Dharmaduta Outreach

In March I started, together with others, a weekly Dhamma class on Monday evenings at Vaishali Centre in Hockley, Birmingham. Vaishali Buddhist Centre is part of Dr Ambedkar Buddhist Organisation in the UK. They are converting a large derelict chemical factory into a Buddhist Community Centre. I have been teaching meditation and leading study on Tiratana Vandana in so-called in Hinglish, which is a blend of Hindi and English. The highlight so far was a day retreat I led on 13 May, to mark the Buddha day and Vesakh Celebrations.


In June I visited Hungary to spend some time with our Gypsy friends there. Hungarian Gypsies (or Roma, as they call themselves) are inspired by their connections with followers of Dr Ambedkar. I led a retreat in Uszo which was attended by 30 young women and men from various parts of Hungary. Uszo is the centre in northern Hungary where we did our first retreat with the Roma last year. Indian vegetarian food, chanting of refuges and precepts, and discussions about precepts were very much enjoyed by participants. I visited The Little Tiger Grammar School in South Hungary and gave a talk on Dr Ambedkar’s message of self help, and his threefold injunction to his followers to Educate, Agitate and Organise. I also travelled around visiting friends in Budapest and other Hungarian towns. During my visits I distributed gifts, such as Dr Ambedkar’s photos, books, CDs, Indian cloths, Buddhist images, head-bands, necklaces, lockets, rosaries, spices and sweets. The response was very warm. An important occasion during my visit was the formation of The Jaibhim Community. The Jaibhim Community is an initiative of Tibor and Janos, our main contacts among the Hungarian Roma, and is linked with TBMSG/FWBO. It will provide an organisational framework for our Buddhist activities.

I participated in a postgraduate research workshop of Manchester University in the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures on 27 June. There I gave a talk on Conversion and Liberation: A Dalit Buddhist Perspective.

Will, Matt, Jnanaketu, and I were at the Buddhafield festival from 11-15 July, where we helped to host the Dharma Parlour. Jnanaketu was there as much to witness the progress we have made in giving talks thanks to the input of his Clear Thinking class as getting familiar with Bangra dancing! We gave three introductory talks on Buddhism and a presentation on the significance of Dr Ambedkar to India and the world. All the talks were very interesting and eventually will be available on internet for wider audience. As other Buddhafield visitors, we benefited from various workshops, seminars and small discussion groups at the festival, and had to put up with the mud which was around everywhere. On the whole we had a very good time.

I hope that I will meet some of you readers of this newsletter in the Dharmaduta activities to come in the next half of 2007.

Manidhamma

Dharmaduta Team on Karuna Appeal

The Karuna Trust is a Buddhist charity which finances a variety of projects, mainly in India. Inspired by the legacy of Dr Ambedkar, it focuses on helping the oppressed classes, largely ex-untouchables, regain their dignity, and lead sustainable lives. They run fundraising appeals in which volunteers go alone from door to door asking people for regular financial support. Many fundraisers become aware that, apart from the altruistic dimension, the door-knocking appeals also have a strong impact on them personally, and can be an intense and valuable spiritual experience. In this article I want to tell you about the six weeks of fundraising we Dharmaduta students did in London in May/June this year. I also want to share some of my personal experiences and reflections as a Buddhist fundraiser during this time.

For the duration of the appeal, Manidhamma, Matt, Thea, Will, and I stayed in a rented house close to Seven Sisters underground and train station in north-east London. We soon settled in and during the first week we were given an introduction to door knocking. We each made ourselves familiar with our assigned patch - the area where we would each fundraise during the weeks ahead.

The training by the experienced Karuna team took place most mornings and continued throughout the appeal. It consisted of a colourful mix of reportings-in, reflections and exercises, including role play, to support us in becoming more effective fundraisers. We had lots of fun, although for most of us the process was sometimes quite challenging and difficult. It was very fruitful for my personal growth. I had to work through a series of attitudes and habits that have not only been obstacles to effective door-knocking, but also seem to have hindered me in living my life more fully. For example, I had to deal with my tendency to see suffering in the world abstractly, anonymously, and distantly. I discovered how little I was prepared to take the suffering of others (e.g. people in India) on board, let alone being emotionally engaged with it. But being on the appeal, how could I possibly convince people to give generously while I harboured this attitude? I had to face up to my lack of compassion, and a process of engaging more deeply with the suffering of others began. At the same time I became more aware of my own inner pain and sadness.

Fundraising is about connecting with human beings. Only when a positive and open connection is established does the fundraiser have the chance to address the householder's caring and generous sides. It is about being really open to the person in front of you. But I found myself being anxious, and consequently closed, rather than open and able to engage fully. Again, I could see that this has been a recurring pattern in my life. Very often my shyness and anxiety has made me close the doors of opportunity. How sad I felt in those moments! Going from door to door I became more aware how superficially I live many moments of my life.

I started reflecting on conditioned arising and imagined the flow of conditioned phenomena. I thought, when there is no past or future, and life happens only in the present moment, I can - no, I have to - use the moments at the door, standing in front of an unknown human being, to train myself in remaining aware of my tension and anxiety, while still being open to the situation. In that way, I discovered door-knocking to be a tremendously powerful practise. In short conversations with householders I got immediate feedback on whether I was able to establish good contact. In addition, I could start the being-open exercise again and again afresh – at each new door.

Being on the appeal with the support of the Karuna team, we did not have to deal with our personal stuff on our own; we could share and work with our feelings and reflections in a sensitive and helpful atmosphere. Manjudeva led a workshop on focusing, and Jayachitta did a weekend on clowning with us. We had lots of fun! Many thanks to all of you for the opportunity to be on the Karuna Appeal!

