Dharmapala College Update

Term three of the Dharmaduta Course has seen most of my fellow students away again for a week in Hungary, for a second retreat with the gypsies. Some of us remained in Birmingham - to stay still, practice, catch up with study, and in my case, to prepare for the arrival of family from Australia. In addition to the Dharmaduta course, so far this term Dharmapala College has organised two extra seminars - one on Asanga's ethics and one on 'Pratitya Samutpada, Tathagatagarbha, And All That'. Fees for these extras help fund the College, and we Dharmaduta students sometimes participate in those seminars that include new material for us. In this case, we attended the Tathagatagarbha sessions. Between Saramati, Sagaramati and Subhuti, we were presented with an analysis of Tathagatagarbha in its figurative aspects, its misappropriation, and its positive application. In addition we enjoyed studying with the ten or so Order Members that had come to study at Dharmapala College for the week.We are also studying The Enquiry of Ugra, a sutra we've been looking at with Sagaramati, who says that it gives us the earliest glimpses we're likely to get of the origins of the Mahayana. And we have just seen Dhammaloka again, for the next stage in deepening our understanding of our 'type' - according to the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI to the initiated!). In the final two weeks of term Locana will be here for a 'Non-Violent Communication' (NVC) retreat.Subhuti was the main voice behind introducing these last two modules to our course of study, because of his concern about the amount of conflict in the sangha, which he felt 'could undermine the whole notion of the Order'. He feels that MBTI and NVC could blend with spiritual practice to some purpose, in that MBTI helps us understand our own 'type' and acknowledge the differences between ourselves and other 'types', while with NVC we learn to communicate those differences skilfully.
Inevitably, responses to the study modules on offer - both academic and 'consciousness-raising' - vary. Some students prefer the one to the other, others like both. Although most of us are still doing everything that's offered, a new element has come to the fore this term in that some students are choosing not to 'do' certain modules or projects. In our feedback at the end of term two, some of us requested less classroom-lecture time and more free time to pursue our own individual research projects, for the purposes of later presenting our results to the group as a whole. The discussion continues, as Dharmapala College continues to grow in diversity and breadth.

Catherine Baker