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The Beginning...

14/4/2017

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I’ve been thinking I needed to somehow bring closure, to at least this phase of the Maggamouse Blog for a few weeks now, certainly since I returned to the UK from India, probably a week or two before that even. After all, the dates would have lined up quite nicely if I could have published some kind of departing summary on the day I left. Job done. Case closed. Box ticked. Moving on. Next, please! I decided not to write about my last couple of weeks in Nagpur while still there though. In the few remaining days I had left, it seemed rather wasteful not to spend as many of those hours as possible actually being with eople, rather than in front of a laptop writing about being with them.
In theory, there’d have been nothing stopping me from writing this in the days immediately after my arrival in England of course. I could have done it a lot sooner than nearly 5 weeks later. The henna stains on my nails have grown a good half centimetre closer to the clippers since then and the tan line between my toes from my recently spurned flip-flops is barely visible anymore. I’ve distributed all the homecoming presents, I’ve served all the Indian meals I’ve learned to prepare. More than once. I’ve shared the biggest, most obvious titbits of ‘and then this happened!’ or ‘but of course it’s different in India!’, and I’ve almost stopped saying ‘ha’ instead of ‘yes’. The affirmative sideways head wiggle I realised I’d begun to subconsciously mimic, appears to have faded and yesterday, I took the plug socket adaptor out of the bottom of my bag. Later, I might even fish the old Indora to Bhilgaon bus tickets out of my wallet, though if I’m honest, it’s not due to a reluctance to litter that I keep stuffing the Nagpur INOX cinema ticket back in my coat pocket when if falls out with my hanky. An older version of normality is slowly reasserting itself, as if I was uninstalling updates to my operating system, one at a time. Writing about an increasingly distant experience was indeed becoming ever harder to find the motivation for, like a shore line becomes less photogenic as the boat sails on.
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A final mehndi design with Sheetal...
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A Maharashtrian Mother's Day (with drying mehndi!)
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A spring homecoming...
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...from a distant shore.
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I have a habit, though, of not just noticing significant dates, but in being spurred to some action by them. I think it’s an extension of my poetic streak. As such, I am finally sitting down to write this on a date which will have a very different significance for my Buddhist friends in Nagpur, to my British (and more widely Western) friends, regardless of their religious persuasion. I am sitting down to write this on a date that perfectly illustrates my current phase of cultural transition. Today is April the 14th 2017. Today is Good Friday, the beginning of the Easter Weekend. That, in all honesty, doesn’t mean a lot to me because I am not currently in work, so I don’t need a holiday from it and I am not a Christian. I have; however, begun things in a traditional, English way by breakfasting on hot cross buns and choosing to dry up afterwards on a tea towel with a pattern of brightly coloured eggs printed on it. It’s not because I’m being pseudo christian (with a little c), or celebrating the death and reported resurrection of an historical figure. It’s not because I’m half-pretending to be in touch with my more pagan ancestry and tipping my hat to Eostre or the ancient fertility rights that come with the burgeoning spring. It’s not even, particularly, because I’m seeing it as an opportunity to celebrate new beginnings, the coming summer or the analogy of life, triumphant over the winter of death. I didn’t exactly experience what I’d call a winter last year anyway. No. I’m doing it because this year, more than any other, I am really, really aware of my roots. Not the dull kind, in the cruellest month of April, that Eliot stirred with spring rain in the Wasteland, but the ‘Oh wow, I never knew how bloody English I am!’ kind. I’m marking the Easter Weekend for no other reason than it’s what my family have always done, because that’s what English families do and because this year, I am really very glad to say I am a part of that. That’s certainly not due to any misapprehension that it’s better than any other way of doing things anywhere else but because it’s ‘me’ and ‘mine’ and pleasantly familiar and grounding and reassuring. This isn’t a tea towel with a gaudy design of cheery chickens and exciting Easter eggs. This is a cultural comfort blanket. However, while I am drying up with it after my very English breakfast, I am thinking a lot about Nagpur. I’m thinking about conditions, I’m thinking about the events and people that have brought me to this point. Last weekend I helped celebrate the 50th anniversary of the entire Triratna movement and so we talked a great deal about gratitude for Bhante Sangharakshita and all the things that have happened up until now for so many people to be benefitting from his teachings of the Dharma as he brought it to the West and started to share his knowledge of Buddhism in England. So today, on April the 14th 2017, it feels rather wonderfully synchronistic for me to be also quietly celebrating the birthday of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, the social pioneer, political activist and indefatigable philanthropist who led hundreds and thousands of his fellows from the oppression of the Hindu caste system into the liberty, equality and fraternity of the Buddhism. This he did finally, after a lifetime of selflessly struggling for emancipation, and sadly, just weeks before his death. Just as Bhante was in India, just when people suddenly needed someone to look to and to help them find the strength to continue Babasaheb’s work. Just as the conditions for this new movement were forming themselves and the Bodhicitta was stirring and swelling and moving. So that’s two reasons why the 14th of April 2017 is significant and that’s why, in between fleeting thoughts about how much I’m going to enjoy making shredded wheat Easter egg nest cakes this weekend, I am also thinking about my adopted culture and my Indian family and that’s why when I finished drying up my very English breakfast, I sat down, finally to write about how I came to know just how very English I am. Eliot didn’t just write about ‘mixing memory and desire’ after all, he also wrote about travel and how, at the end of it, we shall return to where we started and ‘know it for the first time’.
I was the ‘last one standing’ on our teaching team, after Shakyajata and Mark both headed back about 6 and then 2 weeks ahead of me, respectively. I knew, having spent the last five months trying to get my head around Indian planning, that no matter how carefully or meticulously I planned that remaining time, it was not going to end up playing out quite as I hoped in reality. Shakyajata had made it clear that what the students still really needed was help writing CVs, looking for jobs, preparing for interviews and maybe a bit of handwriting practice. In theory, that was all totally fine. Nothing I hadn’t done before, year after year in tutorial groups. In England. Where I knew a bit more about the job market and the application ‘norms’. In India? Goodness knows. I’d discussed some of my concerns in this area with the ever supportive Mark just before he left though, and he’d very wisely counselled me that perhaps the most important thing to consider, the best ‘parting gift’ I could give to the students was not necessarily academic but social. Human. ‘Just spend time with them’ he suggested. ‘Don’t worry about the teaching, don’t get stressed. Just finish on a positive note.’ There can’t have been a more useful word written in the most academic of teaching resources and though I didn’t want to feel I’d ‘given up’, I did recognise that dragging everyone kicking and screaming through a series of activities because ‘that’s what it SAYS on THE PLAN!’ Would be doing no one any favours. In fact, that would be scarily reminiscent of the criticisms I had of the UK education system that had lead me to leave it and wind up trying to decipher and teach grammatical voodoo magic in Nagpur in the first place.
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How to wear a sari...
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Painting the feet...
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How to make jam tart cases with no oven...
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An indoor picnic (it was too hot outside!)
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'Who likes cucumber sandwiches?' (or was that 'Who hates Marmite?')
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Pasta Party!
It was just as well his advice resonated with me. What with Hardware and Networking revision classes, the exams themselves, Tally practice and exams, MS-CIT resits, and even educationally unrelated things such as random centre closures for city elections, there was far less formal classroom time available than I had anticipated, even when taking ‘the unexpected’ in to account. It would have been very easy to worry about this and feel I was not providing what I had been asked to deliver, but, with Mark’s words in my mind and a few reassuring emails from Shakyajata, I was able to relax, let go a bit and respond flexibly to the reality, rather than agonise over the unrealised planning. We did, in the end, do enough. We did some work on CVs and we wrote, reviewed and typed some personal statements. We talked about how to find and apply for a job, we filled in some practice application forms, talked about black ink and ‘block caps’ and what N/A means. We chatted about how to prepare for and give a good interview, we briefly role played answering some daft questions. And then, around those shreds of ‘teaching’, we had fun. We enjoyed spending time together, and I finally, finally, eased off my expectations of what people might expect of me (which they probably didn’t anyway) and gently let go of the ‘professional’ conditioning that says you don’t socialise or share things with students. I then began a concerted effort to wring every last drop of these things out of the rapidly evaporating hours.

I went to market to buy groceries with the girls. I asked them to alter a sari for me and teach me how to wear it, as in actually get dressed myself. I was finally brave enough to sample their strange deep-fried biscuits and I let them paint my feet, Bihar style with pink alta. They painted my nails and drew ornate designs up my arms with henna. I didn’t get to run the ‘positive body image’ tutorial work shop I had started to plan, but I did have dinner with them and when I established that the conversation had run into areas such as ‘but you are fat and she is skinny’, I adlibbed a rather poetic series of rhetorical questions about whether a tiny, delicate jasmine flower was more beautiful or valuable than a soft, voluptuous rose, (and anyway didn’t they both smell just as fine?), before standing, hooking my rice-and-chapatti replete belly out of my salwar and pinching my gut up and down to make my belly button mouth along to my loud exclamation ‘I’m proud to be me!’ “Good example, Ma’am!” Hemlata commented, when the company had finished dissolving into fits of giggles. I realised I didn’t know, until I actually spent time with her, that her English had got so good. Of course it wasn’t all about the pleasure of receiving their hospitality. I devised, sourced and prepared an ‘English Style’ picnic, with cucumber sandwiches (crusts off!), peanut butter (on brown) and strawberry jam tarts. I don’t think I’ve ever put so much effort in to planning a ‘cultural awareness tutorial’ as I did into working out how to cook jam tarts without an oven. I introduced them to Marmite, but no one really thanked me for that. After about 15 minutes of trying to persuade Madhu that yes, I really had made all this ‘gourmet cuisine’ myself, I finally asked why she was in such disbelief. “Because she didn’t believe anyone would go to so much trouble for them” was Sheetal’s translation of her sadly moving reply. Half choked with pathos, half cresting the wave of appreciation, the next day I spent 3 hours scouring various supermarkets and ‘expat shelves’ and on our final night together, I cooked them a pasta party with spaghetti Bolognese, tomato penne, a pasta-bow salad, garlic bread (read garlic toast, I did my best), a green salad and a summer pudding. Sort of. As much as you can prepare a summer pudding without summer fruits. I probably spent about six times as much cash on that feast than I spent on an entire 5 months of photocopying and printing class resources. I lived in the same house as the girls of course, so it was easier to spend more time with them and the boys drifted off in dribs and drabs as they returned one here, two there to their home villages to sit the government exams required of them in their own states. There was time for those who remained; however, and it was thanks to the men, not the women (no stereotype enforcement here!), that I now know how to cook poha (flattened rice flakes cooked with potato, tomato and chilli) for breakfast and can just about prepare a batch of chapattis (I’ve stopped setting fire to them now). We chatted a lot about the Dharma. I bought them expensive coffee. I took them to Pizza Hut (Hey, my dad used to work for Pizza Hut, it’s practically in my genes!). We walked round town and went on the swings (who can get the highest!?) and visited the science museum to sit through a ‘planetarium show’ that turned out to be a very poor computer animation of some under the sea scenes in a rundown theatre of a battered, ancient exhibition centre that still had displays heralding the arrival of the internet.
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A Pizza Hut indulgence!
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The science museum hall of mirrors!
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An expensive (but delicious) iced coffee!
When the students had all finally departed, I then spent time with the family I’d lived with that whole time. Sheetal and I went shopping, bumping up and down on the back of her scooter for the last few times. We visited the Deekshabhoomi to say ‘goodbye’ to Babasaheb’s stupa. We splashed around at a water park that resembled an aquatic version of those photos you see of the abandoned fun fair in Chernobyl. We went for more expensive coffee. I tried to make cookies on the hob; I made flat scones. Everyone agreed the jam tarts were better. I made a ‘Chinese’ that ended up having too much chilli in it even for Aryaketu and Ojas. I thought it was fine. I finally tried to make bread in a pressure cooker with the yeast we bought about a week after I arrived. The cows enjoyed a rather stodgy breakfast. What I learned (as well as just thoroughly enjoying my final fortnight) was that you can’t formalise real sharing. You can’t prescribe or manipulate a genuine connection. It is not possible to ‘plan and deliver’ that ‘content’, you just have to be. You simply have to be content to be you, with others; as interested and accepting of their version of the mundane as you are willing to spend time demonstrating and exemplifying yours. It’s not in the heights of academic discourse that we exhaust the limits of our commonality. We bond over the hilarity of the failed bread and we forge friendships in a dripping heap at the bottom of rickety old water slides as we share stories about summers long gone, before we learned to be scared of the foreigners. So much of that flies in the face of what I’ve been trained to do. It took me five and a half months to unlearn that when a student is crying, they must under no circumstances be hugged. It took me nearly my whole stay to remember that the best teachers are the ones who are confident enough to say ‘I don’t know the answer to that question. But I’ll show you how we can both find out.’ I still feel like a slightly suspicious and potentially untrustworthy liability when I accept a student’s friend request on Facebook. But why? We are, after all, friends. It strikes me as somewhat significant that I am gradually letting go of all this interventionist and ultimately well-meaning but fundamentally dehumanising policy against a background of heightened awareness of the need for safeguarding in the Triratna community. The movement has recently been re-engaging with a history of controversy, allegations of abuse and openly admitted failings in the backstory of a (very young) order that are now resulting in discussions around how to protect the vulnerable and challenge those who would manipulate them. Yet again I find myself realising that in this, as in all things, it is a question of balance. We must accept and address our human potential to fail, to mess up, to hurt each other, but please, never let this be at the cost of the genuine expression of honest, wholesome, friendship and affection.

So that, as they say, was that. That’s a potted summary of the final fortnight of my twenty two weeks in India. But can I give a meaningful summary of my key experiences? Can I provide an insightful reflection from the perspective of my homecoming? Honestly? I don’t know where to start. Nothing’s scared me more in recent weeks than the enthusiasm of friends who ‘can’t wait to hear all about it!’
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A very irresponsible back-of-scooter-selfie. Sorry, Mum.
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Shrove Tuesday pancakes! Now there's a treat that needs no oven!
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And why wouldn't the teachers have a selfie with the Birthday Girl?
How can I possibly put that in to words? I mean, I’ve tried, obviously. I’ve poured as much articulation of my experiences as I’ve been able into this blog and it’s (semi)regular updates. I’ve spent literally days writing, re drafting and finally publishing 25 (whoops, 26!) of them, often several thousand words a post, some with their own chapters, all with carefully selected and sometimes edited images. But they are weak, supermarket own-brand blackcurrant cordial filled beakers of my words, placed next to the crystal goblets of Châteauneuf-du-Pape that have been my experience. They don’t come close.
I’ve been moved to frustrated tears of spiritual discovery under the Bodhi tree, I’ve narrowly escaped near disaster on remote hillside paths, I’ve learned not to bat an eyelid as I cross roads where the traffic never stops and I’ve developed the ability to wee, in a sari, over a hole in the ground, without getting wet feet or falling over (mostly). I’ve listened in horrified silence to personal stories of oppression, debasement, exclusion and torture in the name of religion, divinity and tradition. I’ve experienced spiritual death in the countryside, spiritual rebirth in the city. I’ve laughed until I nearly lost control of my bladder and wept until I thought I’d be sick. I’ve felt energised, I’ve felt exhausted, I’ve felt healthy, I’ve felt ill, been in hospitals where patients are treated next to piles of bloody rags, but where you get to watch your own samples being analysed in the laboratory. I’ve been on a shot-to-the-heart roller-coaster-ride of cultural pugilism. I’ve felt so happy I might evaporate one minute and I’ve felt cut to the quick, so hopeless I might dissolve the next. I feel like I’ve spent the last six months ignoring the dilution instructions on the high juice of life and elected to drink it straight from the bottle. I’ve had experience concentrate flowing in my veins. But what have I learned?
One key thing I’ve learned is that I don’t represent anything other than me. I am not a sex symbol (really), nor a symbol for my sex. I am not ‘one of them’ (one of who, incidentally?). I am not one of ‘you people’. I do not represent ‘women’, I am not speaking for ‘the westerners’. I am not, for that matter, speaking for Europeans, the British or the English. I’m not even speaking for other white, single, pierced, vegan, female, recently converted Buddhists who grew up in London in the 1980s, like running, reading and drawing, eat too much sugar, drink too much coffee, have a weakness for cats a romantic predilection for walking on beaches on starry nights and have perfected the art of the crispy skinned, fluffy centred, humble baked potato. I’m not sorry to say, that really all I’m doing is speaking for me. I’m not even totally sure I’m doing that particularly reliably a lot of the time. I might try and speak up for someone, but that’s not the same thing. I am not, nor will I ever be a generalisation.
I have learned (once again but in a different way) that it doesn’t matter how many miles you put between you and the apparent source of your unhappiness because the demons you’d like to blame it on are inside your head and the chances are, you’ll be bringing that along with you. Demons are most definitely not excluded from your cabin bag. In fact they really quite like a trip out and are very happy to come along to play. You’ll have to do something a bit more creative if you want to make peace with them, like listening to what they are actually trying to tell you, without sticking your fingers in your ears and going ‘la, la, la, I’m too grown up to listen to you!’

I have learned (or at least confirmed my suspicion) that I am extremely English. I maybe a particularly open minded, broadly experienced version of one but there’s no doubt at all that I am an Angle, through and through, from my tendency to burn in the sun to my persistence in trying to queue for things even when no one else does, right down to my almost genetic need for nice predictable planning that we stick to. Yes, it’s true, I like vinegar on my chips and a cold sea breeze in my face and nice warm socks on my clean, dry feet. But that’s OK. Those are things that shape my perception but they are not, at the end of the day, the things that define my capacity to be a responsive, compassionate human being. They influence but they do not limit me.
I have learned, genuinely, surprisingly, for the first time in my life, that actually, I am a feminist. I have also learned that I have an absolute responsibility now, to do something about that. I haven’t learned how I’m going to do that yet, but I have time.
I’ve learned the nature of being more privileged than I truly realised, but sort of suspected I might be. I’ve learned, embarrassingly, that simply because I was born with the genes to produce less pigment in my skin than some people, there is a vast swathe of the planet’s surface where a majority of its inhabitants will always be willing to prioritise me, usher me to the front of the queue (where there is one) and listen to me with rapt attention, regardless of how half-baked and barmy whatever it is I might have to say could be. I’ve learned I have a responsibility to respect that audience and say things that will be useful to them. I’ve learned with humility that I will never be so poor I have to choose between healthcare and a meal, between safety and dignity, between free will and a secure place to call home. I will benefit, for my entire remaining life, from never having suffered the crippling personal disability of being denied an education because of who my parents were. But then I’ve also learned that ‘privilege’ is a slippery concept, a movable benchmark that is entirely dependent on your perspective. I’ve learned that some communities are fighting through financial poverty, but some, in other parts of the world are battling emotional poverty, social deterioration and psychological need, which is perhaps not so easy to fix with charitable donations. I’ve learned, that perversely, sometimes too much privilege can be just as damaging as not enough. The opportunity to compare the achievements of young people with a sense of entitlement to education against those who’ve fought tooth and nail to get anywhere near it, has taught me that we often only value that which we’ve had to work for. I’ve learned that the apparently honourable acceptance with which some people appear content to live a simple, basic existence can be misleading when viewed from the eyes of those who feel the strain of an overly complicated life of excess and hedonism. Apparent renunciation and the discipline of a frugal lifestyle is hardly honourable if you’ve never had any wealth or excess to renounce.

