highly respected by pain specialists, they do not yet get many referrals and currently hospitals cannot buy in Breathworks trainers.

A danger for Buddhists and Buddhist centres in engaging with MBT is that it will subtly alter the flavour of their teaching work. Mindfulness Based Therapy is an emerging profession, and offering meditation professionally is very different from the ‘mutual generosity’ (dana) basis of traditional Buddhist teaching. Buddhist centres that are under considerable financial pressure need to take care that they do not neglect their mainstream activities for the sake of MBTs.
The medical origins of MBSR and MBCT potentially skew the understanding of mindfulness away from how it is seen in the Buddhist tradition. In Buddhist teachings mindfulness is always seen as an aspect of a path that includes other faculties and practices. But in MBTs mindfulness is often spoken of in isolation, or in conjunction with non-Buddhist techniques such as CBT. The resulting view of mindfulness in MBCT, for example, strikes me as very clear but rather narrow. I think it would be unfortunate if views of mindfulness among FWBO Buddhists were strongly influenced by this approach, unless it is thoroughly reviewed in the light of Buddhist teachings. Breathworks’ inclusion of ‘balanced effort’, kindly awareness and its plans for a community of practitioners is an interesting response to the narrowing of views of mindfulness among ‘mindfulness professionals’.

The two main FWBO MBT projects—Breathing Space and Breathworks—have developed in isolation from one another, and there has been little interaction between them. It would be good to see more dialogue between these and other FWBO MBT projects. Potentially, perhaps in conjunction with other Buddhists, they could help to bring a distinctively Buddhist understanding of mindfulness to the MBT world.

Training
There is no commonly recognised MBT accreditation, but three training options are currently available for anyone in the UK wanting to deliver MBTs. Readers may wish to add comments about the provision in other countries.

Breathing Space offers on-the-job training in MBCT/MBSR to would-be teachers in London.
Breathworks offers a straightforward practice-based training course. This is ideal for working with people experiencing chronic pain, and the new Living Well with Stress course opens up the much wider field of stress management as well. Graduates can also benefit from the Breathworks community.

Bangor University’s MA/MSc in Mindfulness-Based Approaches, which includes a substantial academic component, has attracted a number of Order members. The course’s four modules and a dissertation can be completed in three years, and students are awarded a certificate and then a diploma en route. The qualification in MBCT, with its strong evidence-base, is likely to impress the health service and employers.

Finding Out More
Books
Full Catastrophe Living: How to Cope with Stress, Pain and Illness Using Mindfulness Meditation by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Piatkus (UK); Delta (US)
Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy for Depression: A New Approach to Preventing Relapse by Zindel V. Segal, J. Mark G. Williams, and John D. Teasdale; Guildford.

Talks and Articles
Mindfulness for Just About Everything (talk by Paramabandhu, Free Buddhist Audio) www.freebuddhistaudio.com/talks/details?num=OM778
Embodying Engagement (article by Vishvapani on Jon Kabat Zinn & Bernie Glassman): vishvapaniswriting.blogspot.com/2007/01/embodying-engagement-observations-of.html
Mindfulness as Cognitive Training: a Contribution from Early Buddhist Thought by Michael Chaskalson MA dissertation available on Univ. of Wales, Bangor website

FWBO Mindfulness-Based Therapy Projects
Breathworks (Manchester) www.breathworks-mindfulness.co.uk/
Cardiff Breathworks www.cardiffyogastudio.co.uk/breathworks.htm
Body of Health (East London) www.bodyofhealth.org/
Mindfulness Works www.mbsr.co.uk/
Blue Sky (Dublin) http://bluesky.ie/
Breathing Space (London) www.lbc.org.uk/breathingspacehome.htm
Cambridge www.cambridgebuddhistcentre.com/stress_reduction/about.php
Evolution Arts, Brighton www.evolutionarts.co.uk/mbct.html

Other Mindfulness-Based Therapy Projects
Massachusetts Center For Mindfulness www.umassmed.edu/cfm/index.aspx
Bangor Centre for Mindfulness Research & Practice www.bangor.ac.uk/mindfulness/
Oxford Mindfulness Centre www.so-wide.org/mindfulness.php

The Bodies' Knowing

2007-07-03T05:23:00.000-07:00

Manjudeva

After 12 years of meditation and dharma practice I have realised that the body is not simply a foundation for practice or even a vehicle for enlightenment but actually a source of knowledge and understanding in itself. For the last three years I have been practicing something called "focusing" - in brief it involves deeply listening to sensations and images that come from the body, from this awareness many things can change and unfold.

When we turn out attention to the body, to begin with, what we find may be nothing but a few vague stirrings.but as we spend more time in this world, we begin to notice that those odd feelings of tightness, those "alarm bells" and those ever-so quiet inner voices are our bodies way of letting us know that it knows something. The body has its own language too; that at first appears as if half lit, vague and fuzzy .but after practicing it is like we learn to see in the dark and what we see is not what we want to see but what wants to be seen and here lies a significant difference. The changes that come through paying attention to the body are not directed by our conscious mind: our ideas and agenda about how we should change. They come from a deeper, more holistic, more connected place.

What we meet in our bodies is, as Reginald Ray - a Tibetan teacher put it, our "unlived life". It is as if our bodies meet life directly, without concepts and views about how life should be.and it is because our minds have such powerful and strong views that this unwanted experience gets stuck in the body, is not met with full awareness. "Focusing" brings us into relationship with this, and you could say that this awareness allows us to meet what we truly experience, what we truly feel and what we find most meaningful. We can have all sorts of ideas about ourselves and our spiritual practice but the practice of focusing shows us what is really going on for us. It grounds and embodies our aspirations and ideas in the felt truth of the body.

For me, learning focusing has been a coming home, a sometimes painful and sometimes beautiful journey, but it has always been deeply moving and satisfying. I feel more alive and whole than I have for years... and all thanks to the body.

To see Manjudeva's schedule check his website: livingfocusing.co.uk

Disability Equality and the Bodhisattva Ideal

2006-12-09T05:14:00.000-08:00

This is an edited version of a talk given at the Leeds Buddhist Centre in September 2005 by Dorothy Mallon and Lucy Wilkinson who have both been involved the UK's disability movement for some years. As a result of this the Ratnasambhava Kula was formed to look at ways to remove barriers to participation in the life and work of their centre

To the disabled people’s movement, "Disability Awareness" is about simulating an experience of an impairment, for example having a ride in a wheelchair or putting on a blindfold. This is counterproductive as it does not give you the authentic experience of being a disabled person, including the discrimination faced by the person. Simulation can also be very distressing for a non-disabled person and it achieves nothing. We used a Disability Equality" approach, not a "Disability Awareness" approach to the session. This does not place the emphasis on the individual disabled person but on the way that society interacts with disabled people.

