A Mouse on a Mission...
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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?’

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At the Foot of the Diamond Throne

31/3/2017

2 Comments

 
As I finally come to write this account of my two months distant visit to Bodhgaya, I realise it would be easy for me to let it become an exhaustive day-by-day diary of every experience and discovery, especially as I kept something of a journal in the form of daily notes and sketches. I’m aware that would probably not make for especially riveting reading though and it probably wouldn’t be particularly successful in communicating what I gained from it either. I shall try and avoid irrelevance but my reflections tend to take a path of their own so I can’t promise that. It’ll be what it is; an attitude I applied to the entire trip as I studiously avoided any assumptions or preconceptions in the days running up to my departure.

I should probably explain for those who don’t already know, that Bodhgaya is taken to be the location of the Buddha’s enlightenment. The Mahabodhi Temple is said to be built on the spot where Prince Siddhartha Gautama sat on a cushion of kusa grass to meditate beneath a peepal tree with such determination that he was able to resist the efforts of Mara (Buddhist equivalent of the Devil) to distract him from achieving Buddhahood. Of course, the peaks and troughs of 2500 years of history have not always been kind to Buddhism, less so its monuments but acceptance of impermanence is a key Buddhist teaching and it seems also largely accepted that the site is genuine, even if the temple has seen several restorations and the tree is only a grandchild of the original Ficus Religiosa or 'Bodhi Tree'. So, it’s a pretty important place if you’re Buddhist, or even if you’re simply interested in history, culture or Eastern religion. It’s a World Heritage Site and the principal place of pilgrimage for Buddhists around the world. When I first knew I was definitely coming to India to volunteer, I said to my colleagues, ‘of course my main purpose here is for work, but if it is at all possible I’d like to do just two other things; go on a retreat and visit Bodhgaya.’ I was, therefore, very grateful to my host, Aryaketu, for helping me to organise both these things and I had been looking forward to the trip since it was confirmed in November.
Gaya is a good 24 hour train ride from Nagpur and Bodhgaya a few kilometres further still.  My journey was always going to be especially lengthy as I had to change trains about 22 hours into my travel, with a five hour wait before the onward service from Mughal Sarai. I was initially quite pleased about this, since the likelihood for my train from Nagpur to be delayed was high and though I was fairly confident I’d be able to work out getting off one train and on to another, I wasn’t so sure I’d be able to negotiate a ticket transferral onto a new service if I missed the one I was supposed to catch. That sort of thing is tricky enough in England, let alone a country where you don’t speak the language. I needn’t have worried. The inbound train was only delayed by about an hour, giving me temporary cause for jubilation that I only had 4 hours to wait at the station, only until I realised that the ongoing train was also delayed by what eventually turned out to be another 7. If I’d known I’d have 11 hours to kill, I might have checked my bag at the luggage desk and gone for a wander but it was one of those situations where the delay grew by about an hour, every hour until I finally had no confidence that I really was on the right train at all. I only started getting a little fractious after about 9 hours. Up until that time I was strangely content to sit back and watch life come and go. I quite like stations, airports, service stations, any place of transience. So many lives and stories playing out before you; it’s almost better than the cinema.
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You can get quite a lot of drawing done on a 22 hour train journey...
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And still more during an 11 hour wait for the next one...
I arrived in Gaya long after dark with the plan of being collected by Buddhavajra, a Triratna order member I’d never met before. We’d not spoken either, until that afternoon, when he called to check the delay of my train. I hadn’t even told him. It was simply that inevitable. I reflected on how much anxiety that would once have caused me, compared with how little it bothered me now. I find it’s easy in life to focus only on the developments we still aim for, the improvements we still hope to make and to completely forget how far we’ve come. I was frustrated that I still had to get from Mughal Sarai to Gaya, forgetting I had already travelled all the way from Nagpur. Equally, I sometimes get irritated when I think of all the distance I’ve yet to travel personally without recognising the significant steps I’ve already made. Still, in this case I felt able to trust to the network of support that is the Triratna Sangha that someone from somewhere would collect me and convey me to safety and this indeed happened; I was soon whizzing though the dark night toward the Triratna land where a room had been arranged for me and a bed was waiting. As I lay in it, ‘only’ about 30 hours after leaving the family home in Bhilgaon, I realised how genuinely safe I felt. I also realised that the station snacks I’d succumbed to after running out of packed food at about hour 24 had been a bad idea. I’d already known that at the time, I think, but hunger and eventual frustration at the apparently endless spiral of delay had resulted in some unskilful decision making, the karma vipaka of which I was now certainly experiencing! Such is life.