There’s more, of course; I have learned that the UK society is a LOT more equal and diverse than we might think or even aspire to. I thought, when I moved from London to Manchester, that I knew homogenised communities for the first time, but that’s nothing compared to some places and a majority of British people are not entirely as prejudiced or xenophobic as we seem to think we are. We are not the only nation to fear the alien, the other, the slightly unfamiliar, nor are we the only people to foster massive generalisations about anything slightly foreign. I’m not for even a split second suggesting that’s a reason to stop working for change, and tolerance and liberation, but I think we’d sometimes benefit from recognising and celebrating just how far we’ve already come, on a global stage.

I’ve also noticed that for all our inherited inequalities, we LIKE an underdog. Yes, our society is divided into classes that struggle and have wars and exist in the relative strata of have and have not but nowhere in our culture do we ever say you can’t achieve a life beyond that if only you work hard enough. No, it’s true, it’s not fair that we don’t all start with the same resources and we don’t all get the same breaks in life but no one in post war Britain grows up terribly far from the idealism that with enough welly (and maybe a pinch of luck), you’ll get there, wherever that might be. It may be regrettably materialistic in nature but whoever you are, you’re only ever a winning lottery ticket away from a comfortable life, social status and maybe even a little respect and envy. Yes, you might struggle to break into certain professions because your family can’t easily afford the specialist education to get you there but you’ll never be told that you have to do a certain job because of your surname. You’ll never be told (by anyone society deems worth listening to, anyway) that you should accept the conditions of your birth as a reason not to aspire to better things, that your worth as a human is signed and sealed in your father’s name, on a birth certificate in permanent ink that cannot be changed.
Finally (you’ll be pleased to know), and with some surprise, since coming home, I’ve learned that sometimes the little personal or domestic ‘duties’, the changes we can make close to home are every bit as revolutionary as the stuff we do that stretches over continents and demands answers from global superpowers. Before I left for India, I had been staying with my (almost 84 year old) bachelor great uncle, indeed, I published a poem and a new series of photos of his home shortly before I went. He supported me with a couple of rent free months and a place to store all the junk I couldn’t quite bring myself to give away or chuck in a charity shop while I was gone. Two weeks before I flew back, he was taken into hospital and so what I had anticipated as a rather roomy period of time to vaguely drift about the country visiting all the friends I’ve been promising to drop in on for years as I tried to postpone a sense of obligation to ‘settle back down’, instead became a short, sharp return straight to his house, where I have been ever since. My time has been concerned with helping him keep track of his medication, and assisting him with liaising between the different agencies that are tasked with supporting his independent recovery in his own home. I’ve been helping, in return for somewhere to live, of course, with basic domestic needs and I’ve taken responsibility for trying to coax a severely diminished appetite back into existence with creative applications of mayonnaise, strategically placed digestives and deliberately timed Cup-a-Soups. The ‘get a cheap tent and walk round the UK because I can’t afford the travel’ plan was probably never a very good one anyway, though in hindsight, it probably wasn’t one of my craziest. Sure, helping round the home of someone with the frayed temper of one in constant pain for whom I normally have to repeat sentences at least 3 times, isn’t always reminiscent of a Butlins Holiday Camp, but I’m very, very happy to be doing it and I’ve been somewhat saddened by the surprised response of those who seem to view it as some kind of martyrdom or heroism on my part. Here is a human being, whom I happen to love and care for, who has helped and supported me, who now needs my help and support. I do not have any commitments or responsibilities that I cannot flex around meeting these needs. Why wouldn’t I do all I can to facilitate this? Perhaps it’s because I’m fresh from a country where this would never be a problem because families literally live three generations to a roof that it seems strange to question it, but I think it’s a sad symptom of a society increasingly fractured into selfish and insular units that value the hedonistic ‘me, me, me’ quick-fix, excite-and-move-on fast track, disposable gratification lifestyle, that so many people consider caring for your elderly relative to be something even worth remarking upon. So I am being the change I want to see in the world and I am quietly getting on with a private revolution in what might appear to be a conservative but has apparently now become an alternative lifestyle.


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Well, there's a lesson learned...
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A return to number 49...
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Ssh! Can you hear it? No. Exactly.
Oh yes. One last thing. I’ve learned to appreciate silence. I’ve always liked but now I’ve learned to love a clean, organised street lined with daffodils and hawthorn shoots and quiet enough on an early Sunday morning that you can almost hear the blossom falling off the cherry trees onto the damp grass below. I’ve learned that nothing sounds quite as much like home as the self-satisfied chortle of a big fat wood pigeon stuffed to the beak on old bits of dry crumpet.

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Some last, brave smiles before the tears as Shakyajata says farewell.
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Mark's last dosa!
And so that was the end of the course. The increasingly distant completion of my time trying to teach English in India and my reflections upon it. It wasn’t a fixture in a diary, it wasn’t a note on a calendar. It came like the fading out of a ballad or a short film fogging away into the mist of a blank screen. It didn’t really happen, it just gradually drifted from future tense, to present perfect progressive, to future perfect progressive and then, simply past. See, I did learn some grammar. (Nah, I lied, I had to look that up.) I was sort of aware of this process, of course, and aware that I should be feeling emotional about it all somehow, this slow, slipping away. In India, people generally live much more up against their own emotions, or at least there’s an expectation that one should be quite clear about demonstrating these in certain contexts. My Stiff British Upper Lip didn’t quite get with all the weepy-wailing on several occasions and left me feeling as though I was somewhat cold or lacking. When I waved goodbye to Shakyajata for example, unlike all the students waving her off, I didn’t cry. When I said goodbye to Mark and left him at his farewell dinner with the rest of the young men he’d been living with, I certainly didn’t cry. Actually, I think I punched him on the arm before shouting ‘you smell anyway!’ and running out of the crowded restaurant only to emerge through a bush moments later on the other side of the window where he was sitting and treating him to my finest piggy nose on the glass. Well, I never pretended my expressions of affection were particularly ‘normal’. Sure, I felt a little uncomfortable saying goodbye to our young women’s community and since they all left on the same day, their absence left a palpable vacuum, but I didn’t cry. I wished the departing members of the men’s community good luck for the future with firm handshakes all round, but I didn’t cry. The morning I left the family home, the moment I waved goodbye at the airport, I felt a tug of detachment. But I didn’t cry.

24 hours later, I landed in Manchester on a cold, grey, Saturday dawn and stood on the ‘UK border’. How you can have a border in the middle of a suburban airport, I have no idea but still, I stood under the signs for it with my passport in hand and I didn’t cry. Later, I met my friends, I went to the Manchester Buddhist Centre, I found and hugged (broadly speaking) my ‘original’ Sangha; I didn’t cry. Still later that day, another farewell, to Manchester for London, on a Virgin train. I didn’t cry.
By the time I arrived in Leigh on Sea that night, across two tube changes and a C2C train, I was so tired, I might have burst in to tears at any point but when I got through the door and I saw my mum and my uncle; you know what I didn’t do? Right. I didn’t cry. So that was that. The imagined Facebook status update that went something along the lines of ‘…and then my face dissolved into a weeks’ worth of wet washing’ never got an airing. The Ice Queen reigned supreme.

Three weeks later, and I finally engineered the time and the train fare to head back into London for a meeting at the Triratna centre in Bethnal Green. I stepped in to London Buddhist Centre courtyard and the familiarity, the placid, unchanged calm, triggered a genuine flood of raw emotion, finally given a point of release. Here, my brain eventually threw caution to the wind and necked shot after hard core shot of relief, gratitude, compassion and love until I was quite drunk in an aura of fuzzy, warm, positive emotion. As I removed my shoes and hung up my coat, this vague yet forceful release distilled itself into an awareness of where I am coming from and what I had just done. An acknowledgement of the events I had been a part of and the commitments I have made, all set against the backdrop of the sheer unadulterated brightness and joy of what my future holds, despite the difficulties I still work with, despite the days I find hard. I really knew then that no matter how black they may seem they will ultimately come to no more than passing clouds in front of the endless azure skies and radiant sparkling sunbeams that glitter, endlessly before me, always there, above whatever gloom I might be inflicting upon myself, always, ungrudgingly and unfailingly patient in waiting for me, without judgement, to be finally grownup enough and ready to dive into them, bringing with me as many people as I can carry. And I nearly cried there and then; but I’m English. So instead, I went into the shrine room, I gathered my mat and cushions, I settled myself down and I contented myself with silently, deliciously, allowing the tears to roll down my cheeks all the way through the lunchtime drop in meditation class, to the extent where I began to believe I might spend the rest of the afternoon with wrinkled cheeks, as if I’d been face down in the bath for an hour.

I have so much potential. So much to do. So much I can achieve. These things won’t come, either, in the format of all the other things I’ve ever used to judge myself or assess my worth. These things won’t be expressed by graded certificates, resigned to battered folders. They won’t be tallied by marathon medals in a dusty box. They won’t be checked by piled sketchbooks or exhibited paintings or published writings. They can’t be described at all by collected things, finally doing no more than keeping each other company in my uncle’s loft. Nor will they be digital manifestations. They won’t be collected selfies in a social media album that seem to reflect the person I think other people think I should be trying to be. They won’t be blog posts or articles or poems online. They won’t be aggregated bullet points on an evolving CV and they certainly won’t be piled up credit tokens in a virtual bank account, not mine and not even a charity’s. The contribution I have the ability to make to the world, the changes I will go on to make cannot be counted or collected at all. They will be as transient as a phantom smile flicked onto the lips of a miserable stranger when I recognise their humanity with a broad and honest grin in the street. They will be as deep but inexpressible as the aches eased by plumping my uncle’s cushions before he’s come back into the room and as non-existent as the symptoms deflected by preparing his medication for him before he’s woken up. They will be as tiny, yet as unstoppable as a seed of self-belief sown in the mind of a generationally oppressed teenager, that will push up with the raw natural energy of a wild flower through a brittle tarmac of sedimentary hate. They will be as paper-thin as the subtle uplifting in mood of a troubled mind I hear, or connect with, or make a much needed cup of tea for (for we all know that sometimes a cup of tea is for the mind, not for the stomach). They will be as indistinct and as feral as my own failings and struggles, shared with an intention of marginally lightening the burden of another’s perceived inadequacy, despite risking my own vulnerability. These things I achieve will be tiny. They will be weak. They will be unremarkable, insignificant, almost pointless. But they will drip, drip, drip in to the world in a relentless trickle of positivity. They will create the softest of secret, silent ripples and you won’t even notice they are there. But you can feel it now, can’t you? Gently, lifting and stirring you? Because these ripples will swell in to waves. It’s in you too. And these waves, between us will form an encroaching tide, a rush, a swell, an unarguable uprising. As yielding as water. As unstoppable as a tsunami. And we will win. This love will save the world.

And then the bell rang for the end of the meditation, and I thought, ‘I’m home. Where next?’

2 Comments

NNBY Regional Conference, Amravati

30/1/2017

6 Comments

 
Apart from the very obvious reason that I was keen to recover as quickly as possible from my newly diagnosed infections for reasons of personal comfort (as discussed in my recent tales of dukkha from the hospital), there was another factor. I had an event coming up in the diary which I was totally unwilling to miss, come hell or high water. At the end of December, I was fortunate to attend the National Network of Buddhist Youth 10th National Convention; the most eye opening week of my time in India so far. I had quickly realised that though I’d found the experience richly rewarding and intensely useful, I was entirely the wrong beneficiary and so had begun what proved to be an at times challenging process of organisation to take as many of our Aryaloka community students as possible to an upcoming NNBY Regional Conference, this time in Bihali, where I’d enjoyed a retreat only a few weeks ago.
Of course, I’d have liked to take all our students but I knew from the outset that this wouldn’t be possible. There were too many factors prohibiting it. Retreat fees and travel were the first and foremost obstacles, with additional uncertainty around exam dates, supervision and duty of care. Fortunately, I had the support of Diksha, one of the main organising team, whom I had got to know in Bordharan as the facilitator of my discussion group and she was very keen to help with arranging some of the travel. I’d also snuck in an informal conversation about the possibility over lunch on the final day of the National Convention with two other key people; retreat leader Maitriveer Nagarjuna and Aryaloka Director, Aryaketu. All these interactions had felt very constructive and my enthusiasm for the idea was received positively by the rest of the Aryaloka team when we returned to Nagpur. Unfortunately, when the reality of organisation kicked in and the prospect became elevated beyond the status of ‘nice idea’, it became far less straight forward and there were a couple of really quite difficult moments when it seemed I was simply not going to be allowed to take any students at all. I knew that at the very least I could still attend; I had promised to deliver a fuller version of the rather impromptu talk I gave in Bordheran, as well as running a workshop or ‘floating session’. As long as I could get myself by bus to Amravati, about half way between Bihali and Nagpur, Diksha had promised to organise a car to collect me.
Going alone would have been better than nothing and I knew some young people could still benefit from my contribution, but I also knew how valuable our students would find it and was absolutely determined not to back down. Still, not to dwell on adversity, it’s enough to say that thankfully, it was eventually possible to navigate the challenges and find solutions to the very valid concerns presented by my colleagues. It was agreed that two students, one representative from the young men’s and one from the young women’s communities, would accompany me with the responsibility of reporting back to their peers on the experience. I’d already delivered a presentation to both groups about my time at the National Convention but better by far for young Indians to hear about the work of NNBY from other young Indians, not a rapidly aging English lady. I had to concede, that though this wasn’t half as many students as I’d thought we could take (I’d decided I could afford to pay retreat fees for up to six) it did solve some problems with regards to travel and would be significantly less stressful than being personally responsible for quite that many! It made the whole thing a little cheaper too and I could then afford to pay their travel costs as well, which ended up being no more than contributions to petrol as we’d received the very kind offer of a lift all the way from Nagpur to Bihali from Chetan, a main NNBY organiser and very committed youth worker. Aryaketu chose who should attend based on considerations such as academic progress and exam dates so there should be no worries around apparent favouritism (which had been a concern) and we would even have a spare seat for Mark, who was keen to come to find out more about NNBY and offer a workshop on Climate Change, one of his key passions outside of English teaching!

Needless to say, after all that, there was no way I was going to be too unwell to go. Fortunately, I was indeed feeling genuinely better, with energy levels once again approaching normality by the time a rather excited car full departed Nagpur just after lunch on January the 19th!
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An Important Mission...
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And off we go!
I am equally delighted to report that the trip was very fruitful for all of us. Once again, I got a lot personally from attending, as I know did Mark. I could tell from their enthusiastic participation (it demonstrates a particular kind of commitment for a teenager to be out of bed and ready for pre-meditation Chi-Kung at 06:30) as well as the little bit of English conversation we could manage, that students Bharti and Akhilesh had also gained much. It wasn’t until we were back in Nagpur and working together to prepare their presentations that I realised quite how much; however. I’m only slightly embarrassed to admit that when I heard the depth of their experience for the first time in translation, I was almost moved to tears. I’ll let their feelings have their own space in a moment, for they are the most important words I’ll include in this piece, but I shall just share a couple of my own most significant experiences first.
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Akhilesh and Bharti In the Shrine Room
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Exploring the Jungle and Learning Photography!
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Working with Chetan...
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... who kindly interpreted my talk!
My main aim for our mission was for Bharti and Akhilesh to have meaningful experiences that fully demonstrated the potential benefit of their future involvement in NNBY, and that they felt able to communicate this to the others upon returning to Nagpur, but I did of course have some other focuses as well. In Bordharan I had planned (at the last minute, but planned none the less) to give a version of the ‘Why I am a Buddhist’ talk that I delivered at Vajrasana in September. This had ended up being condensed on the spot (you can actually find a video of it here) into only about 7 minutes (including interpretation), so I was very happy to have the opportunity to give a fuller version in Bihali as I’d spent quite some time thinking about the content and how to make it relevant to a new audience. Hearing from others on their experience with the Dharma is always useful but still, there would be very different things to say to make it relevant to a group of Indian Youth in the Maharashtrian Jungle as opposed to a group of Europeans at a rather civilised Beginners Retreat in Suffolk. I knew they’d be keen to hear something of an autobiography; you don’t get far at a gathering of Indian youth without multiple questions about your origins, I have discovered! I felt there was something more important than that though and I wanted to explain why I was there. I’d been instinctively aware, as well as confirming from some conversation at Bordharan, that the reason for my attendance could be easily misconstrued and reduced to mere tourism. I felt a strong need to demonstrate that this wasn’t the case. I also wanted to explain why my Buddhist practice was so important to me in the hope that it might help support that of others. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I felt it was really critical to demonstrate commonality. I can only guess what assumptions a mind from an Indian cultural background is conditioned to make about individuals from the West but I know that at least some of them are completely unfounded and really quite damaging to genuine racial cohesion. My approach to these areas in my talk was mostly couched in spiritual terms but there was a key socio-political link too, with reference to the work of Dr Ambedkar and why it might be that a 35 year old Brit can find his words as inspiring as an 18 year old Indian. My basic point was that though we come from very different backgrounds (as demonstrated by the autobiographical introduction), we are certainly following the same path into the future as we work for a common goal of global unity as described by the Buddhist teachings presented by Babasaheb Ambedkar. Some of the questions I’ve had since do make me wonder how much of what I said was lost in translation, as I’m sure I covered some of the answers to those in the talk itself. I tend to use quite subtle turns of phrase and rely heavily on analogy to communicate some of my more creative ideas so I just can’t tell how well much of that came across, but still I must have been doing something right to sustain the apparently rapt attention of the group for over an hour. I didn’t feel it flowed quite as well as my original talk but I think this is as much down to the practice of speaking with an interpreter as anything else. Hopefully this is a skill I can develop. I feel confident I got the gist of what I wanted to share across, anyway.