So, the first question is, "Who is a disabled person?" A disabled person is someone who experiences physical or sensory impairment, a learning difficulty or mental distress or even a combination of these impairments.

The second question that comes to mind is "what do we mean by the Bodhisattva Ideal?" Our understanding is that the Bodhisattva Ideal is about dedicating yourself, to the enlightenment of others. This was one of the first things that we found attractive about Buddhism – that it is not purely about personal salvation, the ideal has an element of socialism, in that we bring others with us. There is a collective goal as well as an individual goal.

An important element of becoming a Bodhisattva is the Bodhisattva Vow. The essence of this vow is to deliver all beings from "suffering" –a word that we will return to later on. So, in relation to disability equality, what do we mean by freeing disabled people from suffering and enabling disabled people to attain enlightenment?

The Medical Model and Social Model of Disability

The traditional view of disability is called the Medical Model of Disability. This is the view widely held by doctors and other health professionals, social workers, charities, the media, education systems and therefore the public at large. The medical model looks at disability solely in relation to a person’s impairment – in effect what is, in medical model terms, different from the norm in the person’s body or mind. The medical model categorises certain impairments as "defects" and therefore views disabled people as defective in some way. The emphasis is on the disabled person as the problem.

So if the "problem" is located in the person’s body or mind, the solution would be to cure the person or, if this cannot be done, to provide disabled people with segregated services, for example so called "special schools", day centres, residential homes etc, etc. The extreme end of the Medical Model is to remove disabled people from society through eugenic methods such as prenatal screening, do not resuscitate notices and euthanasia.

The Social Model of Disability was defined and developed by politically active disabled people in the late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies as an alternative to the Medical Model. The Social Model basically states that disabled people are not disabled by differences in our bodies or our minds but because society disables us. It is society that creates barriers for disabled people such as inaccessible buildings, information, transport and negative attitudes towards disabled people. This means that the disabled people’s movement is about challenging oppression – it is a civil and human rights movement, in the same way that the women’s movement or the Black civil rights movement is.

So if the "problem" of disability is the barriers that society has created, the solution is to remove the barriers i.e. to change society – or to use a slogan that we used on some disabled people’s direct action: "Don’t Change Us, Change the World"

Suffering

This brings us back to the use of the word "suffering". In the West, suffering is associated with individual pain and distress. Accompanying this, someone experiencing pain viewed as a victim and this leads to feelings of great pity towards disabled people. Charities FOR disabled people often rely on concepts of tragedy and the general public’s feelings of guilt and pity. This is all very negative. In a Buddhist context, pity is the near-enemy of compassion. So we should strive, at all times, to distinguish between feelings of compassion, which can be helpful; and pity and sorrow, which are negative and unhelpful.

The Social Model does not negate that the fact that disabled people may experience pain, distress or discomfort. But the Social Model does not say that because people experience these things that, therein lies the problem. The Social Model is clear that the primary problem does lie with society and that society needs to remove the barriers that disable people. So putting compassion into action is about removing disabling barriers.

Metta Practice and Buddha Nature

The Bodhisattva path may not be one that we think we can attain. However, many of us do, on a day to day basis, try to practice metta. Metta is often defined as requiring both kindness and helpfulness. In a Social Model context, by thinking about the barriers that disabled people face, and then doing something to remove these barriers, we can also put metta into practice in a very clear way.

Every human being is a potential Buddha. The fundamental suffering of all people, both disabled people and non-disabled people, is that we live in ignorance and delusion that prevent us from realising our true Buddha Nature. Therefore disabled people do not have "special suffering" – the fundamental suffering of all people is the same. This is why it is important that we create the conditions for all people to encounter the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. This is about creating the conditions for practice. In a Social Model of Disability context, this can only be realised if the barriers to disabled people’s participation are removed.

The 3 "As" of Disabling Barriers

The first "A" is access barriers. This includes access to buildings, to transport, to information and to the environment in general. This is probably the most obvious way that disabled people are discriminated against but it is important to remember that access barriers do not only affect wheelchair users but also people with other mobility impairments, with sensory impairments, with learning difficulties and people who experience mental distress.

The second "A" is attitudinal barriers. There are many prevailing negative attitudes in society towards disabled people. You just need to think about the images of disabled people in literature. Disabled people are viewed as tragic beings, as brave and plucky, as a worthless burden on society, as not economically viable and as "mad, bad and dangerous". As disabled people, we are patronised and have low expectations placed on us. These attitudinal barriers can have a huge impact ranging from internalised oppression and low self-esteem to low attainment in education and employment which in turn leads to poverty and back to a lack of self-worth.

Language is a powerful way of reinforcing the attitudes and views of any society or group. One example, is that commonly used metaphors shore up the negative attitudes towards disabled people that are held by society. Blindness is often used as a metaphor for lack of awareness or insight or lack of questioning, for example blind faith, blind justice, love is blind etc. Deafness is used as a metaphor for lack of consideration for the views of others.

The last "A" is assistance barriers. Some disabled people may need personal assistance, advocacy or sign language interpretation in order to participate fully in society. Often, non-disabled people view this as a "special need". It is not. In fact, non-disabled people use assistance all the time, without viewing this as a special need. For example, a sighted person uses the assistance of a printing firm and a bookshop to access literature. Because a blind person cannot access this assistance, they may need alternative assistance, such as a reader. There are close parallels here with Buddhist concepts of "interconnectedness", none of us can operate independently of other people.

This session was on the cusp of awareness and action. The "awareness" is actually about mindfulness combined with an understanding of the Social Model of Disability. The action is about removing barriers that allow disabled people the conditions to practice. The final point to think about is whether these actions should be individual actions or collective actions. The short answer to that is "both". Some barriers will be institutional, such as policy or planned activities or where the Buddhist centre is situated, and these barriers can only be removed collectively, by consensus. In order to achieve the removal of institutional disablism, we all personally need to develop our attitudes so that we want to create a Sangha that will be equally accessible for everyone. The linked question to this, is whether the actions should be aimed at removing the barriers for individual disabled people, i.e. a reactive approach, or taking the proactive approach to removing barriers for all potential Sangha members. We would emphasise the need to be proactive, not reactive, whilst taking on board the experiences of disabled people as individuals.

Dorothy Mallon and Lucy Wilkinson

Ethics and Eating

2006-11-09T04:50:00.000-08:00

David Welsh grew up in Edinburgh, and first went along to the Edinburgh Buddhist Centre at the age of 17. After doing a degree in Norwegian at Edinburgh University, he moved to Cambridge in 2003 to work at Windhorse. In 2006 he moved to Oslo to continue his studies and support the burgeoning FWBO centre there. David has a blog called Field of the Gods.