In particular I feel grateful to the many people who opened their doors and hearts to us. In the evening, after coming home from our patch, we reported back to each other some of the interesting people we had encountered, and where we had been invited to share a bit of life with them. I have been left greatly inspired, thoughtful and overwhelmed by so much spontaneous generosity and wonderful good-will in the streets of London.

Sunayaka

Hammering My Thoughts Into A Unity

It seems that the tendency to hold views (drstis) is deeply embedded in the human mind; indeed, attachment to views is a defining characteristic of the unawakened state. Drstis are more than merely theories; they are emotional attachments to distorted interpretations of the world. Out of these our articulated views arise. Once formulated into concepts and arguments, they are subject to critique from reason in accordance with the laws of logic. It is the tools whereby this is done that we have been studying with Jnanaketu on his 'Critical Thinking' course. By examining the laws, and art, of argument, and common tricks whereby fallacious arguments are passed off as genuine, we are arming ourselves against the plethora of views, many of them deluded and harmful, which fill the world.

Buddhism contains its fair share of argument. I have undertaken a study of Nargarjuna, under the direction of Subhuti and Saramati. Nagarjuna, the founder of the Madhyamaka school of Mahayana Buddhism, uses reasoning to show that any positive assertion leads to absurdity and contradiction. For instance: there cannot be any existing things which undergo movement, since one would either have to say that the thing that moves has the property of movement, in which case, if the movement were to cease, it would be a non-moving mover; or it would have to have the property of non-movement, in which case one is left with a moving non-mover. Both of these options are clearly ridiculous.

So once all reifications have been cleared away, what are we left with? Is it nothing? Not exactly. We must be careful of missing the middle way by falling into annihilationism. Once all mental constructs have been exposed, there remains the spiritually positive residue of a direct, non-conceptual experience of reality. The problem Buddhism has had through the ages is how to express that which is beyond concepts by means of concepts. Some formulations, like arguably Nargarjuna’s, have erred on the side of negation; others, like the doctrine of Tathagatagarbha (about which Sagaramati is notoriously suspicious!), may have erred on the essentialist side. But could it be possible to find the conceptual formulation which avoids these two extremes?

It seems not. Insights from Western philosophy can help to illuminate this. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant has given us new insights into the nature of the apparatus which a percipient being must necessarily have in order to have intelligible experience. This apparatus includes the percept conditions of time and space, out of which arises the differentiation necessary for concepts to be created. But time and space, and therefore differentiation, obtain only in our mental interpretation of the world, and thus the limit of what may be asserted about how things actually are is circumscribed. What this means for us is that reality is ineffable. Concepts may assert, or they may deny, but reality, being infinitely subtle, remains aloofly beyond their reach.

Saramati teaches that Sangharakshita has given us a perspective on this which is unique to the history of Buddhism. Through understanding that language inevitably lays itself open to misinterpretation, by falling one side or other of the middle way, we can take an appreciative attitude to the whole Buddhist tradition, recognising that all authentic conceptualizations of the Dharma are attempts to express that which is beyond expression. They may contradict one another on the level of logic, but that only matters to the extent that we are attached to an interpretation of reality in which logic obtains.

Back to drstis. 'God is dead', Nietzsche declared, and thereby laid down a challenge to man, to look no more beyond the world for his spiritual values. Perhaps the Indian politician and social reformer Dr Ambedkar meant something similar by his assertion that 'sila is Dhamma and Dhamma is sila '. Subhuti, developing the thought of Dr Ambedkar, teaches that sila (ethics) cannot be based on drstis but must rather come from the reality of the interconnectedness of beings. The dangers of basing values on drstis are plainly seen in the terrifying ideological conflicts threatening our world. Buddhism is perhaps unique as a spiritual tradition in its refusal to assert that contact with a higher being, or entrance into a higher realm, is the goal of spiritual practice. Awakening consists in understanding this world fully, understanding it free from all tendencies to cling to the belief that anything at all is ultimately real.

Though many years, perhaps lifetimes, of dedicated practice still lie between me and this lofty experience, I hope, and believe, that my studies at Dharmapala College have pointed me more clearly in the right direction.

Matt Burgess

An Encounter with Tibetan Buddhism

In March Dharmapala College had a visit from two Western Lamas, Lhundrup and Djangchub from the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. They are from a centre in France, called the Dagpo Kagyu Mandala, where they have a monastery, and also conduct three year intensive retreats. Their visit followed on from contact with Dhammarati at a meeting of the European Buddhist Union. A seminar was held studying Gampopa’s Jewel Ornament of Liberation, a key text for all Tibetan traditions. This was a particularly exciting event because as well as formal teaching sessions the Lamas also met with some senior Order Members to look at what can be shared and exchanged between our two traditions. Promoting cross-tradition dialogue is an aspect of Dharmapala College’s vision; to experience it actually happening was invigorating and inspiring.

The study itself was interesting, but the most powerful aspect of the seminar was coming into contact with open and progressive members of a very traditional form of Buddhism and the interface with the FWBO, which is an ecumenical tradition. For me it revealed the benefits of a traditional Tibetan approach, but also the elements which I find less appealing. A long established tradition brings clarity and confidence, which is very attractive. Yet at the end of their visit I find myself more confident in my commitment to the FWBO. Our tradition also has form and structure, but what I value most is our sense of autonomy and collective exploration. The most inspiring aspect of Djangchub and Lhundrup’s visit was the injunction to meditate more deeply and really engage with one's ideals. That is a message worth hearing whatever tradition one practices in.

Will Sullivan