On the second day, I delivered a creative workshop aiming to use visual communication to stimulate a discussion of the things that feature prominently in the lives of the participants and could be seen as formative elements in the concept of self. The purpose of this was to help people establish where they are currently at in their life, with the view to identifying opportunities for positive change and development, particularly in the very Buddhist terms of a non-fixed self. We know we can change, we know we will change, but how can we realise the sense of deliberate focus that we need to achieve this in the most positive way? I’d planned to use an almost diagrammatic form to deliver this and had pre-prepared some blank mandala-style pages for participants to draw on. Though I’ve plenty of experience delivering various arts workshops, I’d devised this one specifically for the convention and had never run it before so I was grateful to Maitriveer who made time to go over it with me before I started and ask me a couple of pointed questions that helped me refocus my objective. I was fairly confident but still felt relieved that it was well received and everyone who came along seemed genuinely pleased with their outcomes.

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A Visual Workshop on Self
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A Session on Climate Change
At the same time that I was delivering this, Mark ran his workshop on Climate Change. I was very glad of his presence and support at the weekend on level of simple friendship, but I was particularly pleased for practical reasons that there was an alternative provision for participants and so I didn’t have to try and contend with fifty in my session! Chetan also ran a seminar on a personal development technique called SWOT Analysis. I can’t pretend I’d ever heard of it but Akhilesh found it very useful!
Beyond the obvious work involved in preparation and delivery of appropriate content, there is perhaps a more important role fulfilled by leaders and facilitators involved in any kind of youth work, which is much harder to pin down or qualify. This role is simply to be present, to be engaged, to listen and to demonstrate a deep degree of care. I knew that being available (energy levels permitting) during meal times and rest periods to engage with people informally was important, but there was one particular conversation that gave me a really startling insight into my adopted culture which will stay with me for a very long time. One young woman had asked to speak with me for some advice on how to practice English, having moved back to her home village after some time away studying. As she was no longer spending time with people who valued the use of English, she was finding it difficult to keep it up and felt her command of the language was suffering. I suggested a few things; reading books and newspapers, accessing English films and talks on the internet where possible, offering to teach the language to her local friends who dismissed the importance of learning. She seemed to receive these suggestions well and I was satisfied I’d helped as much as I could, yet she had one further question.
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With Akhilesh and Bharti in the Shrine Room
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Climbing a Hill!
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Stream Entrants!?
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With New Friends...
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Akhilesh, Mark and Convention Leader Maitriveer Nagarjuna
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Discussion Groups and Sangha...
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Lunch Queue...
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Shared Ideas...
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A shared lunch; Vishakha is 4th from the right!
‘Why,’ she wanted to know, ‘do the organisers call you by your name when they introduce you?’ I was completely baffled by this question and felt sure I’d misunderstood. What else should they call me? After some further discussion it became clear that she was asking why they had not used a formal term of respect when inviting me to speak. I was pleased to have the opportunity to explain that it was because we were following the key Buddhist principle of equality that Babasaheb himself had been so active to promote. After receiving a mildly blank look I went further to state ‘because I am not better than them. I am not better than you.’ I may as well have stated that grass grew in the sky and we had clouds gathering under our feet. ‘Yes you are!’ was her instinctive and wholehearted reply. As I come to write this I find an uncharacteristic inability to articulate quite how that made me feel and realise that such was the importance of the exchange, I still feel quite emotional about it even now. It cut absolutely right to the heart of me that this sparklingly bright human being, simply bursting with manifest talent and clear potential, had been so conditioned by her upbringing in a society of deeply entrenched hierarchy that it was completely beyond her perspective of the world to believe that I was anything other than some kind of superior being. As a teenager, I certainly respected my teachers and those I met in mentoring or leadership roles. I understood that they’d had more experience than me, that they’d had more years of learning and education, that their thoughts and statements were the culmination of their deliberate efforts and that careful consideration was due. I wanted to listen and to learn from them. I wanted to demonstrate my appreciation of the time and teaching that they gave me and I even hoped to follow the example of one or two of them in my own life; but I never, for one moment, supposed that they were better than me. More skilled than me at certain things, yes, more practiced than me in many areas, of course, but not quantifiably better. Suddenly, I felt a little window had been opened for me into the world of caste discrimination and I realised just how much work we have to do. It’s not enough to say we believe in equality. It’s not enough to say we reject parts of a religion that attributes fixed and unchanging birth privilege to divine whim. It’s not even enough to renounce the entire religion that preaches this and convert to a new one if the bedrock of our cultural experience, the foundation for all our interactions and the way we place ourselves and others in the world is formed from the sediment of oppression and erroneous discrimination that has accumulated over centuries. Legislation is not enough. It’s not even a start. It’s simply a signpost, a practical suggestion for a direction to move in but nothing like the change in attitude, the change in minds that will make a real difference. How, then, can we possibly break through such barriers and why does it matter? What difference does it make to my life, when I return to the UK in a few weeks, or to the lives of my English friends who have perhaps never even left the UK? Why should it trouble them if a community on the other side of the planet is living in such conditions of social inequality? We can donate money to feed people. Even better, we can donate money to educate them and empower them to feed themselves, but if they choose to follow a dogma of division what is it to us? Compassion isn’t just about financial poverty though, and anyway what good are these employability skills really, if you can’t utilise them because you’ve not got the social liberty to follow certain careers without prejudice, even if the legal framework theoretically supports you? Still these issues are closer to home than the cultivation of philanthropy from a distance. If we want to be equal, if we want to live and operate in harmony and with the respect due to us from other humans, then we need them to know, to see and to feel that they too are our equals. Different, yes, and delightfully so, but always free and above all, equal. If I want to be truly valued as an individual with my own unique skills and talents that I have invested time in developing, then the last thing I want is for someone to elevate me to a pseudo superior status based upon factors beyond my control such as age and skin colour. This does not afford me any more equality than it affords her, and that, after all, is what equality means. Without wanting to get too Orwellian, if some are more equal than others then no one is equal at all. This is a contradiction in terms. It is quite simply then that if you wish equality for yourself, you need it for others. And it’s not enough to stop at the boundaries of your town, your county, your country or your continent. The world is bigger than that and so, I believe, is our potential as members of the only kind of society that can possibly support any kind of human progress. I hope I managed to communicate to this young woman that the only difference between us was based purely in our life experiences.  I hope I managed to make my point that I’d simply benefitted from a few more years’ to learn from my many mistakes and had been born, randomly, in a different set of circumstances. Even if she didn’t get quite the same clarity of insight as I did then I at least hope I planted a seed. The conversation certainly got me thinking along new lines and I began to consider how appropriate it is for the students at Aryaloka to address me as ‘ma’am’. Is this apparently harmless pleasantry actually reinforcing the very hierarchical systems we are trying to demolish? Should I encourage them to stop saying it? From this I mused; why erode respect? Perhaps it’s better, rather than removing such terms, to demonstrate mutual respect by reciprocating. I don’t always remember but I’m trying to do so now when addressing the students I work with.
Of course, following this, there was an obvious person who sprung to mind when wondering who to ask for help with translating the audio recordings of Bharti and Akhilesh’s presentations and I have to say she’s done a great job, responding both enthusiastically and promptly. I only hope she’s benefited as much from the English practice as I have from learning the content of the talks and it is in part thanks to her that I’m able to carry on into the most important section of my writing with such detail on my students’ responses to the convention. Vishakha ma’am, thank you. I hope this paragraph provides you with yet more English practice and let it be known that I am not only no better than you but have in fact learned a great deal from you. Just like many of the young people I have had the fortune to meet since I came to India, I am quite confident that you will do very well indeed.

Although I’d picked up a clear sense that Bharti and Akhilesh were enjoying the convention, it wasn’t until the day after we returned that I felt some certainty that they had benefitted from more than just the novel excitement of a weekend out of Nagpur. Having asked them to deliver presentations about it, I knew they’d need some support in putting their thoughts together, so the four of us met on Monday morning, with the help of Joydeep, a men’s community member, whose English was already excellent before he started the course, to the degree that he’s often called upon to translate Shakyajata’s Saturday Dhamma classes. I’d had the idea that it might be good to run the two hour afternoon presentation session like a day on an NNBY convention and I was glad that everyone readily agreed. We planned to start with a mini Chi-Kung session (led by Bharti), then
a short meditation (lead by Akhilesh). We’d then move on to their main presentations before splitting into discussion groups and reconvening for a Q&A session, where groups could put any questions they had to the pair. We’d finish with a puja.

That was all fairly straight forward but of course the hard work was still to do; we still had to write the presentations! I suggested using PowerPoint to help them keep track of what they wanted to say and as a method of displaying some of the many photos that they’d both enjoyed taking, either on Mark’s mobile camera or my SLR. Easy enough and good practice in using those programmes too. This only left the content to decide upon! I knew they’d been taking notes over the weekend (I’d bought them each a brand new notebook to encourage it!) but that’s a long way from having a prepared presentation, and my experience of working with young people is that they need a significant amount of help in recognising the most important things to say. This can be a challenge in itself but it’s even tougher with a language barrier. Sure enough, to begin with, they needed a little prompting but I could tell even without Hindi that Joydeep was himself doing a very good job of coaxing out the key points without interference from me. I listened to him interpret Bharti’s account of how she’d found the conditions very supportive to deepening her meditation practice and how she’d enjoyed learning a new approach to the Metta Bhavana. I listened to him explain that she felt she’d learned a lot more about the teachings of Babasaheb, about why he’d taught his people to follow Buddhism, about the significance of questioning the superstitious spiritual practices that she’d been so used to at home. I heard her thoughts on gender roles and how she now realised she had the same potential to achieve excellence as anyone else, that she believed girls should be encouraged to go on retreat to develop confidence and gain clarity around their identities. I heard her state quite deliberately and without any prompting, that she wanted to maintain her involvement in NNBY to support her own continued development and to take friends so they too could benefit as well as to challenge to the restrictions on travelling away from home that are currently placed on girls in many villages. I felt a lump rise in my throat as the reality sunk in to my mind that the combined efforts of all my friends and colleagues who’d gone out of their way to indulge my stubborn insistence that we should attend had not just been ‘worth it’. Those efforts had been our absolute obligation as teachers, as mentors and as dharma practitioners. Akhilesh recounted a similarly positive experience and explained that attending the convention had clarified a lot of his previous confusion around the purpose of following a Buddhist practice. He felt that the main benefit he’d gained was in seeing equality exemplified. He’s not from Maharashtra and was concerned that he would encounter coldness or discrimination from the regional participants but recognised that this had been very far from his experience, which, he told us was the first time in his life he’d realised such genuine equality could exist. He’d in fact felt so included that at times he’d had to take himself away from the group in order to make time to write his notes! He too had a clear idea of what he planned to discuss in the presentation and hoped to give his own perspectives on the main talk given by Maitreveer Nagarjuna on human evolution and how this related to social, political and spiritual factors. For the second time in one update, I find I’m at a bit of a loss for words to describe quite how I felt upon hearing all this. Proud, certainly, and delighted that they’d both responded so hungrily to an opportunity that hadn’t been smooth to arrange. Joyful, definitely, to see how fired up and motivated they both were, how eager to share their experiences that others might benefit. Most of all, the best word to describe how I felt is moved. Moved in the emotional sense, as the reality of the real difference we’d made to their lives came home to me but also moved in a dynamic sense and ever more determined to drive forward in whatever way I can to keep supporting these young people in their developmental leaps and bounds.

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Bharti Engaged with the Discussion
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The diagram from Maitriveer Nagarjuna's talk that so inspired Akhilesh
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A final farewell before an early start back to Nagpur!
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Back at base; with the Buddha kindly given to us by the organising team!
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Bharti Leads Chi-Kung
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Akhilesh Leads Meditation
It’s very rare to be able to say that anything in India has gone to plan, in fact I’ve come to see plans as a rough guide that give me an idea of what is probably not going to happen, but it’s entirely to the credit of Bharti and Akhilesh’s enthusiasm that the presentation afternoon went like a dream. There were unplanned factors, of course, including the arrival and subsequent attendance of Aryaloka’s main benefactors, the additional pressure of whose sudden presence gave even me an unexpected dose of performance anxiety. Bharti and Akhilesh; however, more than rose to the occasion and appeared to actually relish the additional audience members. We’d decided that it would be good practice for them to write their PowerPoint presentations in English and deliver the introductory sentences in the same, but that to foster a genuine degree of communication, they could give the main talk and answer questions in Hindi. As such, although I had a rough idea of what they were discussing, most of it went right over my head. In my formal teaching history, this would have caused me some anxiety as I would worry that I’d not be able to support and direct the content if needed. How would I know they were on topic? How would I know they weren’t accidentally misleading their peers with confused interpretations of complex concepts? How would I know they weren’t just chatting about what they fancied getting up to at the weekend? Actually though, I found their confidence gave me some structure to relax against and when I opened up to trusting them with the job of communicating their own thoughts, I found that not being overly focused on the language gave me some space to notice other key indicators that all was well. Aside from the occasional words I did recognise to show we were on track (‘NNBY’, ‘Dhamma’, ‘Babasaheb’ for example), I could gauge from the engaged body language of both speakers and audience, as well as from the enthusiastic pace of the discussion, that there was a good deal of focused and genuine communication taking place. Group discussions can be tough to get going and Question and Answer sessions flat and dead in the water with even experienced adult participants but there were no awkward silences or confused pauses, in fact we had a queue of people wanting to ask their questions first. Again, with thanks to Vishakha for her translation of the transcripts, I can now tell I was right not to be overly meddlesome in the flow of interactions and it seems the content was a mature and respectful debate that would put most Question Time
panel members to shame for it’s degree of mutual respect and open minded inquiry. My favourite part of the dialogue (translated by Vishakha and with additional clarification and grammatical tweaking from me) is as follows:
Q: After the convention what changes will you make in your society?
A: (Akhilesh) I will try. Actually, before, I used think about how my mother and all the members in my family worship Gods and Goddesses. I was the only one who was not following this and from start I was confused and somehow I found it wrong. If I argued with my mother about this she used to shout at me but I think by telling her about Dhamma we can change.

Q: How will you change the society?
A: Yeah, it’s possible. (Bharti) First, we have to change our homes, then the rest!

Q: How will you tell your parents about Dhamma?
A: By small, small things. Gradually we will tell them! It's difficult but we can do it! If we build their confidence then we can also do things like that, show our hidden talent and potential by doing a good job and making our parents proud. Believe in ourselves!

Q: If we give these teachings of Buddha and Babasaheb to society and to girls, can we achieve this goal. And excellence?
A: Yes! We should raise our own talents make it more glown! (clapping)
Actually, I’m not sure what ‘glown’ means. I can’t decide from the context if it should be ‘known’ or ‘glowing’ but either seems quite appropriate and I rather like the idea of a word that means both simultaneously so I shall leave that one open to interpretation. Maybe it means something else entirely. Regardless of possibly vague moments in translation, I think it’s quite apparent from just that brief excerpt that Bharti and Akhilesh did us proud, both in terms of how they responded and participated with the content of the convention itself and in terms of how well they took on the task of sharing their learning and new perspectives so enthusiastically with their communities. Of course, I needn’t have worried too much about what was being said as my Hindi speaking colleagues were also present. Sheetal, Vaishali, Saccadhamma and Aryaketu all attended and were clearly as impressed as I was by the maturity and depth of the presentations. Such was her engagement that Bharti even ended the Q&A session by questioning her peers, asking if they felt they would like to go to an NNBY event in the future. Their replies were an almost unanimous ‘yes!’

So that’s a tale of optimism and positivity for the future of many of the community students at Aryaloka but what of my own responses?
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Our new Buddha on our shrine in Bhilgaon
Well, my motivation is galvanised, my resolve, more focused and my sense of purpose nourished with a deep sense of potential for just how ready many of the young people I’ve met here are to make the most of the support given to them to determine their own development. None of the lazy assumptions I am so used to from the attitudes of many in the UK that a ‘right to education’ is synonymous with not having to apply effort to one’s own progress. But I am aware that there is so much work to do in India, such an important revolution occurring that I feel I must apply my efforts with a degree of discrimination and in a very carefully considered, skilful way to ensure the results of those efforts reach the most lives possible. There are so many projects to work with here, so many communities to visit, so many different states to see. And I feel blinkered. My perspectives of the situation here are so coloured by my own cultural filters that I feel I’m groping around in the dark, not really sure of where to find the best opportunities or how to fulfil the potential inherent in my role when I do. I discussed this briefly with Chetan on the way back to Nagpur, and asked his advice. My experience of India is so limited, my understanding of the complex social dynamics so foetal, my background so different and my appearance so loaded with unknown interpretations. How can I utilise this sense of ‘other’ that I represent to many for the greatest good? There’s no denying that I feel intensely uncomfortable when people appear to bestow respect or privilege upon me for no reason other than my skin colour but how can I best respond to this? Should I try to humbly ignore such attention in the meek hope that I will somehow communicate its fallacy? Or should I step up to my own discomfort and use it to speak the truths that those who afford it to me need so desperately to hear? Of course I need guidance from people with a deeper understanding of the issues but it seems belligerent to deny the opportunity, especially in communicating to girls and women, whose plight is still so much more challenged than many of their male counterparts to a degree we’ve not encountered for decades in Europe.

Practically and in the short term, I hope to run more workshops with NNBY before I leave in March, but in the long term and on a deeper more emotional level, I feel quite certain that the work I have to do in India extends way beyond the expiration of my visa and for the first time since arriving in October I am absolutely adamant that I am coming back. I think there’s something of the small child in my approach to forming attachments. I might take some time assessing, exploring, patiently finding some common ground and establishing a foundation for trust, but once my roots are sunk, I’m a difficult weed to pull up. My experiences of moving around and living in different parts of the UK had already made me question the concept of ‘home’ but now I’m finding the whole notion increasingly irrelevant. One English phrase suggests that home is where your heart is. I’m not so sure about that but I know without a doubt that there is now a big chunk of India, and her people, resident in my heart.

Sorry, India. It looks like this mouse will be a tough one to get rid of...
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National Network of Buddhist Youth; 10th National Conference

6/1/2017

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I have a habit of finding somewhat non-traditional things to do with my Christmases and 2016 was clearly never going to be an exception to that trend! Due to the rule of standard Indian planning, I wasn’t sure quite how it would conform to expected nonconformity until quite late on but, as it turned out, I was fortunate to spend the last few days of the year, from December 25th until the 31st, at the 10th annual National Network of Buddhist Youth Conference at the Triratna run Husen Tsang Retreat Centre in Bordharan. Now, having mentioned such an organisation, I would normally expect to continue my introduction with at least a summary overview of what that organisation does, but it would be far more accurate to conclude with it instead as that better reflects the reality of my experience. It really took me a whole week of observing and learning to understand for myself the importance of the body and the work it carries out.
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The Stupa at Bordharan
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Some (probably) non-Buddhist residents of Bordharan!
I had first heard about the event, when Aryaketu had mentioned it in the car on our way to a semi solitary retreat in Bihali at the beginning of the month. We had initially hoped to take this retreat at Bordharan, which is much closer to Nagpur, but the centre had been fully booked. My interest was immediately piqued then, not only for the prospect of another opportunity to see Bordharan, but also because the retreat would be led by Subhuti, one of Triratna’s most senior Order Members and one of founder Sangharakshita’s foremost disciples. I had listened to recordings of Subhuti’s talks online and had read some of his work too, but even though he is president of the London Buddhist Centre, as he spends up to six months of every year on multiple trips working in India, the chance to attend not just one but a whole week of his talks in person seemed a very fine Christmas present indeed. At the very least, I’d be guaranteed to understand a percentage of the programme. Although a majority of it would be in Hindi, a common language for many of the young people who would be gathering from states all across India, Subhuti gives talks in English with an interpreter.