Like a lot of people, it was only when I started to get more involved in Buddhism that I gave the question of eating meat any thought at all. Eating meat was just something that almost everyone seemed to do, and very few seemed to question. But when I started to give the ethical questions involved a little serious thought, I knew I couldn’t justify the killing of innocent animals just to satisfy my tastes. For me, going vegetarian was a liberating and exciting experience. I started thinking more about what I was eating, and exploring new foods and cuisines. Above all, I enjoyed eating more, because I was doing it with a clearer conscience - one of my first tastes of the positive effects of acting more ethically.

But it wasn’t until a couple of years later that I gave veganism any thought. It was much the same pattern - I didn’t know any vegans, and eating animal products like eggs and cheese was something that almost everyone seemed to do and very few seemed to question, even at the Buddhist Centre.

Like most people, I had just assumed that, as cows naturally make milk and chickens produce eggs, there couldn’t be much of an ethical issue in humans harvesting these products and using them. When I discovered the truth about how these animals are treated, I was shocked.

Like all mammals, cows only produce milk to feed their young. Therefore, the only way to keep the supply of milk coming is to make the cows continually pregnant. After a cow gives birth, her calf is taken away from her and usually killed. These days, through selective breeding, cows produce a lot more milk than they would naturally, which results in lameness and painful diseases of the udders. When their bodies start to get worn out from the continual cycle of pregnancy and over-milking, it’s off to the slaughterhouse, and a terrifying and painful end to their short lives. Cows have a natural lifespan of about 25 years, but most dairy cattle are slaughtered at the age of five.

The plight of battery chickens is a little better known than that of cows, but you might be surprised to know how little progress has been made towards eradicating the battery system. In the UK, 78% of laying hens are in battery cages, and only 16% are “free-range”. You might buy free range eggs at the supermarket, but what about all the other things you buy that contain eggs? If they’re not specifically advertised as “free-range”, you can be sure that they came from hens who spend their short, miserable lives in wire cages so small that they can’t even stretch their wings, let alone walk around.

The term “free-range” can conjure up idyllic images of hens scratching around a farmyard, living relatively free and peaceful lives. Unfortunately, the reality is usually quite different. The hens are often kept in huge, crowded barns with up to 16,000 other hens. They have access to an outside area, but often less then 50% of the hens actually go outside regularly. The stress caused by the unnatural conditions they are kept in cause them to attack and peck at each other. Rather than improving the conditions that lead to this behaviour, the factory farmer’s solution is simply have the hens’sensitive beaks cut off with a hot blade. And, like cows, when production starts to drop off, it’s off to the slaughterhouse - most laying hens only live for one year.

Another problem with egg production that applies to “free-range” just as much as to caged hens is the issue of the male chick. Some eggs, naturally, are allowed to hatch to replace the chickens that get sent off to slaughter - but only the female chicks will produce eggs, the males are worthless. Normally they’re either tossed, still alive, into a mincer, or just thrown into a bin liner - the weight of the ones at the top slowly crushing the ones underneath to death.

All of this makes for pretty unpleasant reading, but as Buddhists we strive to be aware of the consequences of our actions, and to act in a way that avoids causing harm to other beings. At first, it’s difficult to associate the pain and suffering cause to cows and chickens with the egg sandwich and the latte we had for lunch - just as for most meat-eaters, it’s difficult to see a sausage or a steak as a bit of dead animal. The companies that sell you eggs, milk and meat don’t want you to be confronted with these facts. Information is power - and it’s also responsibility.

To the uninitiated, going vegan might seem complicated, limiting and time-consuming but in fact, I’ve found I much easier than I would have imagined - and it doesn’t involve subsisting on raw seeds and vegetables! There are good animal-free replacements for just about anything you could want - sausages, cheese, ice-cream, chocolate. Pop into a health food shop and you’ll be amazed at all the vegan goodies they have on offer. Even eating out isn’t much of a hassle these days. More and more cafés are offering soya milk, and if you go into any Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Thai or Italian restaurant, you’ll have no problem getting some good vegan fayre.

Healthwise, there’s little you can do that’s better for your body than going vegan. You’ll increase your life expectancy by up to 10 years, and dramatically cut your chances of getting diseases like heart disease and cancer.

Also, producing animal food uses up a huge amount of energy and resources compared to producing the same number of calories of plant food. Factory farming is making a big contribution to ruining the planet, and going vegan is one of the most effective things we can do to help protect our environment.

Choosing not to consume animal products is a powerful practical statement of our belief, as Buddhists, in the overriding imperative of non-violence - and it’s something each and every one of us can do. As a vegan, I know that every time I sit down to eat, I’m making a decision based on my deepest values of compassion and non-harm, and that I’m helping to making the world a better place for all the living beings I share it with.

Ashes

2006-07-03T04:39:00.000-07:00

Vidyavajra lives in Cambridge, England

I’ve been working now for four months in the Cambridge City Crematorium as a Chapel Attendant. It is suprising how easily and quickly such an unusual work environment can become just what you do. Needless to say a crematorium for a Buddhist is never lacking in potential for reflection, just so long as you’re prepared to peak out occasionally from under the duvet. ‘ Ah ,yes, mortality, that inconvenient terminus where our body hits the buffers.’ The mortality of others is so easy to recognise, yet it is so easy to ignore in oneself. I walk a line hour by hour between insight and willful blindness and see how quickly the edge of receptivity can be dulled by repetition. ’Daily I see some of the consequences of death: bereavement and funerals. Occasionally I know a little bit of what lead up to it. I now know about cremations too and the end product of my work, an urn full of ashes.

A cremation oven is pretty damned warm, around a thousand degrees. At the Cambridge Crematorium we have four ovens. Each oven has a small peep hole for checking the progress of a cremation. I have to admit I find the cremation process fascinating. I frequently pull back the shield and peek while I’m on duty charging the coffins. I’ll spare you the details of what happens. It can all feel a tad ghoulish or inappropriate when put into words. As if it’s disassociated from feeling and all I’m watching is bread baking. Perhaps it helps not to have known any of these bodies when they were alive and kicking. We cremated Syd Barrett from Pink Floyd last week, but that doesn’t count. Fame is a poor relation. As Seneca put it ‘In the ashes we are all leveled’, even somnolescent rock stars. How would I feel if I knew the person being cremated? I’d feel very very attached.

A cremation takes about an hour and a half, longer if the person is fat. With increasing levels of obesity cremation times are rising. Once done I rake out what remains in the oven into an open topped steel box. In there are a collection of pure white bone fragments so fragile they crumble like a biscuit between your fingers. I remove all the large bits of metal , hip, knee or shoulder joints and the metal tubes used as drains for failing organs, that look like primitive nose flutes. What is left goes into the Cremulator which breaks the remaining fragments down into a fine granular ash. I don’t know how it does it, but all the ashes end up in a plastic container on one side, whilst all that’s left in the steel box are a few dozen coffin staples rattling around like spare change. It’s all slightly miraculous and uncanny.

