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