Despite my initial enthusiasm, for a while it didn’t seem possible. Aryaketu seemed keen that I should attend, but various other people were not so sure it was a good idea;
 I was likely to be the only white face in a sea of up to 300 excited young Indians, there would be no specific provision for us delicate westerners with regards to eating and sleeping, and we were scheduled to make a 5 hour interstate train journey at 6am the day after my return to visit Raipur in Chhattisgarh. Granted, some of these very valid reservations didn’t exactly fill me with excited anticipation but I am made of tougher stuff than to be put off by potential inconvenience and it didn’t sound like the possible discomforts would come anywhere near outweighing the likely benefits. A spiritual gym session. OK, I would probably find myself flung into pseudo-celebrity status based upon my lack of melanin and the resulting assumptions; but I’ve got rather wearily used to that and have become quite practiced at polite disengagement from the requests for ‘just one selfie’ (read at least twenty selfies and the same from all said selfie takers friends) and floods of repetitive and inaccurately phrased questions (‘from where you are?’ ‘Have you what age?’ ‘Ma’am please I want your good name?’). Yes, I’d probably end up trying to sleep like a sardine on the floor with scores of excited teenage girls, but those who thought that would put me off knew nothing of my past experiences attempting to grapple a few hours kip under a wobbly paste table, far too near MetalVotze (don’t try and translate that) and a selection of unwashed body parts belonging to unknown numbers of Germans, Finns, Swedes and other random Europeans in various states of hangover replenishment at Demoscene Parties. If you’ve survived these and still managed to wake up with enough energy to complete a winning entry to the freestyle graphics competition, you can probably handle most sleeping conditions, I reckon. And as for food; I like Indian food. The five hour train journey to Raipur? Would be in an actual bed. QED.

Still, I wasn’t sure how much I could jump up and down and demand to go, especially as I would be indirectly expecting my colleagues to take on all the teaching again, but when I received an invitation from my very good friend Neha; designer, camera woman, editor and all round amazing creative whirlwind at Lord Buddha TV, who would be filming at the event, my resolve to demonstrate that ‘where there’s a will there’s a way’ became manifest and so at 10:30 on Christmas morning I was honoured to take the front seat of a car bursting with people, luggage, camera equipment and a good deal of excited metta.

I had hoped that I might be able to assist Neha; I knew she’d have a very busy schedule and though my background isn’t in media directly, I can turn my hand to the photographic if required and learn pretty fast. This modest ambition hadn’t accounted for language barriers however, and though Neha’s English is better than basic, my Marathi, like my Hindi, is non-existent and it was obviously easier for her to simply do something than explain to me what needed doing. Her brother was also helping with a second camera so actually, she was fairly well covered and I contented myself with occasional ferrying of equipment to feel useful. As such, I quickly realised that following Neha round like a duckling follows mum, whilst reassuring, was not really helping either of us. After unloading into our luxuriously sardine-free room, shared with only five other Order members, organisers and Erica, (the only other white face at the event aside from Subhuti himself!), I left Neha to her work and began to absorb the reality of the situation into which I had voluntarily plunged for the next 6 days.
My first act of settling in was to make a note of the programme for the days ahead in my diary, as listed on a printed programme I borrowed from Neha. Though subject to change, it gave me a good starting point. I also quickly realised exactly why the event was being referred to as a conference rather than a retreat! Each day started at 05:30, when we were encouraged to ‘wake up’. Tea would be served at 06:15, followed by half an hour of Chi Kung at 06:30. This preceded an hour of meditation at 07:00, with breakfast between 08:00 and 09:00. The day then really got going with the main talk (by Subhuti) at 10:00. Each day had a different, related topic; How to Think, Transformation, Equality, Social Responsibility and finally, Being an Activist, then after the 90 minute talk, we would split into discussion groups. Some days followed this with a ‘Q&A with Subhuti’ session planned before lunch at 13:00. 14:00 to 14:45 was generously scheduled as ‘rest’ before more chai and a series of ‘floating sessions’ at 15:00, which I soon learned meant somewhat impromptu study and/or discussion sessions. From 16:30 until 18:00 would be debates, panel discussions or seminars related to the theme of the day and after supper (served between 19:00 and 20:00), there were talks, presentations or celebratory activities leading up to the close with a puja at 21:30. The schedule kindly timetabled ‘sleep’ at 22:00. I began to see that the week would slip by very fast indeed.

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The Dormitory of the Privileged!
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A Full Schedule...
I spent some time in the afternoon of our arrival sitting in the shrine room Stupa, enjoying the peace and glad to be once more out of chaotic Nagpur. I was more than a little disturbed at first to discover I wasn’t allowed to leave the centre, being told that if I wanted to go for a walk I was welcome to do circuits of the site, but I tried to welcome the resulting feelings of suffocation and entrapment as an opportunity to practice acceptance. Much as I didn’t like the feeling that I was in some sort of dharmic prison for a week, I didn’t want to kick up an unnecessary fuss either and given my rather unpleasant experience in the jungle near Bihali, a little part of me wondered if it might not be sensible to curb my wanderlust for a week anyway.
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The Inauguration Ceremony
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Installing the Buddha on the Shrine
It was as well I rested; the opening ceremony was a high energy affair with a re-enactment of one of Dr Ambedkar’s most famous acts of civil and spiritual disobedience, which clearly stimulated the already excited crowd to even stronger resolve with regards to their purpose for the week. On December 25th 1927, Dr Ambedkar had publically burned a copy of the core Hindu text, the Manu Smriti. Subhuti explained that though this was often presented as an ancient script, it was in fact relatively modern and had been written by Brahmins (Hindu high caste community), containing within it the primary justification for caste discrimination in the Hindu religion. Burning this document was one of the first public steps Ambedkar took in renouncing the religion of his birth and the entrenched injustices that so many were subjected to in its name.

I realised then that this was not ‘just’ an opportunity for young people to learn about Buddhism and meekly deepen their practice. Many of those attending this event would be children of Ambedkarites, social activists born and bred, possibly even descendants of those who were at the original mass conversion 60 years ago. Many, though not all, would be from Scheduled Caste backgrounds and if the flavour of the event (subtitled A Democratic Revolution; from Individual
to Institutions) or the language of the planned talks seemed more radical than spiritual, this was for the very good reason that many of their families would have embraced Buddhism, at least to begin with, as an exit strategy from significant disadvantage and discrimination based upon no more than the circumstances of their birth. Of course, I know by now a fair amount about the life and tireless philanthropy of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, but I found myself wondering for not the first time since my arrival into the Indian Sangha, if it will ever be possible for me to relate to him with such depth of feeling as an Indian from an ‘Ex Untouchable’ community. I have no wish to engage in rhetorical activities or disingenuous speech in an attempt to fit in but I don’t want to be merely an outside observer, a political tourist. I drew to mind Aryaketu’s talk at the Deekshabhoomi, in which he related to us Ambedkar’s vision for the future; an international Buddhist movement that stretches beyond local emancipation into the manifestation of global liberation, equality and fraternity. I may not have a shared history with these young people but I certainly share an ambition with them. I have not experienced the same oppression or hardships that fuelled Babasaheb and his modern followers but we certainly have a common aspiration and ultimately, I draw my inspiration from the same teacher; the Buddha. I resolved to keep these facts mentally close at hand over the coming days.
So it was that I again found myself on a fast track integration process; once more a fish out of water socially, politically, culturally and spiritually. This was heightened by the anticipated number of very curious and excitable teenagers, many of whom had never seen a white person before and thought nothing of making comments such as ‘when I first saw you I thought you were an albino because we’ve got them in our village but actually it’s OK because now I know you’re a foreigner’ (read awed emphasis on that final word). I had enjoyed a surge of confidence since my post-Bihali spiritual rebirth experience (as discussed in my last update) but I now found myself reacquainted with a more withdrawn and introverted version of myself. I did not wish to appear unfriendly and wanted to be sure I was giving a positive first impression, where it was being taken, on behalf of modern Western people (no pressure there then), but I needed to remain equally true to myself and at the time, this was a self of study, observation and introspection. I skipped around the edges of multiple social interactions, like a pebble not yet committing to the lake and tried to politely take my leave as quickly as possible.

After the first full day, I realised that participating in the afternoon events was probably not the best use of energy. As they were all in Hindi, I would understand only a tiny percentage of the material and so I was glad to carve some space for myself each afternoon while the ‘coast was clear’ for reading (I’d brought some texts), rest and yoga (I’d also brought my mat!). The daily highlight for me was without doubt the main talk by Subhuti and as I waited in the atmosphere of hushed excitement for the programme to begin on the first morning, I sensed I was not alone in this. I really felt myself to be at the ‘cutting edge’ not just of my own personal practice but of the work being done in the Triratna Buddhist Order; and at the front of the Dharma itself, as if we were at the driving edge of a weather front gradually sweeping across a landscape of change.
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Lunch! A delicious, if potentially awkward social affair!
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A sentiment I greatly appreciated in the first few days!
Though none of the content felt entirely new, I very much enjoyed the language of delivery (in more ways than one!) and it felt fresh regardless. I also found myself learning a lot from simply watching how Subhuti delivered his talks; a succinctly expressed core message, an economy of gesture, a deliberate utility of the necessary pause for interpretation. His talks struck an impressive balance between calm statement of fact and firm assertion of the need for action, and I felt that listening to them was like witnessing a gentle stream; soft and soothing, yet persistently unstoppable. The lightest possible touch ultimately resulting in irreversible change as concepts pooled, gathering momentum for intention to be channelled, inevitably eroding a landscape of apparently fixed socio-political conditions.
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My group in discussion
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A ritual JAI BHIM!
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The Wonderful Group 22!

Following these main talks, we quickly gathered in our discussion groups and I was fortunate to have several people in mine who spoke some English, Prachi especially, who kindly took on the role of interpreting. Diksha, NNBY co-ordinator, and Raul facilitated the discussions and always made a point of trying to include me wherever possible. I wasn’t always able to completely follow the discussion and sensed that on occasion the translated content of what I had to contribute wasn’t entirely as substantial as the thoughts I’d tried to convey, but nevertheless, I really enjoyed the opportunity to engage with a smaller, more controlled group of convention participants. That we met over the course of the week helped too, as I could actually begin to develop a sense of individual personality in a sea of faces and deepen my friendship with them.

The first few days were definitely focused on grounding myself and settling in. I found concentration during meditation difficult; I wasn’t struggling to sit but my mind was very active, processing all the new experiential stimuli. On the third day, I found that while I was not easily maintaining my focus on the led mindfulness of breathing meditation, I was having productive thoughts nonetheless, so aware of and receptive to this diversion, I allowed the flow to take its course. I suddenly felt I understood how I could make meaningful contact with my fellow participants and open up a genuine channel of communication that wasn’t limited to tedious pleasantries or ‘cocktail party’ exchange as restricted by a very basic English education. I could see a way to demonstrate areas of commonality and hopefully even correct some misconceptions and erroneous assumptions around my apparent symbolism of Western culture. Who cares really how many brothers or sisters I have or have not got anyway!? In September, I had given a well-received talk titled ‘Why I am a Buddhist’ on a beginners weekend at the Vajrasana retreat centre in Suffolk, and though it might seem I had little to contribute to the very specific needs of these young people in terms of teachings or imparted wisdom, at the very least I could share my story (that I knew so many were keen to hear) and explain how I could see us united in a common future, even if we had travelled from diverse pasts. I realised I even had my notes from the original talk with me. Although the talk as I wrote it for the Vajrasana audience would not be appropriate, it was certainly a good starting point. As we left the meditation hall, I spoke to my roommate, Order Member and co-leader, Shraddhavajri, suggesting that I might give a speech. I already knew of course, how tight the schedule was and how carefully planned. The last thing I wanted to do was appear presumptuous but I did feel very strongly that it would be a good thing to do. I was relieved that she agreed it would be beneficial and that she would talk to the team. From this point on, I felt it was equally likely that either nothing would happen at all, or I’d be given 5 minutes to prepare for a 60 minute speech, so I erred on the side of caution and started to make some notes that afternoon.
Meeting Shraddhavajri must be recorded as one of the high points of my week, and has furnished me with yet another inspirational female figure to add to my growing collection since becoming involved with Triratna. Living and working in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, she teaches Physical Education as well as running Dharma classes, youth groups and supporting the Ordination processes of six young women. At least that’s everything I can remember. I suspect that’s only about half of it. She vividly described a talk she’d recently given on gender equality, how shocked some of her teaching colleagues had been by it and how much negative feedback she’d received in the aftermath. She’s a couple of years younger than me but by Indian standards that’s apparently very old to be unmarried. Still, she’s holding off the constant social pressure, but for how much longer she’ll manage, I’m not sure. I’ve often refused to call myself a feminist because those I have encountered in the west who describe themselves as such seem more interested in female supremacy than real gender equality, but listening to her made me realise that in India, I have absolutely no hesitation whatsoever in planting myself very squarely in a proudly feminist camp. I only wish I knew how to support such a remarkable woman, who is to my mind ploughing on in a strikingly selfless and admirable fashion to blaze a much needed trail and set a firm example to the women around her that their future need not be dictated by a default assumption of gender typical roles.
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Neha; Never far from the action...
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Candle lit Puja on the final night.
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A rare chance to rest on the last morning!
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Shraddhavajri giving an interview for LBTV
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The Sangha just keeps growing...!



Neha is another of these inspirational women with whom I consider myself very privileged to have become friends and though she was busy much of the time, we did manage to sneak some moments for conversation, which further strengthened our spiritual and social bond. As well as discussing her feelings in the run up to her own wedding, a conversation I found very difficult at times, she kindly gave me a good chunk of her afternoon one day to tell me her story. Having written the life stories of Saccadhamma and Sheetal, I felt it was very important to share Neha’s. Not only is hers another tale of overcoming significant disadvantage, as an alumni of Aryaloka, it also details just how transformational the opportunities offered at the education centre can be. I knew it would be a good story but even I didn’t expect some of the details and I’m looking forward to sharing it as soon as I get a chance in the coming weeks. As a dedicated member of the Lord Buddha TV team, she is often behind the microphone when interviews are conducted but, she told me, I was the first person to ask her for an interview. That may be the case, I replied, and lucky me for getting there first, but I am absolutely sure I will not be the last. Such is Neha’s sparkling energy and selfless determination to spread the Dharma, she has found herself with the dubious privilege of being additionally stretched with the demands of being one of Subhuti’s most trusted assistants. And it is a privilege, but a hard earned one and though she clearly treasures his guidance and friendship with a great respect, this does mean she is often taking on a good deal of extra work. Without wanting to exploit her contacts or her good nature, I’d asked if it might be possible to arrange a meeting at his convenience; I didn’t want to assume special treatment, or that I’d be a priority in a busy schedule but it seemed like I would be missing an opportunity if I didn’t at least ask. True to form, she did what she could and told me that at 4pm on Thursday, I would be welcome to visit Subhuti for a chat.
Thursday turned out to be a significant day; as well as a meeting with Subhuti, I found I would be invited that evening to give my ‘Why I am a Buddhist’ talk at the opening of the scheduled Cultural Programme. I’d also spoken to co-leader, Maitriveer Nagarjuna (who I’d met briefly once before at Nagaloka) not only about the possibility of delivering a talk, but also about the appropriate content of it. He’d enthusiastically accepted the offer, telling me I could talk for 15 to 20 minutes, the same length as the original speech which seemed perfect. I planned for this to allow me some time to cover my personal background, explain how I had encountered Buddhism for very different reasons to most of the participants and then go on to finish by explaining most critically, what we had in common through the vision of Ambedkar and with the support of Triratna (though it is a distinct and separate entity, NNBY is a Triratna based organisation). I managed to remove some of the original talk, written in language that just wouldn’t have made sense to the audience, even with interpretation, to make space for the new content but then I’d added far too much more and with only my tablet, not a laptop to write on and not even any paper to scrawl over, as 4pm approached, I found my head feeling quite scrambled with all I hoped to say. I decided to leave it to one side and return to it later. I didn’t expect to spend more than a quarter of an hour or so with Subhuti so I would have plenty of time.

It’s a strange thing to meet for the first time someone with whose appearance, speech and mannerisms one has become already familiar. Such had been the depth of my engagement with Subhuti’s talks that I almost felt as though we’d already conversed and Neha had described him as having such a kind nature that I didn’t feel at all uncomfortable taking myself up to the hut behind the Stupa where he was staying with Maitriveer, another Order Member Ratnakumar, and possibly one or two others. We were soon sitting on a small, basic, concrete veranda looking out on to a jungle scene of faded teak leaves and dry grasses. To describe the scene as a riot of beige might not be wildly inaccurate but seriously undermines it and perhaps tawny, amber, gold and sienna would all better describe the colours that shone out of the winter landscape in the warmth of the late afternoon sun. I’m not sure if it was because of this complimentary contrast or because they have this colour all of their own, but it particularly occurred to me that this otherwise visually unremarkable elderly gentleman to whom I had presented myself, had a pair of the most strikingly blue eyes I’ve ever seen. If the eyes really are the windows to the soul (though of course the existence of a fixed soul is not reality to a Buddhist) his radiated a wisdom housed in such clarity and depth, yet tempered with so delicate and light hearted a demeanour it that was hard not to feel an almost instantly affectionate respect for this person that I really only knew through very indirect means. Perhaps that he reminded me slightly of one of my uncles influenced this too. It’s probably no surprise that our conversation meandered its way into the realms of art (I think I sort of summarised how I’d ended up with Triratna and where I hoped to go next, but I’m sure we enjoyed all sorts of tangents along the way) and though I’m normally cautious not to bore people by forcing them to look at photos of my art on a first meeting, he did seem so genuinely interested that before I knew it I’d pulled out my tablet and broken my own social taboo. Time is famous for its elastic properties, especially when ones experience of it is particularly pleasant, and as well as thoroughly enjoying the depth of our conversation, I was also relishing the rare opportunity to speak so fluently and with such rich subtlety of vocabulary with a fellow Brit, so one might have expected time to have flown characteristically. This wasn’t how it seemed to go though, and when I was very courteously dismissed to make allowance for his next appointment (though ‘go away please, I need a rest’ would have been an equally acceptable termination) I was neither surprised not expecting to see that a full hour had passed. I could have happily carried on chatting indefinitely and know there would have been plenty more to discuss, yet I did not feel that I had had to wind up early, or that there were unexpressed thoughts left wanting. Perhaps that is how one experiences time when a genuine presence in the moment has been achieved and it’s true to say that such was my absorption that for not one second of that hour did my mind wander to mundane musing of things that had happened earlier in the day, or anticipation of events to come later. It was, then, with mild shock that I returned to my room to find my semi-written notes for the evening talk awaiting a swift conclusion.  