Once I’ve emptied this ash into its urn or casket, then the label or name plate on the front is the only means of identifying it as a particular individual. Some commonly asked questions about ashes are - Do you get all the persons remains? (about 99%, but not everything). How will I know these are the right ashes? (you wont, but they will be). Actually there is precious little to define ashes as anyone specifically. Ashes weigh on average about 4lb. Generally, ashes of a male are heavy and large in quantity ,whilst ashes of a female are light and small in quantity. This is partly genetic, to do with height and build and partly to do with age as bone density weakens as you get older. But really talking of ashes as being literally male or female in any kind of meaningful way is quite ludicrous. We are all literally leveled to ash. In fact who is that we anyway?

A favorite paragraph of mine in Dogen’s Genjo Koan concerns ‘firewood and ashes’ and keeps coming to my mind during my current work. I’ll quote it in full, as editing it down to sound bites would be in danger of reducing a pause for reflection to merely what is instantly digestible.

"Firewood becomes ash; it can never go back to being firewood. Nevertheless, we should not take the view that ash is its future and firewood is its past. Remember, firewood abides in the place of firewood in the Dharma. It has a past and it has a future. Although it has a past and a future, the past and the future are cut off. Ash exists in the place of ash in the Dharma. It has a past and it has a future. The firewood, after becoming ash, does not again become firewood. Similarly, human beings, after death, do not live again. At the same time, it is an established custom in the Buddha-Dharma not to say that life turns into death. This is why we speak of no appearance. And it is the Buddha’s preaching established in the turning of the Dharma-wheel that death does not turn into life. This is why we speak of no disappearance. Life is an instantaneous situation, and death is also an instantaneous situation. It is the same, for example, with winter and spring. We do not think that winter becomes spring, and we do not say that spring becomes summer." [1]
I know that’s dense stuff, and in no way to be read over a bowl of Honey Nut Corn Flakes, without a cup of coffee handy. It’s something I’ve re-read and thought about, and know I still don’t fully grasp. At the same time I know it’s important and returns to my imagination repeatedly like a koan.

Another part of my job is ‘witness scattering’, where I scatter the ashes of a deceased person with members of the family present. Now a families approach to this varies widely. Some still believe in the ashes literally as their recently deceased. One lady rang up the Office distraught at the idea of scattering her husbands ashes on the lawns of the crematorium. The lawns obviously would need regular cutting and wouldn’t that mean his ashes would get hoovered up by the lawnmower and redistributed, nay mixed up with other peoples.

Other families are perhaps more associative and want the ashes scattered under trees, because ‘ she never liked strong sunlight’ or amongst beds of roses because’ he was a keen gardener’ or down in the woodland area because the deceased ‘liked being in touch with nature’

Some families struggle to see these ashes as anything to do with their dearly beloved. So they devise their own rituals or ways of making a connection. Like spelling out the persons name with the ashes, placing a picture on the spot or later planting a tree or a rose bush complete with a name plate. Anything that reminds them of a living thing or at least a living memory.

Cut off from the past and cut off from the future, the experience is of an absence in the present. All these approaches attempt to fill empty space. By use of family talismans and the spells and oracles of old memories, they invoke magically, for a brief moment, a shadow of the deceased in the present.

I find the scattering of ashes moving and feel privileged to take part in this parting ritual. In this ‘instantaneous situation’ of scattering the ashes, they look to all intents and purposes like concrete dust or cat litter. It seemed at first bizarre that people personified them so much. I’ve come to see that this is an understandable stage of bereavement, the ashes are a symbolic repository for emotions. They were an alive person, which became momentarily ‘firewood’ in the cremation oven and are now ash. On some unconscious level we do know that this ash is neither the person, nor the ‘firewood’ , that this amalgam of wood and bone dust, high in magnesium and potassium ,is not the person we loved.

So scattering ashes across a green sward is a final ritualised demonstration that the person we once knew is gone, they were never an unrecognizable square of gray dust. A subtle illusion falls away at this point. you can see it in even the most stoic or impassive of faces.

We all have questions about what happens after death, after the ashes. What next for the deceased? Dogen tells you what its not, hints at how it might be. It’s not ‘no appearance’ or ’no disappearance’, life doesn’t follow death, something does but its not the rebirth of a specific individual, there is and isn’t a connection between lives. There is only the ‘instantaneous situation’ that’s all he’s prepared to be remotely categorical about. He knows our tendency to be literal minded, how we concoct stories for the long running soap opera that is ourselves.

Our memories and imagination maintain connection with the deceased. Some search out spiritualist mediums and hope for messages from them. Something has permanently shifted in our cosmos. Things cannot return to how they were. Their absence can never be filled. We keep alive our memories, but they will fade and die with us. The ashes we know had a past, and ashes we know have a future, however unfathomable. Likewise what happens after our own death remains unfathomable, which maybe one reason for keeping our heads buried under the duvet.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note
1. From Shobogenzo Vol 1, translated by Nishijima & Cross, publisher Windbell. - return to text

What the movement needs is a newsletter

2006-07-03T04:33:00.000-07:00

What the movement needs is a newsletter

Jayarava is a writer, artist and musician, and started the FWBO Newsletter in 2004, and was ordained in 2005.

Jayarava is a writer, artist and musician, and started the FWBO Newsletter in 2004, and was ordained in 2005.

I got involved in the FWBO in one of our outlying provinces, New Zealand. Activities started in New Zealand in 1971, before 99% of the current order were ordained! When you live in outlying areas you can either become indifferent to the outside world, or you can crave to know more about it. A lot of Kiwis travel, we're famous for it, and the reason, I believe, is that we just want to know what's going on! Unlike the English we only resort to talking about the weather is our companion is boring. Our first question is always "Howzit going?", and this is followed up by "So, what have you been up to?".

So it was with increasing sadness that I watched the demise of most of the FWBO media to which I had access. Goldren Drum, an inhouse publication, became Dharmalife a bright more outward looking magazine, which did well but also passed away. Then the newsreels ceased - I never knew why and was appalled to read recently in the FWBO News that it was due to mounting criticism within the movement. I still miss them. As a mitra I was cut off from the wider FWBO world, and as an order member since last year, I am only slightly better off.

This breakdown of internal communication channels came at a time when the order was burgeoning by several dozen new members each year. Bhante Sangharakshita had handed on his responsibilities, only to become ill and effectively out of the picture for more than a year. Yahsomitra wrote his letter saying that he felt taken advantage of. The combination of these factors allowed the lid to come off some long suppressed feelings. Watching from outside of the order it was, and in many respects still is, difficult to know what went on. The order closed ranks, it seemed to me, and dark rumours began to spread. We have moved on from there, and although there are still some unresolved doubts, the order and the movement are largely getting on with their lives. However just at the time when we needed to be in contact with our distant Sangha members, we allowed our communication channels to lapse.

I believe that the lack of broadcast channels of communication within the FWBO is critical. One can easily find smaller networks - each centre will have a mailing list, and many publish a newsletter. In the absense of broader communication channels, which encompass the movement as a whole, this will inevitably lead to parochialism. When we do not have a clear sense of being part of a bigger team, we tend to over identify with our local situation - you can see this in action in any large organisation even when the teams in queston work under the same roof!

Bhante Sangharakshita's teaching which places Going for Refuge at the Heart of the Dharma, and of our movement is, I believe, his greatest gift to us and to the world. This insight tranforms what can often be a perfunctory formality into a powerful unifying technology, and a hermeuntic for understanding all Buddhist practice and custom. However I would say that in order to completely manifest this unity we have to be in actual connection with each other. I don't think we can feel ourselves to be a network of friends if we have no knowledge of how others in our community live. I believe that the FWBO/TBMSG is vulnerable to parochialism at present because it is diiffult to find out what our friends around the world are engaged in, or inspired by, or striving for. Very few of us know what is going on beyond the confines of our local Sangha. I know this because despite living amongst the second highest concentration of order members in one town, more than 100 in Cambridge, I am constantly surprised by the news stories I manage to dig up!

Order members have a small advantage due to their printed journal Shabda and the online forum Sanghajala. Shabda, much more so than Sanghajala, does provide a sense of being in touch with order members around the world. My opinion is that online forums don't really provide a sense of connection, and tend to be very fractious. But what about mitras and friends? Where do they turn for a connection to the wider movement? This lack of a sense of connection with the wider order is palpable in some order members of many years standing. Newer order members may not notice it so much because they have never experienced the sense of connection that, I believe, prevailed in the order until perhaps a decade ago.

I remember sitting in the ground of Ely cathedral with Nagabodhi in May 2004, talking about my ordination request, and about communication in the movement. How could we as a movement feel united without a strong and broad network of communication channels? We concluded that what the movement needed was a newsletter. I had been creating websites for several years, and recently started "blogging" I thought I knew what I could do about it and fwbo.blogspot.com was the result.

I hope you enjoy this revised and expanded FWBO News website.

Windhorse:Evolution part IV: Dana in 2008 - and beyond...

2005-07-16T06:56:00.000-07:00

This is part four of a series of four articles on Windhorse:Evolution, the FWBO’s largest and most successful Right Livelihood business, based in Cambridge, UK. The articles will look at the ethos of the business, recent changes and challenges it has faced, the experiences of some individuals working in it, and some of the many projects funded by their current dana.

Most of the articles are taken from the W:E magazine, and are reprinted by permission.

One of Windhorse:Evolution’s primary aims is to make a profit. Unlike conventional businesses, this is not to make the Directors or shareholders wealthy; it is so that the people working in the business are able to give dana to projects around the world, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist.

Several years ago Windhorse established five principle funds through which it disbursed its available profits from the previous year. These are the Dana Fund, the Growth Fund, the Legacy Fund, and the Social Fund, each fund having a small committee charged with making the necessary decisions. In addition, shops run by Buddhist teams give a substantial proportion of their profits to their local centres; there is also the ‘Uddiyana Fund’ (Uddiyana being the name for the Windhorse warehouse in Cambridge) which funds many small projects according to votes cast by all those working for the business in Cambridge.

Last November FWBO News published a full description of the Social Fund, especially their two main projects ‘The Wheatfield Plan’ and the ‘Kupu-Kupu Foundation’, both of which you can read here. Since then they have also decided to support the Bridge Foundation, which provides education for underprivileged and gifted children in Kolkata (Calcutta), to improve their self esteem, help them have a better life and take their place in society. One of Windhorse’s bag suppliers helped set it up, and they are supporting them. You can find out more on the Bridge Foundation website: http://www.thebridgefoundation.org.

A full and comprehensive report on how all £265,229 of Windhorse’s dana in 2007-8 was distributed is available here: it makes inspiring reading.

Some examples are, from the Growth Fund -

Publicity and basic expenses for new group in Freiburg, Southern Germany, £500

Continuing the development of close-to-nature camping retreats in Holland and Belgium , £300

Publicity and basic expenses for new centre in Düsseldorf, Germany, £600

Cushions, mats, etc for the new Buddhist Centre in Krakow, Poland, £1,090

Publicity and equipment for new city centre premises in Bhusawal, Maharastra, £1,400

Major new Indian Buddhist Youth project building on previous two years of the ‘National Buddhist Youth’ gatherings. Funding for leadership training, regional gatherings, membership manuals, and annual conference , £4,412

Funding for second year to continue working with Tribal people in remote areas, £487

Funding gatherings of leaders from different caste communities in India, to strengthen fellowship and plan future strategy, £500

Major extension of activities in North India: leadership training at new centre/ community in Delhi; regional visits and retreats, £1950

Equipment and publicity for new FWBO centre in Leicester, UK, £1,000

Underwriting cost of visiting a woman mitra running FWBO-style activities near Ulan Bator, Mongolia, £500

From the Legacy Fund -

AOBO Paris, producing translations of Sangharakshita’s books into French £500

Clear Vision, Covering the costs of filming Sangharakshita on five occasions this year, making the archive of Sangharakshita photos available on the web, and preserving DVD footage of Sangharakshita and the FWBO on hard-drives., £2000

FreeBuddhistAudio, General running costs, putting some unreleased audio material on the web, and archiving of Bhante material., £3000

Translation and publication of three Sangharakshita books into Marathi: The Three Jewels, Religion of Art, and Selected Poetry., £1100

Windhorse Publications, Converting all Sangharakshita’s books into PDFs, also reprinting some titles that are not commercially viable., £5000

From the Uddiyana Fund – voted on by the Windhorse workers in Cambridge:

Manjunatha £850 to fund his trip to the UK which enables him to stay in touch with the Order. Manjunatha runs a Buddhist Centre in Venezuela and relies on donations for his support.

Danapriya £200 Danapriya has developed a thriving FWBO group in Deal in Kent and hires the local hotel to give talks. This money will help with his publicity and other expenses.

Rupas of the Five Female Buddhas £300 To go towards commissioning the production of these rupas in Nepal. The project is under the guidance of Vessantara– author of Meeting the Buddhas and the main conduit for their emergence and availability - and Maitrivajri.

Sri Lanka £400 Saddhavira built a Retreat Centre able to accommodate 20 people in the south of Sri Lanka. After damage by the 2005 tsunami, he has managed to get his Guest House (and vegetarian restaurant) up and running again, but needed money to complete the rebuilding and refurbishment of the Retreat Centre.
Pune Camp City £1350 To buy land for an established Sangha to build a Buddhist Centre

Guhyaloka Vihara £600 The Vihara Support Fund subsidizes men to stay at Guhyaloka Vihara for six months or longer.