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Subhuti enroute from the hut to the stupa for the morning talk...
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One suspects he only rarely misses a trick...
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Delivering the daily talk...
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Enthusiastically celebrating the 10th NNBY National Conference!
After a couple of attempts to finish it as a fully written speech that just resulted in it getting ever longer, I then started to try and summarise, but opted in the end for an A5 side of jumbled bullet points and a hefty portion of faith in my ability to communicate the crux of what I wanted to say based on how well I knew the material. No one wants to listen to someone merely read from a document anyway and so I relaxed into letting myself feel prepared enough and elected for some sunset yoga instead to clear the sudden mental chattering and re-centre myself before dinner.

When I arrived at the arena where the stage was set for the evening, Neha was already setting up the camera. She looked exhausted as she fixed me squarely in the eye and clearly stated ‘I am only here for you!’ She’d hoped for an evening off as she had no commitment to film the cultural programme, but I’d persuaded her it couldn’t do any harm to record the performances, which even if she didn’t need footage from immediately, may come in handy for future projects. She’d considered this politely, clearly still with an eye to a night of relaxation, but then I’d gone and roundly scuppered any idea of an early night by being so inconsiderate as to actually go and give a speech! I was rather selfishly glad of her presence. Though it was potentially useful for whatever I ended up muttering about to be captured on film, I was really just very grateful of the moral support that her attendance implied. Of course, I knew I would be first up that evening but I was not expecting to be suddenly called to make offerings at the shrine on stage along with Subhuti, nor to be received myself with flowers and positioned on a seat next to him!
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Starting proceedings by making offerings to the shrine
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It's possible that Bharti interpreted a far better speech than I gave...

If I’d not felt glad to have met him earlier that day for just about every other reason possible, I was suddenly very glad that this wasn’t our first introduction. I’d expected nothing of this part of the proceedings and as I was standing only slightly awkwardly to one side trying to work out how to participate appropriately while being urged to join in with the ritual, the gentleman acting as MC, calmly informed me that I had five minutes to speak. I equally calmly explained that I had planned for up to twenty. He didn’t seem to realise for one moment the conundrum that this presented me as he then pointed out that as I’d need to allow time for interpretation, what he meant really was that I had about two and a half. I decided to quit while I was ahead before my slot was reduced any further and placed incense on the shrine before participating in the ritual bowing and taking my seat. ‘Hello again’ is a much easier sentence when finding oneself suddenly on stage with someone than ‘nice to meet you’, and this did calm what would otherwise have been an increasingly fraught situation. ‘What are you talking about?’ Subhuti politely inquired as the audience settled. ‘Well,’ I began, ‘I was supposed to be discussing Why I am a Buddhist but I’ve just been told that the time I’d planned for has been reduced by about ninety percent.’ ‘You talk for as long as you like’ he replied, and so whilst I felt it would be a good idea to be as succinct as possible, I dispensed with an instinct to rush. I abandoned my A5 sheet of bullet points and instead began the monologue that I’d internally rehearsed in various parts throughout the preceding days.

I think I managed to get the bulk of what needed saying across by simply dispensing with my autobiography, which, whilst I’m sure my audience would have been delighted to hear, really wasn’t the most important point at all. Despite my slightly unprepared rambling, it seemed to go down well. I felt more confident when spontaneous applause erupted in response to one statement and when I returned to my seat next to Subhuti, he gently leant over and simply said ‘nice’, demonstrating perhaps more effectively than I had just done, exactly how much it’s possible to convey really very succinctly indeed. I relaxed as he then introduced the cultural night, explaining the importance of creativity and enjoyment, before our chairs were moved to the side of the stage and the stars of the night stepped up to take their places. I was relieved to be off the stage but still felt a little awkward to be sat with the lead team and was keen to reassert my position as ‘one of you’ by returning to my place in the audience as soon as possible, so I snuck back at an appropriate pause to enjoy all the performances with occasional interpretation from Neha and Raju.

Raju later persuaded me to sing but I'm not posting the video of that bit. I’d been very reluctant at first as I felt I’d already had my share of the limelight and I’d earlier resisted invitations by my discussion group to read a poem. I realised though, as I sat there, that whilst I may feel uncomfortable because of it, like it or not I did represent something bigger than myself, I represented an international connection, and for young people who had perhaps never left their village before it was more important to utilise this than to try and demonstrate its lack of substance. I realised being seen to share in the event was more important than attempting to retain the illusion of dignity, so I agreed, and hacked my way through the same song I’d appeased the community girls with a couple of times; the only (appropriate) song I knew all the way through, a favourite from my teens and one that I realised as I sung it was strangely dharmic; Spaceman by 4 Non Blondes. I’m pretty sure I sang at least half of it flat but Hindi singing sounds like it’s in a different key or something to me anyway and no one seemed to mind, judging by the number of people who came up to me the following day and told me how ‘beautiful’ my singing was. Of course I suspect they’d have said that even if I’d pulled out my old party trick of gargling the Beatles ‘When I’m 64’ but I must have done something right. The most significant feedback I received; however, was from those who told me they’d felt moved, or touched by the talk, especially the comment ‘I didn’t realise someone from a different background, a foreigner, could feel the same way about things as me.’ Uh huh. There we go. Box ticked. Job done.


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Taking the stage...
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Finally the talking is over...
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And the real party gets started!
The cultural night gave way into another chilly morning and the final day opened up ahead of us, the theme of which was ‘Being an Activist’. Perhaps it’s a coincidence, perhaps the result of skilled planning and the accumulated content of exceptional talks but I really did feel on that day that I finally had a sense of how my future contributions to the work of NNBY, and Triratna in general might pan out. Subhuti’s final talk gave guidance on the qualities of an ‘ideal’ NNBY activist, but he took pains to clarify that every member of any group, social, spiritual or political, brings their own skills and abilities to the mix and finding one’s own contributions were critical. It was in this frame of mind that I started to realise myself in context. I seem to have an ability to connect with people and to see beyond the cultural or social differences to the person beneath (at least most of the time, I still need to work on it!). I think this first became manifest before I found Buddhism, right back when I was using my arts practice to encourage strangers in UK cities to explore their perceptions of the urban spaces they shared with one another. I’m also a good teacher. This skill doesn’t always find its full potential in the obvious ways, maybe my finest hour isn’t instructing young people in how to use grammatical rules I don’t understand myself, but when I find something of value, I’m driven to share it and the Dharma is perhaps the best example of this I yet know. I also enjoy travelling. This hasn’t seemed so remarkable to me in the past, after all, I’d have thought, who doesn’t? I’ve had cause recently though, from comments made to me by various people and observations I’ve made of my fellow travellers, that actually, not everyone does. Some people do it because they need to be in a different place for some reason. I do it because I have a real thirst for exploration and I genuinely enjoy the experience (yes, even the challenging bits).

I’m not quite sure what form it will take yet, but I’m starting to see that bringing these qualities together, a desire to visit new places, an ability to connect with people from different backgrounds and to help them connect with one another as well as a deep wish to share dharmic practices, might be a really good foundation of skills that could be used in helping to realise Dr Ambedkar’s global vision for the future, within the framework of Sangharakshita’s teachings and the Triratna movement.
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That might all sound a bit grand. So much the better. I’m sure Subhuti hardly needs it from me, but I couldn’t have approved more of his closing lines. It’s important to have a long term goal but to get there, we must be skilled in applying the principles of Dharma to the situation around us; the Dharma is something to be lived. The Buddha is the ideal activist, Subhuti explained, and if you want to be an ideal activist you must become more and more like the Buddha.

So then, after a week in the jungle with it, how can I describe the National Network of Buddhist Youth? In the first, most practical instance, it’s an organisation run by young people identifying as Buddhist, which seeks to make connections through common spiritual practice, spanning the different Indian states to achieve a goal of social equality and freedom from caste as inspired by the work of Dr Ambedkar.

Really though, it’s so much more than that. It’s a vehicle that empowers young people, regardless of their background to realise the confidence and tools they need to reach their full potential. It enables its members to see not just through caste distinctions but beyond them, to recognise that they are united, not divided, by something far bigger. It provides opportunities for social development, for spiritual evolution and practical skills acquisition. It’s also the biggest bunch of friendly, energetic, dynamically excited young people I think I’ve ever met and I feel quite reassured, because if the future of the Dharma Revolution really does lie (at least partly) in their hands, then it’s definitely going places.

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Sangha Day – in Sickness and in Health

18/11/2016

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As many Buddhists around the world know, last Monday (November full moon) was Sangha Day. Those of you reading this who are not familiar with Buddhist terminology may like to know the word ‘Sangha’ refers to the spiritual community and is considered one of the Three Jewels of Buddhism; along with the ideal of human enlightenment (represented by the figure of the Buddha) and the teachings that enable us to achieve this state (known as the Dharma or Dhamma depending upon whether you’re using Pali or Sanskrit). Sangha Day is celebrated in November (on a ‘supermoon’ this year!), as it traditionally marks the end of the rainy season (though I’ve seen not a drop since I arrived 5 weeks ago). This then, was the day that all the monks and nuns left the shelter of their temporary communities to once again ‘go forth’ and teach the Dhamma as far and widely as possible. There were two traditional practices on this day; for the monks and nuns, confession was critical. Having been cooped up for so long during the rains, many unskillful and unkind words or actions may have slipped past even the most well-meaning practitioner and to leave these weighing on a guilty conscience was not the best way to bid your compatriots farewell, not the most honest way to begin teaching higher ideals.
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Mahendra Nagar Triratna Buddhist Centre
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Buddhist flag flying at Mahendra Nagar
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Stupa to the donor of the land at Mahendra Nagar
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The Sangha Day shrine is prepared...
For the ‘lay’ folk, dana, or giving, was important and they would make new robes for the ordained to go off in. This was partly gratitude for the teachings they had received during the season and partly to make their own contribution to helping spread the benefits of Dhamma teaching. For modern practitioners in Triratna, these activities are not so relevant but there is often the opportunity to ‘reaffirm’ the vows one made when becoming a mitra or member of the order. I had received an invitation to one such ceremony in London, but of course would be unable to go, so when I heard that Sheetal was going to a reaffirmation day at her local Triratna Centre, I was immediately keen to attend; not just as it would be my first opportunity to visit the Mahendra Nagar Centre but also to participate in the puja. It would have been an enjoyable activity in the UK but here it seemed like a really quite important thing to do. Not only would I be able to reaffirm my commitment to my own mind, I could do it publicly and let my adopted Sangha see that I was genuine in my ‘Going for Refuge to The Three Jewels’, alongside them and in the same manner that they do. As I’ve mentioned before, though there is much that is at least similar enough to feel familiar in Triratna in India there is also a lot that is really very different as well.
After we arrived at the centre, I was able to relax and enjoy watching the shrine dressing activites. Of course, we’d turned up absolutely on time to an event organized in India so we had at least 45 minutes to wait before much happened. As it turned out, things finally kicked off merely an hour and ten minutes late. I knew I was going to have difficulty following a lot of the day as it would be conducted in Marathi but thankfully, the day started with chants in Pali (which I know, whew!) and a period of Metta Bhavana meditation, which I am familiar enough with to follow the stages of sans guidance. I focused on a few people from Triratna in the UK. I feel part of both Manchester and London sanghas since my move north to south, so I had plenty of people to pick from! Such is the nature of genuine friendships I think; it doesn’t matter how distant you are, those bonds remain true, so happily you don’t really lose such friends, you just accumulate them. After this, there was a full-on talk that I actually couldn’t follow so I made time to make lesson planning notes and jot down some thoughts for myself about the nature of Sangha and the re-commitment I was about to make. Thinking about Sangha seemed especially apt in such a situation, finding myself as I was, suspended in limbo almost (if you’ll pardon the analogy from an alternative religion!) between Indian and English sanghas. Occasionally, I could grasp bits of what the speaker was discussing, especially when he began referencing the Five Precepts using the Pali terms we chant every day. Unfortunately, my studious air and feverish scribbling apparently meant everyone assumed I understood Marathi (I constantly underestimate just how scrutinized ones actions are here; if you do something, you can guarantee everyone’s not only noticed you doing it but drawn about a hundred corresponding conclusions before you’ve even finished.) This explained their confusion and disappointment when I was unable to respond to their attempts in conversation!

Lunch was a predictably delicious affair of rice, dhal, chappatis and subji and we had a full hour to eat it, which I was grateful for as previous experiences led me to assume it would be a bit of a rush! When the ceremony began, I was excited to learn it would be a Sevenfold Puja thinking I knew it well enough to follow under my breath in English; so much for that. It was completely different and I just couldn’t work out which stage we were doing beyond about the third. There was no Heart Sutra and no final mantras. Hey ho.

The actual reaffirmation involved so many people that even just this section alone took over an hour! The Mitra Ceremony involves making offerings to the shrine of a flower, some incense and a candle (representing physical impermanence, the all-pervading nature of the Dharma and the illumination of the enlightenment mind) so you can imagine that for nearly every person in attendance (Sheetal and I estimated about 150) to do this takes some time. Buddhists aren’t best known for rushing things either; it’s a bit at odds with the 'calm and mindful' job description!
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The hall is laid for meditation and puja...
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And finally, the speakers arrive on stage!
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Flowers...
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...incense...
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...and candles for the Reaffirmation Ceremony.
Sheetal was keen to know how the numbers of mitras compared with the UK but I found it so difficult to say. It certainly seemed like a greater percentage of those attending were mitras than I might expect in the UK but then it was a day for mitras and India is generally a society in which spirituality is infinitely more normalized. There are four Triratna centres just in Nagpur. Even London only has three. Comparing any aspect of India and England (and I know this is a strange analogy coming from a vegan) is a bit like comparing finest matured Stilton to processed ‘cheese food slices’. They’re sort of the same in a great many ways and yet at the same time, couldn’t be more different. Notionally, one might be qualified to have superior qualities to the other and yet there are times and places where only the ‘inferior’ will do. If that makes no sense to you then that’s fine. I’m still equally confused about really pinning down the differences between my home and adopted cultures so that makes us just about even.