Anjali's buggy £200 This goes a little way to helping Dharmacharini Anjali to replace her battery-powered buggy, which she relies on for her mobility.

Lightning conductors at Akashavana in Spain £1500 During a retreat in October 2007 lightning struck a cable and destroyed electrical circuits and the power supply to the whole retreat centre. This will help pay for one of the three lightning conductors they need.

Lights in the Sky £200 Suryaprabha makes videos of the history of the FWBO. This one is looking for a spiritually meaningful way of life in seven states in India.

Manjupriya £600 to help him run activities at the Buddhist Centre in Sorocaba and classes in Sao Paulo continue activities (weekly Dharma classes, meditation courses, retreats etc.)

Urthona £300 to help expand the base of readers into new areas, and get more advertising revenue.

Shrine gear for Buddhafield £1100: soft cushions, fleece blankets, meditation mats; rugs/carpets, boxes with proper lids to protect shrine gear and bags for mats and cushions, a Tara Thanka

Modinagar Buddhist Centre £250 To pay for painting doors and windows at the T.B.M.S.G Buddhist Centre, Modinagar, near Delhi.

Painting for Cambridge Buddhist Centre £50 To help bring into the Cambridge Mandala a further Buddhist painting, a large-scale depiction of Manjusri

Green Elephant, Australia £350 To set up an environmentally focused charity shop run by two mitras from the Sydney Buddhist Centre, which will raise funds for teaching the Dharma in Asia Pacific and supporting their Dharma sisters in India.

UK Tour for ‘Broken Voices’ £500 To support the promotion of a book, written by Vimalasara, about Indian women’s experience from the so-called ‘ex-untouchable’ community.

Aryamati support for India £150 To buy Clear Vision DVDs and Skype equipment to help teach English and Dharma at the College of Nagpur, and to Hungarian Gypsy Buddhists.

Adityabodhi £650 To help support the men’s ordination team in India and the Indian movement.

All these, plus others, total a remarkable £265,229 which Windhorse has committed itself to giving away in 2007-8. Sadhu Windhorse!

At the end, however, Windhorse’s dana report carries a “Donations Warning!”. They say “Because the business may need to retain all its profits this year, to fund the shop expansion programme and to accumulate some cash for the computer system replacement which will have to happen in about 3 years, all recipients of donations are being given notice that much less will be available to give away next year”.

Windhorse:Evolution - the people...

2005-07-14T06:52:00.000-07:00

This is part three of a series of four articles on Windhorse:Evolution, the FWBO’s largest and most successful Right Livelihood business, based in Cambridge, UK. The articles will look at the ethos of the business, recent changes and challenges it has faced, the experiences of some individuals working in it, and some of the many projects funded by their current dana or generosity.

Most of the articles are taken from the W:E magazine, and are reprinted by permission.

1.Gaining Confidence

Santosh Kamble works in the warehouse. He spoke to Tejasvini about his life.

I came into contact with the Western Buddhist Order ( in India TBMSG) in my childhood through the Asvaghosa project. They go from village to village, teaching drama, singing songs and telling stories to the most underprivileged children, to build their confidence. I went to those classes in my village when I was a child, and I loved the singing, drama and playing games, and I was inspired by their activities. They pick up some incidents from the Buddha’s life and tell a story or do a performance. Most of the songs are about the spiritual life. I made a connection with the teachers and Asvaghosa leaders, who are practising Buddhists involved in TBMSG. In the classes I started to explore things myself, which is sometimes difficult to do in your family in India, and by expressing myself through activities and drama, I built up my confidence. It was a turning point for me.

Asvaghosa then asked me to join their community, and work with them in Pune city, 275 miles away from my village. It was very difficult for me when I arrived in Pune, as it was a big city, and I was young and didn’t have a lot of confidence. It was difficult to speak sometimes – even though it’s the same language there is a different accent in the city. I had a village accent. I struggled for a year until I got used to it. At first I was a student with them, but later I became an instructor and taught drama and songs to children.

Living in communities has had a big effect on my life. Living in a community with people who value the spiritual life and who have experience of practice helps you learn many things, and also to be independent and make your own decisions. In India, if you are at home, most of the time you are dependent on your parents. Whenever you have to make a decision, you ask your parents. You are not independent in the home. Also, there are many limitations and things you can’t express to your parents. In the community I could express my thoughts and feelings very easily. You can speak your mind. Home and our parents are important too, but in the community you meet people who are committed in the same way as you are. Most people live in communities because they want to practise: they want to meditate together, they want to maintain a spiritual life, to discuss and to make friends. The friends I met in communities are very deep, very close friends. Even now I feel close to them.

I met a number of people in India who had worked with Windhorse. They had had a good experience. Also there was some attraction about coming to the West. I was looking for adventure and to experience new things. I was interested in a right livelihood business where Buddhist people create conditions to live, work and practise together. When I came here, I struggled my first year because I couldn’t speak much English. I could do the physical work and I had it in mind that I would be able to learn everything in two or three years, but it wasn’t like that! It’s not easy to learn about right livelihood, or the ordination process; or to fully understand other people because of different cultures, language problems and sometimes confidence. I was a bit disappointed at first, but now I know I have to be patient, and also my English is better now which makes things easier. It’s very easy to make connections with people at Windhorse because of working together, and living in a community together, and so you get to know people well and you form a close connection with them.

In one way it’s very good working in windhorse and doing spiritual practice, but if you come from another country there can be other problems as well. When I’m at work I get a lot of energy from people, but when I am on my own I feel the tendency to droop a bit. Sometimes I get worried thinking about what I will do when I go back to India. I don’t feel that much confidence in my ability to work there at the moment. If you are in the UK, people in India sometimes think you are getting lots of money and are rich. They have high expectations of people who go to England.

Since I’ve been in England my spiritual life is more solid. Windhorse is a great place to get inspiration for our spiritual life and I can see that very clearly. Right livelihood meetings and the friendly atmosphere really help. I’m glad I will get ordained at Guhyaloka, where we have a four month ordination retreat. It’s a great opportunity that we don’t have in India.

I’m used to working in the FWBO/TBMSG now and would find it difficult to work elsewhere. Recently I was interested in Karuna Trust and did a Karuna appeal. I’d like to stay working in Windhorse for a few more years after ordination. When I go back to India, which I definitely want to do, I’d like to work perhaps with social projects, or with Dharma activities. If we could start a right livelihood business in India, that would be great. We could share our experience of being here. It’s not one person’s work; people would have to come together to make it happen. I’d like to see that.

Note: since this article was publshed, Santosh has been ordained into the Western Buddhist Order. He is now known as Sanghanatha, 'Protector of the Sangha'.

2. Who knows what my future holds...?

Evolution area manager, Andrew Turner talks about his job

I joined windhorse:evolution in April 2004 and I have loved every minute of it. Previously I had worked for a few big name retailers, the likes of TK Maxx, Internacionale and The Outdoor Group to name but a few, but Evolution is by far the best and it’s been wonderful meeting so many interesting people along the way.

I started as manager at the Birmingham shop and progressed to my current position of Area Manager of the seven "A" type shops. It’s a job I really enjoy as it can be so variable: supporting the shops in different ways, helping them to grow, seeing people develop – it can all be very satisfying.

On a personal level, I have recently taken the big step on the property ladder and bought my first house, which is quite scary but it’s a really satisfying thing to do.

I must admit I can be quite a workaholic at times but that’s only because I love my job so much, thanks to Evolution. I have to discipline myself and, when I do, I relax by spending time on my dad’s boat. Messing about on the river on a summer Sunday afternoon is really enjoyable. I also love visiting the Lake District to relax and unwind.

I’m looking forward to the Evolution expansion and being part of its exciting future, but who knows what my future holds? You never know - if they let me, I may even decide to become a Buddhist, god help them - can I say that ?

Windhorse:Evolution as a Buddhist Business

2005-07-11T07:56:00.000-07:00

This is part two of a series of four articles on Windhorse:Evolution, the FWBO’s largest and most successful Right Livelihood business, based in Cambridge, UK. The articles look at the ethos of the business, recent changes and challenges it has faced, the experiences of some individuals working in it, and some of the many projects funded by their current dana.

Most of the articles are taken from the W:E magazine, and are reprinted by permission.

Keturaja, Windhorse:Evolution's HR Director, talks to Tejasvini about some of the Buddhist flavours to be found at windhorse:evolution.

Buddhist Presence
Many of us have come to work at windhorse: evolution because we value working with other people who are inspired to practise the Buddhist path. Our ethos, and the five principles of the business are inspired by Buddhist practice. We very much welcome those who are not Buddhists, we value their contribution and would like to support their continuance in the business and we would also like to maintain a strong Buddhist presence in the company.

Renaissance in Community Living
Over the last few years a wide range of lifestyles of people working here has evolved. In the 80s and early 90s a very large percentage of people who worked in the business, especially those in Cambridge, lived in residential Buddhist communities. Now some live alone, or live together in couples and there are people who live with friends or with their families. I think the business benefits from that breadth of lifestyles. Having said that, over the last couple of years the communities seem to be very vibrant here in Cambridge. There seems to be a renaissance of keen interest in them. At the moment most of our communities (3 women’s and over 10 men’s) are nearly full and we haven’t many spare places.

Autonomy and Variety
Each of the communities is quite different. Although the community dwellings are nearly all owned by the Windhorse Trust, they’re largely autonomous in the sense that the people who live in them decide the details of how they want to live together. For example, some communities are very keen on meditating together in the morning; some are vegan; others are vegetarian but they’ve decided not to be vegan; some like to eat together, some don’t; some like to meet together in the evening maybe once a week for a community night and others don’t. Some are either men’s or women’s communities and they like to maintain just a single sex environment, whereas others are open in the sense that partners are allowed to stay and are happy to stay. This means there’s quite a varied richness of community life.

Smaller Living Situations
Unfortunately living on one’s own is quite expensive in Cambridge, so we do have some limits for those on the ‘support package’. However it’s certainly possible for people to live together either in twos, in a partnership or just with a friend. There is a range of living situations from living in twos right up to living in larger communities.

One thing I’m very keen to do is to expand the opportunities within the properties owned or rented by the Trust. At the moment our communities range in size from the largest, which houses up to 9 people, down to the smallest, with about 5 people. Some people are already living in communities of three or four, but I’d like to expand that opportunity within the properties that the Trust owns.

Remuneration Choice
We have developed a choice of remuneration for people within the business – either the ‘support package’, which has evolved over the years, or a wage, or a salary in some positions. Being on support involves a collective arrangement and being happy to live a simple lifestyle, but the wages and salaried positions also involve something in the way of a salary sacrifice in relation to similar positions in other businesses.

Benefits of Support Package
You could look at the benefits of the support package in a number of ways. Certainly being on support allows the business to maximise the amount of money that it can give away. The company is able to make more profits and give more money away when people choose to be on support, specially if they live in a community, which is relatively inexpensive. Being on support is a way of giving very generously.

I think there are other benefits of support as well. It involves agreeing to live a simple lifestyle, even though the support package that we have meets more than just basic needs. A simple way of living also minimises the use of natural resources from an ecological point of view.

In addition there’s a collective element in the practice of being on support. Most of support consists of allowances, which are just taken, but there are some elements that involve discussing one’s own needs, and I think that’s a useful reflection and clarification on needs and wants. We all have a relationship with money and how we use it, and quite a lot of our conditioning is tied up with our feelings about money. Somehow the support system draws out and reflects back one’s own conditioning in regard to it. Sometimes that can be quite challenging, but personally I have found that it helps make me aware of my own conditioning and deciding whether I’m happy with that conditioning or want to change it. For example some people find it difficult to ask about their own needs, and so the people involved in administering the support system practise being open and encouraging, helping people clarify what their needs really are.

Ethos - and conclusion
We would like to maintain and strengthen the ethos of the business and promote the values of generosity, simplicity of lifestyle, personal growth, honesty and mutual helpfulness.

To this end we will continue to recruit those who share those values and are in sympathy with the Buddhist ideals that underpin them.

2008: Windhorse:Evolutions' 'Year of the Rat'

2005-07-09T07:10:00.000-07:00

This is part of a series of four articles on Windhorse:Evolution, the FWBO’s largest and most successful Right Livelihood business, based in Cambridge, UK. The articles will look at the ethos of the business, recent changes and challenges it has faced, the experiences of some individuals working in it, and some of the many projects funded by their current dana.

Most of the articles are taken from the W:E magazine, and are reprinted by permission.

Vajraketu, Windhorse:Evolution's Managing Director and Chief Buyer gives his reflections on the state of the business.

“A rat year is a time of hard work, activity and renewal. This is a good year to begin a new job, launch a new product or make a fresh start. Ventures begun now may not yield fast returns, but opportunities will come for people who are well prepared and resourceful. The best way for you to succeed is to be patient, let things develop slowly and make the most of every opening you can find.”

This is the Year of the Rat in the Chinese system, the first in the twelve-year cycle. It happens to be an appropriate image for us, because we are entering a new phase. The characteristic of this new phase, I hope, is that we’re going to grow again. After growing between 1986 and 2002, we’ve had five or six years of plateau or consolidation.