That evening, I had agreed to take our community of young women round the corner to Nagaloka where the esteemed Dhammachari Lokamitra was giving a talk for Sangha Day. He has a great deal of experience in India and is one of the founding members of Triratna (or FWBO as it was) in the country so he is very much respected not just as a senior international Order Member but as one who really understands the local community here too. He spoke at length (though I know it was just a summary) on Dr Ambedkar’s approach to Dhamma, detailing his assertion that it was a way to achieve empowerment, a method for overcoming barriers between people and a key factor in effective governance. Lokamitra discussed each of these from the perspective of how we operate as a Sangha. He concluded by stating that if we are honestly practicing the Dhamma on an individual level and as a community supporting each other in our ideals, we should be an example of the most effectively functioning community possible. This in turn renders us empowered to break down barriers in society and utilise our human commonalities to facilitate the effectively radical, and not just tired old prescriptive governance that is required to really build a better world. To build the world we speak of when we greet each other ‘Jai Bhim’, and call to victory for Ambedkar’s vision of a truly equal society.
So I’d like to say that after a day of all that intense focus on Sangha, the community I live and work with, those individuals who together form one of my three key refuges in a practice that ultimately pivots on cultivating universal, selfless compassion, I’d like to say I came away overflowing with metta (loving kindness) and bursting at the seams with warm, friendly positivity. I’d like to say that because it would be appropriate, it would be ‘nice’ and it would mean I could stop writing this increasingly lengthy update; but it wouldn’t be very truthful.
Actually, I came away wondering. One of the first questions in the year one mitra study course (and one Sheetal, Shakyajata and I had recently considered in a very fruitful study session) asks which of the three jewels we feel most strongly attracted to. For myself, it’s always been Dhamma (or Dharma if I’m in UK brain).
Not just in terms of the teachings but also in another more subtle use of the word that refers to what I interpret as a universal flow of energy of which we are all a part, once we transcend our own egos. This energy, I do not believe to be unique to Buddhism. I think some religions call it God. Some people who might be broadly spiritual but not ‘religious’ per se call it ‘Mother Nature’, or even more abstractly ‘Love’. I have an inkling that physicists call it ‘Dark Matter’ and rather enjoy baffling themselves by trying to pin aspects of it down in particle accelerators. I suspect we may eventually find out it’s simultaneously all and yet none of these things. You can probably tell from this paragraph that I’m rather fond of thinking about it. So, my ‘one’ of the three (not that it’s really possible to separate them, of course) is not Sangha. Don’t get me wrong, I feel communities are critically important regardless of your culture and I spent much of my time while I qualified on an MA trying to develop ways through an Art and Design practice to strengthen community, find commonality, empower people and breakdown barriers. In terms of my spiritual life though, it’s not the most important one. And having heard and thought so much about Sangha, having been embraced so warmly into this new one, I felt really awkward about about that.
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Lokamitra prepares to speak at Nagaloka
For the next couple of days, I felt decidedly ‘not right’. Low energy. Unable to settle down to things I felt I ought to. Unable to find motivation to do the things I felt I ought to want to do. Write a blog update about Sangha Day, for one! I decided to let myself have some time ‘doing nothing’. I’m starting to find that when I get ‘stuck’ and decide to do this, what I actually do is far from nothing. What I actually do is allow some space for the things bubbling and brewing away in my subconscious to ‘do their thing’, to coalesce, to ripen and bear fruit. I then started reading some of Bhante’s writing, ‘Conversion in Buddhism’ and ‘The Ideal of Human Enlightenment’, both pretty core texts and both with their share of comments to make about the role of Sangha. One thing that struck me in his discussion was the importance of having a community to bear witness to you at your best and, sometimes, at your worst. Funnily enough, this is one of the things I have been finding most challenging about my current situation. I’m very used to living alone. Even when I don’t live alone, I’m used to being able to take as much time as I want to myself, to work through when I’m not feeling at my best in private. To then re-emerge, feeling better, all shiny and new like a butterfly who’s just been able to do all that ugly business of mutating from a caterpillar in the safety of its cocoon and never had to make any of that public. Yet, in a home full to bursting with over 20 people, I cannot do that. Even if I go to my room, everyone in the house knows where I am. If I leave the house, people know. If I return, I am seen. If I am looking a little dishevelled, a little less tired than I might like to admit I feel or anything other than at my total best, I know it has been seen, noticed, witnessed. So much for just lying low until I feel back on top of things again.
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The Sangha Day Shrine, not all incense and flowers...
So much for quietly hiding in my shell until I’m ready to once again present the version of me that I’d like people to think I am all of the time. And this means that I cannot hide it from me either. I am living right up against the surface of myself and can’t indulge my belief that I’m just a little bit superhuman any longer, not even fleetingly. I’ve never been so aware on such a minute by minute basis of all my mundane shortcomings. Occasionally, I’ve been excruciatingly aware of some huge glaring flaws in my personality but I’ve done rather a lot of work on those thanks to several years of counselling and I find them really quite manageable these days. Until now though, I’ve never been so aware of all the tiny, trivial, apparently unimportant ways that I’m not quite as I’d like to be. I feel as if I am staring into a mirror, 24/7. Not just a mirror of my physical form either, but worse, a mirror of my inner psyche. Sound harrowing? It is. And I find that maybe this is why I am not as enamoured with Sangha as I might have thought I would, or should be. Maybe it’s all just a bit too raw, but maybe it’s exactly what I need to be doing. Six months of life at the cutting edge of my (very new) spiritual practice was never going to be all about lighting candles and arranging flowers on a shrine to the heady scent of incense and the pleasant chanting of melodic mantras.
My experience of dissatisfaction with my own mundane reality reached its peak, when in the early hours of Thursday morning, I finally had cause to really concede my belief that I’m super human. I finally had to give up my resolution that ‘this is great, I’m practically a native! I’ve got guts of STEEL I’ll never get sick in India!’ whilst deciding which end of myself to first position over a bucket. Thank goodness I had a bucket. I’ll spare you any further details but there, along with the bodily fluids I never realized were so abundant, went any last shreds of dignity and privacy in this household. The thing about having so many people living in one house is that they’re never physically distant and it’s amazing just how much a bucket can amplify the most private of noises in the complete stillness of a far from festive, truly silent night. And of course, from there on in, came the outpourings of concern, the complete eradication of a sense of privacy and the very well-meaning offers of various Indian remedies. I have learned that there is nothing like the love of an Indian grandmother, gently yet persistently plying you with Ayurvedic remedies that appear to be the equivalent of pouring melted Vics Vapour Rub into your ailing digestive tract 'because your fire's gone out', to make you quite determined to get better just as soon as possible. Unfortunately, where we encounter one kind of suffering in our immediate experience, we often compound this for ourselves by generating a load more in our felt responses to it. Buddhism describes this as the ‘second arrow’; it’s all the ways we hang onto, prolong or add to our own unhappiness. In my case this came tumbling in on me as a barrage of feelings of guilt for getting sick (maybe I ate too much, didn’t wash my hands well enough, failed to follow some sage advice about not exposing myself to various pathogens), worry about being a burden (if I can’t teach, why am I here? Am I going to make others ill? If I can’t help round the house I’m just dead weight, people will think I’m being lazy!) and embarrassment for being seen as I really am (a wet, squidgy lump of meat full of various unpleasant substances and not always best able to retain said substances where polite society traditionally considers appropriate).
Cue a day in bed, consuming nothing but rehydration salts (I avoided further Ayurvedic doses) and reading more Bhante. I managed to get up that evening and was generously cooked a special dinner; lentils and rice cooked into a warm, salty, bland mash. Probably exactly what I needed. After a day in bed, I thought I’d get no sleep at all but I did sleep right through. I managed to drag myself kicking and screaming to the 7am puja and did a very sorry job of attempting to focus on my meditation, but still that was better than what I’d managed the day before.  Feeling better but still not great, when Shakyajata suggested ‘checking in’ after breakfast (A Triratna practice of sharing with Sangha members how you’re feeling) I really didn’t want to. I knew I had nothing nice to say. I also knew that was precisely why it was so important that I did so. Funnily enough, I had felt rather guilty during our last ‘check in’ on Saturday when others felt down or uncomfortable and I had felt really good, as if I was rubbing my happiness in their faces. Now I felt the same but for opposite reasons, guilty for ‘dragging down’ other’s good moods. Well there’s an interesting thing; you really just can’t win against yourself sometimes, eh?
And there I find a recognition; that’s what Sangha is. When you just can’t win against yourself alone, Sangha is the community of others who remind you that life is not a battle you fight against yourself, or alone in the first place. Shakyajata referred to our close working relationship as ‘a cremation ground’ when we first arived. I understood this on one level, I understood that yes, other people can help you work through and eradicate unhelpful things but now I think, I really get it.  Sangha is a community who don’t just help you flush out these impurities, but without whom you couldn’t truly tackle them at all. It’s the coming together of all the other perfectly imperfect people, some of whom are necessarily on top form, some of whom are inevitably not, at any one time. We support each other, we see the best and worst in each other, we get on with it. Sometimes, we even get on with each other, but if we don’t, we’ll use our incompatibilities as fertiliser to grow into stronger, better humans who are one step closer to our common goal together. We’re the mirror in which we see each other’s and our own flaws and foibles, because without that illumination, we can’t grasp the blemishes we need to cleanse. Sangha is the bucket that lovingly contains our midnight explosions without question yet simultaneously amplifies the embarrassing noises, so there’s no hiding from it, so we have to confront the unpleasant truths found within us, we have to empty them out and disinfect them. But whichever end we find ourselves on, whether performing the stoic job of martyrdom that is the bucket or taking the embarrassing role of sickening patient, it’s all just part of the balance of life. To refuse a sharing of these with one another denies others their own fluctuations. Being me ‘at my best’ gives others permission to be at their best too, but why should I deny others the freedom to feel not so great without judgement as well? So that Dhamma I’m so fond of, that flux of combined universal energies, flows in such a way that when I am up, another is counterbalancing this by being proportionately down and one way of seeing it is that it’s my responsibility to share my inevitable ‘meh’ days too so that this can be normalised, that others know I understand these; I have them too. That’s real understanding and community I think. It’s great to share each other’s company when we’re feeling wonderful but perhaps more important to endure ourselves in the company of others during those times when we are not.
So, for my own part, my Sangha Day practices have finally amounted to confession, in the sense of acknowledging that I am not always quite the person I’d like others to have to be around and then dana, in the sense of my genuine commitment to give all of that person to both my spiritual community and to those I work with on a mundane, worldly level. It’s also a commitment to give all of myself to my efforts to realise my will to enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. Giving myself completely to that cause means withholding none of it. It means giving myself entirely with both my features and my flaws, my strengths and my weaknesses. For richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health. It won’t always be pretty, it won’t always be dry or hygienic, but it will always be honest and it will always be safe in the knowledge that even when I am feeling at my least acceptable, there will always be a Sangha there ready to not just accept but to actively expect that honesty. And there I find a place to build my faith in the third jewel. Yes, I believe I can, with enough effort, eventually attain what the Buddha attained. With that faith secured, I believe wholeheartedly in the Dharma as a process for getting there. But can I trust those around me to really be there and support the whole of me on the back of three and a half decades of worldly conditioning that have taught me humans aren’t really always that trustworthy?
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An enlighteming Super-Sangha-Day-Moon!
Hmmm. Well, no, not yet. Not always. But I think this Sangha Day, I learnt why I must try. And as long as I remain mindful of that, I do, at least have faith it will enough to get me there. No, that’s not quite right. Not enough to get me there. Us. It’ll be enough to get me there with my sangha. Wherever they are in the world.
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A Bank Holiday Picnic

1/11/2016

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It sounds like such a British affair to celebrate a rare Monday off work and school, relaxing in the open air with friends and a picnic; but that’s where the similarity ends! The girls had asked to visit the Deekshabhoomi some time back but owing to the practicalities of arranging travel amongst other things, we’d waited until we had a full day at our disposal to make a real day of it. Though many of the girls had visited the site of Dr Ambedkar’s conversion with their families, none of them had really understood the historical significance of the event and it is only recently that they have been studying in any detail about the impact of his activism on the lives of modern Indians and the wider, international community that is Triratna. So, this was in part an opportunity to spend some time together outside of the classroom but also an ongoing exercise in learning about Ambedkar’s life and the role Buddhism and spiritual practice plays in the daily routine of his followers. I was also keen to return; though it was not long since my last visit, on the 14th October anniversary of Ambedkar’s conversion, such was the significance of this date that it had been too busy to really appreciate the place and rather overwhelming just 24 hours after landing in India! I was looking forward to seeing it in a more peaceful state.

At the end of my last update, I reflected that my experience of study trips in the UK was that if you had private transport booked, this would be a significant stress reducer as an alternative to the trials and tribulations of public transport. I also reflected; however, that I was learning enough about India to suspect that things would not be quite so simple in this case. I wasn’t wrong. To begin with, I was delighted to hear that the coach we’d arranged to carry us from Bhilgaon to meet the young men at the Deekshabhoomi had, wait for it, arrived a few minutes early! India – 1, UK – 0. I’m used to coaches turning up worryingly ‘promptly’-cum-late. Would that I could end the story of the transport there, however, things fell down a little when our driver brightly announced that he could carry a total of four passengers. There are ten women students. There were four teachers expecting to travel with them. Cue a quick ‘phone call to a gentleman who has become one of our favourite go-to rickshaw drivers, mostly because he’s very flexible in allowing us to stop on our way home to buy fruit from the Kamptee Road-side stalls. Thankfully, he was only ‘10’ minutes away (note; 10 minutes in India = 20 /30 minutes in actual time). Still, this did not seem to present a complete solution to my mind; rickshaws can carry maybe four to five people. At least we had already had a call from Mark to let us know that things were equally delayed at his end as the young men had not yet finished eating breakfast or packing their lunch. I decided to disengage from any sense of stress and trust that things would work themselves out, so I sat in the sun and watched a couple of the girls hook (rather unripe) guava fruit from the tree in the front garden and waited to see what would happen. No one else seemed too worried, after all. The solution was five in the van (including myself), four in the rickshaw and the rest in Aryaketu’s car. We finally set off, only about 30 minutes behind schedule, which, I have learned, is practically on time. When we arrived, we found the guys already waiting for us calmly in the shade of the Bodhi Tree’s descendent. All’s well that ends well.
Now, if you’re anything like me on school trips, there’s nothing like knowing your lunch is packed to make you feel ready to eat it before you’ve even stepped off the coach, but it was not quite time to eat. Leaving our bags and shoes outside, we all stepped reverentially into the Deekshabhoomi itself. In a calmer and very different atmosphere to my previous visit, I finally felt able to pay proper respect to the ashes of Dr Ambedkar. These are at rest inside a silver model of the building, which is housed in a glass dome and incorporated into yet another scale model of the Deekshabhoomi building, itself modelled on the stupa at Sanchi. Rather like the layers of an onion, or a Russian doll, or possibly some other more universal analogy that I’ve not considered. Some of us sat and absorbed the atmosphere of peace and quiet, some of us contemplated a display of photographs from the life of Dr Ambedkar that are displayed in one corner of the internal space. Taking you through his time in education, government and activism before ending with scenes from the conversion event and finally his resting in state, they brought a degree of informed poignancy to the day and the girls especially were engrossed in the exhibition.

Such an occasion could not be simply left hanging and so Aryaketu gathered us together before delivering what I later learned to be an impromptu talk in both English and Hindi! He gave us some further background to the importance of Ambedkar’s life and work, including his vision for the future of Buddhism. Ambedkar had recognised the need for a simple and easy to follow text on Buddhism (which he wrote in the form of the Buddha and his Dhamma), individuals willing to perform as ‘servants’ of the Dhamma (Buddhist teachings) and, perhaps most importantly for our immediate context, an international Buddhist movement. This, reasoned Aryaketu, was where Triratna came in to its own and played such a pivotal part at home and abroad. This particular observation suddenly spun everything into perspective for me. I had until this point felt both moved and strangely disconnected from the story and achievements of Ambedkar. How, I had been asking myself, could I, having been so randomly and unfairly born into such privileged circumstances of abundance, personal respect and safety, presume to affect any genuine emotion for this man in the presence of my friends and colleagues, whose lives had been so genuinely transformed by him. How could I, even more, presume to teach them anything in that context? Seeing myself suddenly as part of Ambedkar’s wider, long term vision of international Sangha suddenly justified a feeling of commonality. I may not be sharing in my friends’ history, but I can share in their future and understanding that Bhante Sangharakshita had met Ambedkar and recognised the role Triratna can play in that regard really settled my feelings of discomfort and gave me a sense of cohesion that had been lacking. It was with this pleasant feeling of unity that we then conducted a short puja before circumambulation of the stupa whilst chanting the Shakyamuni mantra (though actually a slightly different version to remove potential confusion with Hindu chants).

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The Deekshabhoomi
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Ambedkar's 22 Vows
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The Deekshabhoomi Buddha Rupa
With the spiritual food so expertly served and happily consumed, we finally left the cool of the marble building (where one is requested to observe respect by refraining from photography) and stepped back out into the hot, midday sun to begin our physical feasting! The women had packed us a delicious lunch of chapattis, pilau and subji which they carefully ladled into disposable plates for us from a range of stainless steel ‘tiffin’ boxes that had been meticulously packed that morning. Delightful as this was, I was rather impressed with the simplicity of the men’s approach. They’d cooked a huge quantity of poha, which they’d simply plopped into a big bag! We tried some of that too, which was every bit as tasty! Indians tend to have a rather direct approach to food. Though great care is taken in the preparation, it doesn’t tend to be consumed with much ceremony and most of the picnickers had finished and cleared their plates before I’d got even half way through. I sped up to avoid appearing anymore unusual than, erm, usual, enjoying some guava presented to me by Hema before we all quickly piled back out of the shady spot we’d found to start taking pictures in front of the dome. I have become accustomed to eating lunch at a reasonably leisurely pace before taking things quite slowly, possibly even lying down for twenty minutes or so prior to afternoon activities and unfortunately, at this point, the heat and exertion rather got the better of me and I’m afraid to say I ended our trip feeling rather ropey.
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How many students can you fit in a rickshaw!?
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A rejuvenating slurp of coconut water!
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The stage at Kasturchand Park
Thankfully, Aryaketu and Sheetal had suggested I accompany them for the afternoon to visit a show of local and handmade textiles so I didn’t have to climb back into the rather hot and uncomfortable van when it was time for the groups to head off. Instead, I was fortunate to enjoy an air conditioned car ride and some fresh coconut water, which really did the trick in making me feel very much better. We enjoyed the craft market very much (I even made a couple of purchases thanks to Aryaketu’s expert haggling) and it wasn’t until we were due to leave that I asked about the location. Aryaketu explained that we were in Kasturchand Park, an important location where political and spiritual speeches were often delivered from the central structure. He also told me that Bhante himself had spoken to a huge crowd there some years back, which really cemented my feelings of inclusion that he had generated in his talk earlier in the day.
After an enjoyable afternoon, we only made it home with minutes to spare before the evening puja and meditation, but make it home we did! A shorter ritual owing to the earlier events was followed by a ‘checking in’ session with the young women, in which we each talked about our experiences of the day. It was clear how valuable each of them had found it in locating their studies in a context of Ambedkarism and they were each equally positive about how they feel they are progressing in their academic studies. I decided to be really honest and explained (thanks to Sheetal’s interpretation) that I had found myself feeling a little alienated until I had heard the talk about an international vision for the future of Buddhism. I also made my own point about my perceptions of equality, stating explicitly that as far as I was concerned, the only difference between them and me was that I had simply lived on the planet for a few years longer. In a culture that takes the status of teachers seriously in an hierarchical structure, and prizes fair skin highly in terms of physical ideals, I really hope this will be taken at face value and my words might be at least one brick in the strengthening foundations of confidence for each of these wonderful young women who strike me as being so brimming with talent and potential that I feel myself barely equipped to instruct them at times. Though it is true that we do not share much in our histories, we have, as the result of different conditions still found ourselves in the same place in time, space and intention and I do so genuinely hope that my presence might play a role in helping to brighten their futures because I am aware how much my own will continue to be inspired so hugely by theirs.

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The House That Saccadhamma Built

20/10/2016

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As I reflected in the closing thoughts of my last update, I feel as if I am settling in here very quickly and it is the home and family environment in to which I have been so unconditionally welcomed that has been central to my experience of India so far. I have no doubt that the physical and social comfort of this environment is the foundation that has determined the speed of this for both myself and the other new guests here; the community of young women who live on the top floor of the same family home. This has not always been the experience of many of the family members though, and I have recently learnt the extent to which this safety and abundance has been very carefully and deliberately cultivated from a great deal of misery and want. I have expressed before that my aim for this blog is in part to share the stories I discover here, to celebrate the people and their achievements, and so it seems appropriate to start near that core of the family from which everything else is supported. The trunk from which the branches of the tree may safely grow and be nourished.
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The Branches of The Mango Tree
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Stories Beside The Well
If home is where the heart is, this domestic story is no exception and I shall start with sharing the story of Saccadhamma; Triratna Order Member and father of the director of Aryaloka, Aryaketu.

I first realised how important Saccadhamma’s story was when he invited me to sit and talk with him a couple of days ago. As an order member, he was interested in my background and intentions within Triratna, but also in me personally as a new teacher for the young people to whom he opens his home and shares his life. I was both moved and intrigued when he said to me that I should forget thinking of the house as ‘his’, but should view it instead as ‘ours’. This was, he said, because ‘Bhante gave it to us.’ (Bhante is a term used in a respectfully affectionate way to refer to Sangharakshita, the founder of Triratna). At that time, I had to go and teach so I could not enquire further, but I knew there was more to hear and I was fortunate to sit down with him again today in the shade of the mango tree outside the front door, as he kindly indulged my questions to draw out a more remarkable story than even I had expected. I am very honoured to be able to recount that story here as what I hope to be the first of a few individual tales that I imagine will bring life to the background of daily experiences I’ll also be relating.
Saccadhamma was born on the 22nd of July, 1946, into a family of 15 brothers and sisters, though only 4 brothers remain alive today as childhood illness, disease and malnutrition was rife. His father could not earn; as a member of the community who fell outside the Orthodox Hindu caste system, he was very limited in the roles he was permitted to perform (‘Dalits’ were only allowed to carry out jobs considered impure or polluting to the individual) and so he acted as a spiritual man whose time was spent mainly in prayer and was frequently away on pilgrimages. Saccadhamma’s mother carried out labouring work to generate some income but this was minimal and she often went hungry to provide for the homeless family who really survived only on support and charity from others. They relied on these donations for their accommodation, clothes and food. Saccadhamma was clever though, often coming top of every class, and thanks to this he attracted the additional support of his teacher, who helped him with clothes, books and sometimes food. Despite his academic success; however, he related how he often felt sad as a child, seeing that his family could not enjoy life because they were in such poverty.

Such were the hardships of his first decade until his father converted to Buddhism at the Deekshabhoomi, following the leadership of Dr Ambedkar at the original mass conversion of October 14th 1956. Saccadhamma remembers being there too but, he says that as a ten year old boy, though he could enjoy the atmosphere he did not understand the significance of the event. Though the conversion marked a momentous shift in the Indian society and for the individual, it was not a religious awakening and his relationship with Buddhism did not really begin here. His father’s decision was a practical one; to convert to Buddhism and renounce the Hindu religion was a way of achieving liberation from oppression, not pursuing a spiritual life. This is perhaps best exemplified in the 19th of Ambedkar’s 22 vows; ‘I renounce Hinduism, which is harmful for humanity, and which impedes the advancement and development of humanity, because it is based on inequality, and adopt Buddhism as my religion.’ For these reasons, the act of conversion was a formative one for the family, but still life was tough and even as a boy he always understood the need to work hard and support the poor. As an intellectually gifted young man, he was able to attend college but needed to carry out labouring work at the same time. A usual day would involve hard labouring work from seven in the morning until eleven, then starting college from one until four, with his hands still chapped and sore from the morning work. He was unhappy at this time, but knew he must help feed his family as well as work to pursue his education, which would eventually be the key to further liberation from poverty and oppression.
This steadfast determination eventually paid off when he secured employment in a government telecommunications department in Bombay (now Mumbai) where he lived in a small house with his wife Jija, (married in 1971, they entered a love marriage that was not approved of parentally), three sons (Aryaketu was the eldest, born in 1972) and two daughters, as well as his mother and father. In 1977, the family relocated for work purposes to Nagpur, where they lived in a ten foot square residence, with a thin tin roof that leaked in monsoon season. He had just one shirt and one pair of trousers that Jija would wash when he got home from the office, drying them overnight for him to wear again the next day. Aryaketu and his siblings walked 6 kilometres to school and back every day. In 1988, his father died and his mother moved to live with a younger brother in the village.

In 1989, Aryaketu told his father about a talk being given by Dhammachari (Order Member) Padmavajra who had come from England to give lectures and seminars about Dr Ambedkar. This simultaneously piqued his interest and caused some outrage as he asked ‘I’m an Indian, a follower of Ambedkar, so how can an English man tell me anything about him!?’ Nevertheless, he went to a talk and was won over by a lecture Padmavajra delivered on habits. He told the story of a woman whose trade was selling fish at the market. Every day, she undertook a long journey from her home by the sea to the marketplace to sell her catch. One night, she was held up securing her last sales and so darkness fell before she had returned home. As she lived far away and there was no moon to see by, she decided to stay the night with a relative living nearby who was also a trader at the market; a florist, a purveyor of fresh flowers. As she settled down that night, she was troubled by the unfamiliar smell of the sweet blooms and could not drift off to sleep. At last she realised the strange odour was keeping her awake, so she fetched an empty fish box from her cart and again lay down to rest. With the familiar scent of fish, she was able to fall into a peaceful sleep. This story is designed to encourage reflection on our habitual patterns of behaviour and how we can become unaware of even those which may be quite damaging as we mechanically normalise them into our daily routines. Saccadhamma relates that he was moved to tears by the talk. “I also had bad smells” he explains, “I realised I must break my bad habits” and from this day onwards he attended every talk that Padmavajra gave. Saccadhamma is quite clear and precise about his gratitude to Aryaketu for this introduction to the Dhamma. “For this reason, I say that Aryaketu is my Kalyanamitra” (Kalyanamitra is Sanskrit for ‘Spiritual Friend’, a term for a teacher or guide) he states slowly and deliberately.
Saccadhamma did indeed break his bad habits and began to question his lifestyle. He gave up drinking, smoking and eating meat, realising that these products were bad for his whole family if he was unnecessarily spending money on them. “How could I care for my family?” he asks, “if my money was spent on watching movies and fighting?” He began saving the money that he had once spent on pleasures and luxuries and after two to three years of this he was able to buy the plot of land upon which the house now stands “because of my spiritual practice”. 1994 was an important year; not only did the purchase of the land take place, he was also formally ordained into the Triratna Buddhist Order. Still, practical progress was slow and he was only able to pay for the materials in instalments so building did not start until 2002. The first work to take place was the well sinking, followed by construction of an outhouse. He references Jija suddenly, mindful of her contribution and support. She worked as a labourer to bring in extra funds just like his mother, but he says she never complained about his lifestyle choices or expensive habits and helped when work towards building began. From 2002 until 2005, the family lived in Indora, a central district of Nagpur and saved every month to pay for the construction. In 2005, the foundations were finally laid and they moved into the (still incomplete) residence in 2006; but to his mind there is still work to do.
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Saccadhamma and Jija at the Front Door
There were no tiles in the ground floor rooms until two years ago. The outhouse needs repair. The garden walls are also crumbling. The house has never had any external painting and is still imposing in its original grey concrete. “But I cannot do this work.” He states. I ask why; “How much it would cost to paint the house?” The answer is in excess of 150,000 rupees; money, he explains, that is better spent on supporting his family; and the students of Aryaloka. Between 700 and 800 students so far have been able to benefit from the education offered at Aryaloka, subsequently securing employment that in turn enables them to support their poor families, just as the young Saccadhamma felt himself compelled to do. This is work he is clearly fully committed to despite his own needs. He still struggles to support his family; his health is suffering from early malnutrition and years of hard labouring in poor conditions but his only aim is to take on more students, which he sees as a far more important use of the precious resource of pension money than a lick of paint on the walls. He hopes to repair the outhouse first he explains because this could accommodate up to six more students, lives improved and empowered to in turn go on and ease the suffering of many more.
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Saccadhamma
His story is one of complete self-sacrifice; he has not only given himself and his energy unconditionally to the spiritual community of the Triratna Sangha but has also poured his working years and monetary income into crafting a vastly improved quality of life for his wife and children, extended family of daughters in law and grandchildren and the hundreds of students who come to receive free food, accommodation and education every year. I find myself unable to fully articulate the awe his story inspires in me as he sets an example I feel I can only aspire to follow but what I have learned is that while a house may be built from bricks and held together by mortar, this home is built from love and cemented with blood, sweat and tears. I fully understand now why he says this house has been ‘given’ to him by Bhante; it is as a direct result of the lifestyle changes he made after finding and following the Buddhist spiritual path as taught by Sangharakshita that he has been able to realise such an ambitious project. And so I am doubly honoured to be not only invited to share this precious place as my own home, but also to have been trusted with such a story. I only hope I have done it some justice in this account and would like to extend my heartfelt thanks and admiration to Dhammachari Saccadhamma for his time, his story and his warmest hospitality.
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A Welcoming Home
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Mad Dogs and English Women

17/10/2016

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The Daily Chapatti Batch!
After teaching and later consuming yet another delicious lunch involving far too many chapattis, batch cooked at least once a day by Sheetal, who had even thought ahead to leave some for us as she would be out all day, a lull descended upon the house. Those of school age were out and learning. The girls were deep in their own academic activity with Vaishali, Aryaketu’s sister in law and Aryaloka’s computing teacher, up in the classroom. The rest of the family were either attending a staff training day at Indora or being of retirement age were resting from the midday heat, as was sensible Shakyajata. And I was feeling better. Whether it was a cold or an initial reaction to the dusty air, I’ll probably never know but with a less runny nose and an end to the sore throat, I was also finally feeling that any lingering jetlag had pretty much receded. I then realised that I had yet to venture forth alone.  Usually, I like to get out and about independently as soon as possible when I am in a foreign place. On this occasion though, I have been aware that any accidental social faux pas or unintended breach of cultural code may not only reflect badly on me but could potentially cause difficulties for my hosts. I will be around for longer than the couple of weeks I’d normally be in any area for, and I’m probably pretty recognisable so I’ve felt more need for tact, diplomacy and taking time to allow myself a gentle introduction to the geographical and social spaces in which I shall be living. Even so, this afternoon seemed like a pretty good opportunity to start spreading my wings a bit so I left a note explaining my absence and wandered out into the village.
I probably picked a really good time of day because although the temperature had barely begun to dip from the noon battering, there wasn’t much traffic to avoid nor probing stares to neutralise with optimistic congenial smiling. I strolled past a few people lounging in front of shops, the occasional conversation drifted out of shady houses. Even the mangy-looking feral dogs were crashed out in the dusty heat, while cows snuffled at the side of the road beside them, small black pigs occasionally joining in. Brightly coloured saris hung over baked brick walls to dry, chickens strutted nowhere in particular, yet very purposefully and upon spotting a fruit barrow being wheeled clunkily past a lady washing rice on her doorstep, I began to wonder if I might have been accidentally sucked into one of the National Geographic photographs I used to enjoy looking at as a child. Much like one of the strangely leggy chickens, I realised that although I was heading down the road with an apparent focus, I hadn’t thought much about where I was going beyond ‘out of the house’. Noticing that I was on the same route we’d taken previously towards Nagaloka, this then became my destination and I realised I would be finally able to get a good look at the Walking Buddha in daylight. I explored the site quite a bit more and discovered a garlanded statue of Ambedkar too, before bumping into a neighbour whom I had met a couple of months back at the London Buddhist Centre (it’s a small world; at least in Triratna!). After swapping contact details, I continued my amble and found that since I had the time and space for them, all manner of reflections were coming to mind.
I became particularly aware of how much I had enjoyed teaching earlier in the day and I found myself thinking how often it is that you don’t notice problems until they are removed; a bit like when you suddenly become aware that an annoying noise or nagging pain has stopped, without having been consciously that aware of it before. Such are some features of my current teaching experience in comparison to that UK system in which I had become so uncomfortably institutionalised. There is firstly, a much more flexible approach to time. “Better to be a little late than too early!” I was told by Shakyajata when I was about to leap from the couch five minutes before we were teaching. Indians themselves often refer to Indian Stretchable Time (as opposed to the more scientifically formal Indian Standard Time!) and while Westerners may find this frustrating, a less rigid approach to timing (this novelty watch design explains pretty well) does allow a much more perceptive degree of response to the people and situations around you. Is it a little too hot today? No worries, we’ll start class a bit later, when everyone will be more comfortable.
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The Walking Buddha at Nagaloka
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Statue of Dr Ambedkar at Nagaloka
Does the person you are with right now need some more time or attention from you? OK, go ahead and give it, everyone else will understand if you are not there quite yet. From an academic culture where not being at least 10 minutes early for your class is tantamount to publicly declaring your inefficiency as a teacher, this is indeed a relief. That’s not to excuse tardiness or suggest a lack of care, simply to recognise that things should get done when it’s best for them to get done, not because the clock hands have reached a certain position. The clock is a guide, not a dictator, a tool used to help people synch their lives, not to bind them and everything seems to flow in a far more natural, almost delicate fashion as a result, if only one can let go of Western cultural biases. Equally, having carried out an hour of successful class, rediscovering the feeling that I really could teach people things and feeling energised as a result, I suggested to Shakyajata that we could carry on. ‘Shall we swap pairs again and have another practice?’ I asked enthusiastically. She considered this politely before responding ‘Hmmmm, no. They will get tired and confused. We have done enough.’ And so class ended; with smiles, not sighs. Feeling we’d achieved the one step forward without having pushed on until the point of two steps back. Finishing a class without feeling like I’d drained every last drop of energy and enthusiasm from myself and my students was an almost entirely new experience and for not the first time I equated teaching with theatre when I reminded myself of the phrase “Leave them wanting more!” So I have learned the value of ‘when’ and ‘enough’.
In recent days I have been comparing my native society with those few observations I have so far made in my adopted one and feel that the biggest difference is in the area of need. Indian poverty is financial but the UK is clearly not fully satisfied, despite its comparative riches. I believe the UK to be experiencing an epidemic of emotional poverty, with mental ill health on the increase, suicide rates sadly spiralling. Political fracturing is simply a symptom of wider social alienation; our family units have crumbled, an unrealistic emphasis is placed on romantic and sexual liaisons, which we use to demand impossible things of one another and we find ourselves increasingly isolated. Indian families and friendships seem to be at the core of daily life, and while I recognise that this is not without its pitfalls (it can easily become oppressive, especially for women) it does seem to provide a structure and support that is palpably absent from many UK lives. Spirituality is also far more present in the Indian society, be that Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, whatever. It is safe to assume that an individual is in some way engaged in religious practice, which is more important than which teaching exactly one uses to go about it, as opposed to a British approach where secularism is pretty much assumed as standard, a religious conviction perhaps an interestingly unexpected piece of personal data.
Such were my musings as I continued exploring beyond the boundaries of the Nagaloka complex and back out on to the good old Kamptee Road, finding an alternative route back to the house which ended my constitutional in a neat loop. Though I noticed a steady increase in the amount of traffic coming into the village as schools ended their day, all was just as calm as I had left it at home and I was back just in time for a cup of tea and a chat with Shakyajata, who was feeling rejuvenated after resting. We discussed amongst other things, the content of the evening puja and Dhamma class, sipped spiced black tea and watched a nesting dove patiently incubating her clutch in the nest above the fuse box.
Later that day, as I enjoyed the sunset and star rise from the gentle motion of the swing chair while it cradled me in an evening breeze, I realised that I may finally be learning how to do nothing. In the West, we almost obsessively fill every minute with some kind of activity, even if that activity is passively consuming during our leisure time. We are so loathe to simply be with our thoughts and sit in our experience without some form of distraction, yet it occurred to me today, almost like a revelation, that when there is not anything you have to do then you do not actually have to do anything. The universe truly is a construction of our mind and the way we describe our experiences to ourselves is critical. ‘Sitting on the balcony of a Buddhist colony in India, listening to children playing in Hindi’ seems like quite an idyllic way to spend an evening; however, in my mind, the parallel experience back home might read something like ‘sitting on the balcony of an housing estate in London, listening to kids screaming like cockneys’, which wouldn’t be half so pleasant. Really however, the differences are minimal so I shall make a point of reminding myself that I alone am responsible for my interpretation of the world around me as I process my awareness and translate my experience into feelings.
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A lone pedestrian on the Kamptee Road...
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Meeting a neighbour on the way home...
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Home, sweet home!
Even when the novelty of my new environment wears off, as it is certain to do, I still have the capacity to notice reality from a perspective that enables me to recognise the inherent joy that is existence. Especially when I’m watching the sunset whilst swinging in the evening breeze on the balcony of a Buddhist colony in India!
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To the Deekshabhoomi and a First Class in English!

14/10/2016

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The experiences are coming in so thick and fast here at Aryaloka that it seems hard to keep on top of the priorities in so far as my aims for this blog. I set it up primarily to record, but then also communicate my time exploring the unfamiliar geographical and psychological landscape of my new position as a volunteer teacher in a foreign social project. This is because I could see before I even applied for the visa that the new perspectives I was bound to encounter could be of value to many people, if only I could articulate them. I hope my western friends and contacts may be able to understand their privileges and challenges with more clarity in a global context and believe the work being undertaken by my Indian colleagues to be anyway so very deserving of recognition, broadcast and celebration. It can be a complex operation to separate this genuine desire to broaden horizons from the almost voyeuristic impulses of the travelling photographer; look at this photo of a funny crisp packet, this description of a strange social norm, this ‘tragic’ symptom of disadvantage and poverty. I shall be clear; however, that whilst none of my observations are intended to judge, condemn or laud either my own or another’s culture, I am aware there will be times when I shall find it difficult to avoid some apparent poignancy.
The people I have met so far though, are far from in need of western sentimental sympathy and in fact we could learn a great deal from their resolve, their generosity and their extensive application of remarkable energy and steadfast determination to achieve what must done. They appear to be, in many respects far happier and more grateful for far less than many of the most challenged British citizens.

Things have, of course, improved dramatically for many local people in recent decades, due in part to the reason for our attendance last night at the Deekshabhoomi, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the mass conversion to Buddhism of Dr Ambedkar and his followers. This genuine social liberation and increased prosperity found in education and spiritual development is not just a credit to a remarkable man and those who continue his work, but an ongoing trend to be treasured, shared and cultivated.

We travelled to the Deekshabhoomi by auto rickshaw, an experience enough in its own right, as the father of our friend and ex-Aryaloka student Neha, battled through fleets of oncoming traffic and intrepidly held his own amidst entire families clinging to scooters, impatient cars, and streams of the large, brightly decorated lorries that are such a feature of the dusty Kamptee Road. Neha’s ‘Papa’ is fortunate today; as a result of the generosity of many donors, it was possible to purchase the tatty, beat-up vehicle and relieve him of the back-breaking work of endless daily pedalling. My friends and I might have been one of his lighter loads too, though this has not eradicated the health risks of his profession; the pollution is enough to cause western visitors to seek the limited protection of dust masks, even for a thirty minute journey, and with an unpredictable response rate to what rules of the road do exist, traffic accidents are common.