During that period of consolidation we made a lot of very necessary changes, particularly during the last couple of years. Firstly in 2002 we had to move into these new premises, which was an enormous undertaking. Then within a period of about twelve months three of the six people who comprised the previous management team moved on and we had to get used to running the business without them. Ratnaghosha devised a new management structure, and Keturaja systematized things and helped bring us to the position we’re in now, with every department in the business in good shape and as well or better managed than it’s ever been.

There is a certain irony here. We’re probably in the best shape ever and yet last year was our least profitable year for at least a decade. Our current estimate is that we’re going to have made about £200-250,000, compared to the previous year, which was something, over £400,000. The reason for that is that sales have plateaued, but our costs have gone up inexorably. Our personnel bill has more than doubled over the last five or six years. That’s the only cloud in the blue sky of the Year of the Rat.

A Platform to Grow

We have a good platform from which we can grow again. The vans, which represent over 50% of our wholesale sales, are in the best shape they’ve been in for years. We’ve got them dynamically managed by Sundara, and we’ve got a keen and strong van team, so if more sales can be got out of the vans, then I’m sure we’ve got the team to do it.

Similarly we’ve got a sales team that’s very motivated, competent and keen. Competition is very stiff and the environment we operate in is quite challenging. Our biggest customer, Internacionale, has started buying direct instead of buying from importers like us, so our business with them is going down and there’s nothing we can do about that except try to replace the lost turnover. In fact we’ve done quite well in that our wholesale sales overall have gone down a little bit, about 4 or 5%, but they’ve gone down less than the amount that Internacionale went down. So if you take Internacionale out of it, despite the economic climate our wholesale sales have gone up. [Since Vajraketu gave this talk Internacionale have gone into administration.]

Our shops are doing quite well in a difficult climate and we’ve got a retail team that feels confident enough to go out and open some more shops. We’ve opened three in the last nine months and we’re planning to open another three or four this year, and probably another four or five next year. We believe we have the infrastructure to support that growth. The warehouse, IT, Personnel and other teams have the capacity to cope with business expansion.

How to Double our Profits
To get our profits up quite considerably, we don’t have to grow that much. Roughly speaking, if we were able to control our costs, sales 10% higher than they are at the moment would double our profits. However, we can’t all simply sit back and let Dougie go out and find £½m worth of orders, and let Abhayakirti go and open 10 shops and the rest of us just reap the rewards. We all need to contribute to this by doing our jobs well or better than we do at present. There’s no one miraculous thing that will double our profits: it’s going to be a lot of small things and a lot of effort, which we can all contribute to.

£1m Target?
On a recent Management Forum two-day meeting somebody proposed the idea that perhaps we should set ourselves a target to make £1m to give away in 3 years’ time. We haven’t really done this in the past. The Management Forum is now going to work out whether that is feasible, and work out a plan.

Doing good things with money

The reason we want to make £1m is because if we made more money we could do more good things. Those of us involved in the FWBO know that there are many projects that would benefit from having more finance.

There is also lot more we can do to support small-scale social projects in the areas where we do business. All of the people who make the goods that we sell are reasonably well paid, but the wider community where they live is often quite poor, and often there’s no real social infrastructure. For example, we support a project in Bali helping disabled people. There are simply no facilities in Bali for disabled people. There is no local authority that organises schools for them or activities for them. They just sit at home.

I am acutely aware that there are many small-scale social projects that we could contribute to. There is a significant number of people in the places where we work who are trying to do good things on a very small budget. We’ve just started doing business with a bag manufacturer in Kolkata (previously Calcutta) who support a small project (http://www.thebridge foundation. org/) that supports educationally bright children from very poor families. It helps them with school fees, books and pencils and it even helps them with food and clothes. They have an annual budget of about £10,000, and we’re about to donate them £1,000 to help them pursue that work. As always this is linked through our suppliers. There are lots of projects like this that we could back if we had more profits.

Working Ethically
Although we will be setting ourselves a target of increasing our profits, just making money isn’t enough for us. We also want to make that money ethically, meaningfully and we want to enjoy making it. These elements should be central to our vision of how we work together.

In terms of ethics, as a company we’re quite good I think but there is always room for improvement. There is one area that we want to develop more, which is of particular interest to me, and that is ethical trading. I’m very proud of what we’ve done to improve the working conditions in some of the companies that we do business with. We have directly improved the living and working conditions of several hundreds of people. We mainly do that by employing an independent auditor, who goes into the factory and produces a report, which our supplier then implements. This all takes up time and money. Sometimes we have to encourage the factory to make the necessary changes, which may involve a stick or a carrot. In addition, if the factory requests it, we employ a consultant to help them take the necessary steps to bring their affairs up to standard. Virtually every case we’re dealing with is quite a small business. They started small, they’ve grown a little bit, but they’re not very sophisticated, so quite often even just getting them to have a payroll system that anyone can understand is a little baffling to them.

For some of our suppliers it’s enough to make the improvements that we want them to make, and that’s it, but a number of our suppliers do more than the minimum necessary to be a good employer: they support social work in their local communities. I’m thinking in particular of Sumiati in Bali, De la Selva in Guatemala, Fok Kwong in China, and Salom in Kenya.

Fok Kwong and Salom were already doing social work before they met us or got any encouragement from us, but both Sumiati and de la Selva were initially inspired to do it by promptings from us. They both now do quite a lot in their local communities. Most of the credit of course goes to them, but we were definitely the catalyst, and I hope we can do more of that as we start to make more money.

Our efforts to be more ethical have led to other people doing the same, and we can be proud of that. We definitely bias our buying as much as we feel we can in the direction of those companies whose ethics chime most closely with ours – about 40-50% of our goods come from companies in that category, and that’s a percentage we would like to increase.

Personal Development
Personal development is not the exclusive preserve of Buddhists, and I hope that everyone will feel that the work environment supports them to gain something in terms of their personal development, perhaps through gaining skills or through work satisfaction.

Finally we want our work to be enjoyable. No one is going to get rich working at windhorse: evolution – I think you’ve probably already worked that out! I would like us all to enjoy it. We at Uddiyana are very, very fortunate. I think it’s worth us counting our blessings. We work in an environment that is physically very pleasant. We are surrounded by nice people, who are all trying to be ethical and positive and kind. There’s no backbiting here – or if there is, it happens behind my back! You almost never hear any bad language. We’re fantastically well fed. If we have any unsung heroes here, it’s our cooks. There are plenty of blessings wherever we look.

That is what I see when I contemplate the Year of the Rat. The business environment in which we are working is not great. The British economy is not in great shape. At the same time the competition we have to face, both in retail and wholesale, is fiercer than it’s ever been in the 20 years I’ve worked here. We’re in good shape to have a go at taking this on, and we can do good things while we’re at it.