It was busy as expected when we arrived at the road leading to the Deekshabhoomi (literally ‘conversion ground’) and it was not for the meek or faint hearted foreigner to walk with purpose and conviction to the entrance in the sea of curious stares. The soon to be familiar call of ‘Please, Ma’am, just one photo?’ quickly started up and whilst I was sorry in some respects that I could not photograph inside the monument,
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 it did at least provide an excuse to decline without appearing unfriendly. Unfortunately; however, using this rule as protection from the lens did not prevent an awareness of the crowd building outside, eagerly awaiting our exit from the stupa with camera phones at the ready for ‘just one selfie with my kids!” As a result, it was hard to focus or really develop a sense of appreciation for the purpose of the reliquary; the ashes of Dr Ambedkar himself, in a grand cask, under a glass dome and set on a highly decorated platform at the centre of the marble hall. Still, we managed a brief moment taking this in before the encroaching tide of devotees washed us back out into the night. We had hoped to conduct a short puja in the hall, and there were indeed a few people resolutely chanting in small groups or pairs, at the side of the walkway, but we were causing enough of a distraction as it was, so Shakyajata wisely guided us to a spot outside where we perched on a wall as she bravely lead our group in chanting the refuges and precepts in Hindi and English. This at least provided an opportunity for people to come and have a good stare and snap away to their hearts content, which made me feel far less impolite for having refused earlier requests while taking shots of my own. It occurred to me as we took a short meditative pause following the chant, that less than a year ago I was still privately struggling to come to terms with my own spiritual identity and yet now, here I was, practicing more publically then I could ever have anticipated, in the land of the origination of my faith. Never say never. After this, we took a stroll around the bustling complex, taking in the Bodhi tree, part of an intricate web of stories regarding the generations grown from seeds of the original tree under which Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha, is said to have achieved Enlightenment.
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The entrance queue to the Deekshabhoomi...
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...which was dark by the time we got through it!
In the small shrine room, we were approached by a polite but curious monk whom, my friend interpreted for me, had expressed gratitude to us as British visitors for the role of the Empire in preserving Buddhist temples and relics from destruction by Hindu oppressors. This gratitude was a new experience for me; I have grown up, as have many, with a clinging sense of guilt for the colonial activities of the British Empire, so I found this perspective pleasantly refreshing. After some time to catch up, it was time to weave our way back down the crowded street, flanked by temporary market stalls of all kinds, to await our collection by Neha’s papa, who, we were assured, was very close by in the jam of traffic. Some street snacks of hot roasted peanuts and sweet sesame brittle fuelled our continued conversation until it was time to dive across the road where he waited for us, unflinchingly bearing the brunt of a traffic policeman’s aggression for having stopped where he should not. For the first time I began to genuinely fear for our safety as the official punctuated angry shouts by jabbing at our poor driver, even pulling at his shirt to drag him from the seat. Thankfully, through the placations of his children, the swift physical intervention of Shakyajata, and his sheer determination to achieve a quick getaway, we managed to escape the frustrated wrath of the law and sputtered off into the traffic once more, leaving our friends behind with scant farewell.
Upon our safe arrival back at Aryaloka, it seemed at least ungrateful, if not quite disrespectful to pay this man for both our journeys with the equivalent of about £7.50, however I was assured this was quite generous and he certainly seemed surprised when we refused any change. We left him also with the remains of our snacks; he had a long night of work ahead of him and it was unlikely that he would have had any meal break in what had already been a hard shift.
The commitment of our hosts to our wellbeing did not stop at the means to travel, against all odds, to and from the Deekshabhoomi though, and as soon as we were through the door, Sheetal began cooking for us, despite the late hour. She did at least allow us to help chop the vegetables for a delicious pilau, which we ate with gratitude after a tiring trip. After this dinner, Shakyajata retired, and I was considering a similar course of action when Sheetal sat down with a pile of papers and turned on her laptop. She explained that she had not found time during the day to enter the data from the student’s application forms onto the system operated by the government agency who certify the qualifications, and that the deadline for doing so without incurring a fine was the next day. Though the specifics of the context may be alien to me, the situation itself was almost comfortingly familiar and I was glad she was receptive to my further offer of help. I don’t think it took too long for her to show me how to use the software to infill the necessary information for upload and I consider myself to be quite a fast learner as well as a reasonably speedy typist, but still the job took until nearly midnight. I was glad to do this though, as Sheetal then had time to rub some Ralgex-like smelling ayurvedic ointment on to sore legs to ease her arthritis, which she explained without a trace of self-pity, was the result of a dietary calcium deficiency.
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I could easily leave it there as enough of an update and it’s hardly surprising that after such an evening our plans for Saturday morning became somewhat derailed by our fatigue. There’s more to say of course; we taught our first class on Saturday afternoon! In the morning, we delayed our planned meditation and postponed a trip to nearby Nagaloka Centre, until later in the day, opting instead for some impromptu Dharma study and a little more rest. After meditating, we snuck in at the back of the class to see what the girls were doing. Some were typing out passages of English text, while others began familiarising themselves with Corel Draw, a drawing programme I have not used since my days experimenting with the laser cutter on my MA in Manchester. We also checked up on the girls’ living space; a small room that sleeps up to ten that Shakyjata was disappointed had not been re painted since last year. She was pleased though to see that the girls appeared to be keeping the kitchen and toilet facilities clean and tidy. We planned an introductory session before lunch and then rested further until meeting at four for the first English class.

When we returned for this in the afternoon, the girls were quick to leap from their plastic garden chairs and leave the dusty old CRT monitors to form a circle in front of the board, which one young woman carefully cleaned before the start. The first task, making and displaying name badges, was soon followed by the predictable group introductions with “My name is ______________” written clearly on the board. We then progressed through a series of phrases communicating personal information; our ages, the occupations of our parents, numbers of brothers and sisters, building on each in complexity and sometimes testing memories by linking phrases and removing the text from the board. My favourite part of the session was at the end, when having been finally allowed to copy the written text from the board, the girls were so eager to show us their books for corrections to their fastidious handwriting. The opportunity this gave for genuine interaction was a delight and so we picked up on various errors such as the capitalisation of proper nouns with a grateful acceptance from a group of young women so hungry for knowledge and so ready and able to learn, if only someone would teach them. This, of course, being far from my experience of sullen British teens, often attending under duress and defensive at a flash as soon as they are questioned or corrected.
I’m not yet sure how I feel about the contrasts between both the learning environment and attitude of the students in my UK and Indian roles and think it would be wise to spend some more time becoming acquainted with my new environment and assimilating the experiences before making too many comments but I can certainly tell it’s going to be a very different experience. Needless to say, although Sunday is supposed to be their day off, I am very much looking forward to meeting the group again tomorrow evening for a ‘checking in’ workshop session, when we hope to learn more about the group, at a deeper level than the initial personal facts.
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Teacher Vaishali inputs grades to the strangely familiar tracking system!
After such a successful class, the first time I have stood in front of a whiteboard for 15 months, I felt relieved and energised, as I think did Shakyajata, so we made the most of the cool evening air to stroll through the village to Nagaloka before dinner. After so many days of relative physical inactivity, it felt good to gently stretch the legs in the gathering dusk. As well as our group chat with the girls tomorrow, we hope to run similar session with the boys group on Monday, when we hope to have a bit more energy to tackle the bus into town, where they are resident. I can’t say the prospect of traveling there is stimulating my appetite for exploration as much as I’d have expected but I think this is largely to do with the only physical ill affect I’m currently aware of; a rather sore throat! I think a combination of dry air, dust and smog is responsible for the mild cold-like symptoms, but I’m confident that these will settle in time, when I’ve had a week or two to acclimatise. There’s plenty to distract me from it in any case and I’ve been very comfortable so far with no sign yet of the apparently inevitable ‘Delhi Belly’, though since I have been lucky so far to enjoy only good, home cooking, I’m far from complacent about that!
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Jai Bhim!

14/10/2016

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I am mindful as I sit down to write my first update from India, in the calm domesticity of a warm afternoon that it would be all too easy to succumb to the temptation of trying to record and share every detail. Since our arrival, 29 hours ago, I feel I have been through a whole world shift. The tectonic plates of respective cultures, so fundamental to the foundations of our assumptions and responses to experience, have indeed been grinding together but the resulting quake was not unexpected, nor has it been at all unpleasant. I have not yet encountered any difficulties. I have been very well looked after. I am well in body, well in mind and very well fed and watered!
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Greeting bouquet on living room shrine.
Following a delicious lunch, at which I gratefully discovered that Indian food does not have to be heavy or bloating as I have sometimes found UK Indian meals to be, I have the luxury of a few hours rest to myself. Later, I shall travel with Shakyajata, and Sheetal (one of the directors at Aryaloka and my very generous and talented hostess) to the Deekshabhoomi, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the mass conversion to Buddhism of Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar with his about 600,000 followers on 14 October 1956. I know this is likely to be an evening full of experiences I shall very much want to share and so I’m going to take the opportunity for my first update before there’s too much more to say. I am unable to resist a desire to start at the very beginning, but in the interests of making this post manageable to read, I shall, really truly try to keep things succinct!
We were greeted at the airport yesterday morning by Aryaketu, Triratna order member and Director at Aryaloka, who is also husband to Sheetal and whose home I shall be living for the coming months. It was wonderful to see his familiar smiling face again (we met at London Buddhist Centre a couple of months ago) and after giving us each a beautiful posy, we were driven straight to the family home. We were welcomed by what felt like a huge crowd of family members as well as the girls on the residential course, each of whom greeted us personally in an informal procession, presenting us each individually with a flower. We shared some tea and chatted a little before I was shown to my room. I was very grateful to unpack my heavy bag and wash before taking lunch! The afternoon was spent resting and recharging the batteries with 40 winks. In the evening, I met and chatted (as much as language barriers allowed; I have my work cut out!) with the 8 girls who are living here. We established a few basic facts, though I have no hope of remembering how many brothers and sisters each have! At 18:30, Aryaketu’s mum led the girls in puja (Buddhist devotional ritual) and meditation, which I attended. Though much of the Triratna chants are in Pali or Sanskrit wherever you are in the world, still there are differences, and much of the actual lesson or direction is delivered in the native language, so I was not able to participate as fully as I liked. I did enjoy watching though and felt like an honoured guest when I was presented with yet more flowers by each girl after she had made her offering to the shrine. I was then able to make my own. Meditation was Metta Bhavana, which I managed to understand, but I felt uncomfortable in my body, hot, sticky, tired and not very able to focus. Having participated however, I felt refreshed and was glad to walk into a living room of English speaking visiting order members who had been attending a local Triratna conference titled Social Engagement and Liberation. We had dinner together (I am finding the dining customs easier than I feared but still it is a skill yet to master to eat rice and very runny dhal with the fingers of only my right hand!) and then some of us walked to the nearby Nagaloka Centre, for an open air concert of Indian classical music in front of the famous 36 foot high walking Buddha. That was really quite enough for one day, in which I’d done little more than snooze since leaving the UK at 05:30 the following morning and so it was to bed! Negotiating the new challenges of sleeping with a mosquito net wasn’t too awkward until I forgot it was there during the inevitable midnight toilet trip and ended up looking something like a spider’s breakfast. Still, I appear to have only one bite this morning so it must have done the trick!

Despite my instinctive urge to get out and start seeing this new world around me, I have tried to be very inactive today. I didn’t get up early for morning puja and meditation with the girls as I had half planned, opting to get another hour in bed instead! Shakyajata did the same, so we meditated together after breakfast and I was actually quite relieved to chant the refuges and precepts in our accustomed style as part of a Threefold Puja in English. I shall attempt to learn the appropriate customs here but one step at a time! My meditation was much more enjoyable than last night and I had a sense that I was floating in a river of my experience, with a myriad of thoughts present but simply bumping off me gently before floating off their own way, like only so much flotsam and jetsam. Shakyajata and I then did a little ‘checking in’ with each other, discussing our feelings about the trip so far as well as our expectations. After lunch, I managed to find out how to access clothes washing facilities and gave my travel clothes a good scrub! That they can only be air dried should not be an issue in this heat, but I think I shall need to learn that less is more when tucking into the washing powder; it is harder to rinse by hand and I think I shall find they are rather streaky when I take them off the line! We leave for the Deekshabhoomi by auto rickshaw in a little under 90 minutes, leaving me just enough time to post this (washing facilities may seem primitive by Western standards but we’re not wanting for Wi Fi!) before changing into appropriate attire for what will be a joyful but serious celebration. Goodness only knows what I shall encounter; I can only guess with excited anticipation!
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Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar
I was struck this morning, as I sipped coffee from a hanging chair on the terrace and looked down onto puja and meditation being performed on a platform in the community square, how palpable is my sense of liberation from the difficulties that were so painful to me only a year back. I was immediately trouble then by a wave of guilt that this has only come about for me because of the organised efforts of others to relieve a far greater degree of suffering and oppression than I have ever experienced. I was soon able to resolve this for myself however; perhaps this is simply a little karmic reward for the lesser efforts I have exerted myself in the organisation of fundraising and travel before I could even be here. A gentle easing of my own troubles that will better enable me to work for the easing of others’ and a little taste to fuel my faith that if I am resolute in my actions here that far greater things than I once thought possible will unfold not just for me, but also for those with whom I work, study, practice and live.
So, on the 60th anniversary of a very important event, I am eager now to really get stuck in with our work here. May we all be well, may it make many beings happy and may all be free from suffering as we grow and develop. Jai Bhim!

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Going Forth...

30/9/2016

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Visa
It often feels that new beginnings are inextricably tangled with old ends and this imminent journey is by no means any exception to that rule. I am where I am now, writing this first blog of a new adventure only because I have shut down and moved away from other phases in my life, which, in their time, were their own new beginnings.

But we build on our experiences, learn from our mistakes and gain confidence from our successes. My ‘old ending’ has a fair share of each of these, a goodly mulch of experiential compost in which to germinate new seeds of promise.

About a year ago, in September 2015, I decided to leave a 12 year career in teaching. You can read in far more detail about the reasons for this in my blog post of the time, initially penned for Education Support Partnership to share on World Mental Health Day. Titled ‘Why I’m Leaving Teaching’, it explains exactly that, but you can guess from the rest of that sentence, the crux of why I left. I then moved 200 miles from where I had been settled for 8 years and started a ‘new life’. In truth, this was less of a new beginning than a holding pattern while I did a lot of very important thinking, a lot of decision making and a lot of not much else. A much needed rest for a battered system. I had a few demons to chat with. I’ve learned recently that fighting them achieves nothing. It’s far better to make peace with them and get them and their energies on your side.

During this time, I deepened and consolidated my burgeoning relationship with a newfound spirituality and came to identify as a practising Buddhist. It didn’t seem coincidental that the only thing my mind kept returning to with any enthusiasm as a possible new direction in life was a Buddhist social project that I had first heard about at a talk only a short time after I decided to hand in my notice. This talk, on Dr Ambedkar day in October 2015 was delivered by Shakyajata, a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order who has been working with oppressed young people in India for many years. Her description the work of the small charity she runs, Young Indian Futures, and their work at Aryaloka Computer Education Centre in Nagpur, offering subsidised education to some of India’s poorest and most marginalised young people, moved me deeply. Her words and the affectionate enthusiasm with which she spoke of the students, reminded me of the true purpose of teaching; a way of improving lives, not a means of paying the rent. Time and again I found myself thinking of this talk and the work being done there, so, in April, I contacted her and we began a lengthy process of getting to know each other, deciding that I would travel with her to Nagpur and together preparing for me to teach English there on a voluntary basis. That is almost as much as I can say in this update about the practical side of it all really! Just a little background to set the stage for what is to come. The events that unfold over the next few months will be of as much surprise to me as to anyone following my updates; I really do not know what to expect. But, where once this would have caused me a good deal of worry, instead I find the open expansiveness of that unknown really very liberating. Anything, could indeed happen, but I’ve no reason to suppose it won’t be entirely wonderful.

During my year of ‘inactivity’ my website has been left largely untouched but as part of preparing to leave the UK, I’ve recently given it a spring clean, something of an overhaul. In so doing I’ve written a few blog posts to update the other strands of my activities, namely arts and running. In these, I’ve had a lot of space for reflection, quite painful reflection at times and have been open about my realisation that one thing I’ve been working through this year is the aftermath of an exercise addiction. Of course, my study of the Buddhist teachings has given me a great deal of support and strength with this, but one thing I have particularly benefited from is a new perspective on how I choose to invest my energy. For a good couple of years, I prioritised running and poured most of my passion for life into it as a source of escape and distraction. This left little of me remaining for anything else. It was part of a broader illness but still did nothing to help me recover. I felt tired. I had no enthusiasm. I had no purpose. The running as an activity was an expression of my anxiety and nervous agitation but even then, I knew I wasn’t achieving anything.

Though there has been much to organise in recent weeks, from visa to vaccines, flights to insurance, lesson planning and packing to domestic duties and farewells, and although I have been perhaps busier than for some months, I feel genuinely refreshed. I feel energised and ready to not just take on but to fully engage with whatever challenges lie ahead. Always, at the heart of this, I aim to maintain an awareness of the finite nature of this energy and to be as wisely discriminating as possible in how I utilise it. My aim, my purpose, is to help others achieve their potential, to reduce suffering, to spread a little love and lightness and laughter. If I can focus my dynamism like a shining beam of light to this purpose instead of squandering it on empty pastimes,  then I have no doubt that a pleasantly coincidental side effect will be my own continued flourishing and development. Over the last few years I have been on a very difficult journey. At times, I wasn’t at all sure it was one I’d get to the end of. There were days when, to misquote a misquote, the light at the end of the tunnel really did seem to be no more than the headlights of an hastily hurtling train. So it’s been tough, but sometimes the only way out is through and now I feel I have the wind on my face again, birdsong in my ears and soft grass beneath my feet. Perhaps most importantly, I wouldn’t be where I am now if I hadn’t made that challenging voyage through darkness and apparent disaster. A kind of death. A kind of rebirth. I’m here, I’m alive and I’m ready. And I just can’t wait to get on that ‘plane!

I was recently very fortunate to be invited to volunteer on the team that ran a weekend for beginners at Vajrasana, a beautiful new Triratna retreat centre in Suffolk. As part of this I was invited to speak in a talk titled ‘Why I am a Buddhist’ (you can read or listen to that talk). As well as the much needed boost to my confidence that I found this gave me (I’ve been not been in a classroom for over a year after all and am out of practice with public speaking!) it also gave me the privilege of standing alongside some very strong co speakers and the humbling opportunity to chat with many remarkable individuals afterwards.
In one such ‘post speech’ conversation that particularly touched me, I was advised to listen to ‘This is the Sea’ by The Waterboys, a band I happen to have been fond of for some time. It seems so beautifully poetic, in the context of this song, that I have spent my months of recuperation living on the Thames Estuary and frequently walking (or running!) past the Crow Stone; the point at which the river becomes the sea. This is to me a perfect analogy of the transition I am in the final stages of making and in the words of The Waterboys:
‘Once you were tethered.
Well, now you are free
That was the river
This is the sea!’


Twelve days and counting... A new beginning awaits!
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    ‘Magga’ is the Pali word for ‘path’.  In Buddhism, this word is often linked to the Ariya Magga, or Noble Eightfold Path, the fourth of the Four Noble Truths, which is the path to the cessation of suffering.
    ‘Mission Maggamouse’ is the latest catalogue of the adventures of Glittermouse; a visual artist and educator. It has been initiated specifically to record and share her experiences at Aryaloka Computer Education Centre, a Buddhist social project in Nagpur, offering subsidised education to some of India’s poorest and most excluded young people. As a recent Dhammamitra (mitra who has asked for of ordination) of the Triratna Buddhist Order, this activity is an important step in integrating her teaching experience with her spiritual aspirations. You can read more about Glittermouse on the ‘home’ page of this site.

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