I wasn’t too ill the next day to meet Buddhavajra and his family properly (I was staying in a room he had arranged for me with another family but I would be eating meals with him and his wife, Pritti) and he introduced me to a community of young men who live on the Triratna land to receive training in various subjects. The arrangement is very similar, though slightly less formal perhaps, to that which we have at Aryaloka and it felt quite comfortingly familiar to be again interacting with students, hearing their stories of village life, their aspirations and their experiences of learning about the Dhamma. I immediately offered some English taster classes during my stay, an idea that was readily accepted, though it didn’t end up being possible to organise in the end as the community members were soon engaged deeply in helping prepare for, and then run, an order retreat taking place at the centre. Still, the connections have been made, the conversations have been conducted and I think there is a lot of opportunity for the future here. The young people in the state of Bihar are even more disadvantaged than their Maharashtrian contemporaries and it would be a fruitful place to volunteer in future years.
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A gleaming goal to which we a-spire!
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A glimpse of something higher through the Bodhi branches...
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Abstract sketch (from memory) of a first trip to the Mahabodhi Temple
My first visit to the Mahabodhi Temple ended up being a little rushed as I visited with one of the Dhammacharinis who had arrived a day early for the retreat, but I wanted to be back in time for evening meditation and checking in with the community students, so by the time we had walked there I had almost to turn around and come straight back. This mild pressure didn’t stop me having a strong experience though. As we walked up the busy, winding road to the temple, I got the sense that only just now was I in the India of my imagination. We always have something of an idea of what a place will be like before we arrive in it, built from pictures and stories we’ve seen or heard. The French philosopher Marc Augé discusses this in his essay Non-Places, introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity (as well as a discussion of the aforementioned train stations and airports!). The ‘Non-India’ of my preconceptions had mostly been formed from long lazy afternoons as a child, scanning though back copies of my Uncle’s National Geographic subscription. This had given me a very rich visual impression, possibly augmented by shopping trips to ‘ethnic markets’ and an almost instinctive love of meals out in British curry houses! Of course, busy, dusty, urban Nagpur had resembled none of this but in Bodhgaya, the sounds, sights and smells lent a flicker of life to those flights of fancy that seemed now to be not so far from the truth after all. Stalls festooned with floating fabrics, trestle tables groaning with the weight of heaped miscellaneous trinkets, sacks spread out with an array of brightly coloured vegetables, fruit stalls with clouds of incense about them to deter the many flies, the occasional cow chewing surreptitiously on the stock. Monks in bright robes, rickshaw drivers in their jauntily personalised vehicles, auto or cycle, exhausted workers resting in the shade, grubby children playing in the street. That’s not to ignore the less savoury sights; poverty is rife and it’s impossible to avoid the fact that India does not appear to have any fixed solution to waste disposal. It is clear there is still a huge gulf between those who have and those who have not and the visual delights highlighted this; the brightest lights cast the darkest shadows. So it was perhaps because I was already experiencing a stirring sensory onslaught, or perhaps that I had not kept my hopes for the temple as neutral as I’d have liked, that upon getting my first glimpse of the ‘spire’ of the Mahabodhi Temple glinting, golden in the afternoon sun I felt really quite emotional. We had time just to go in, walk briefly round the complex and pay our respects at the shrine before I had to leave. I felt torn; I could easily have stayed, but I had a commitment to keep and I didn’t want the young people at the centre to get the impression I didn’t value their invitation so I resolved to myself that this was simply a reconnaissance mission and that I would return for a deeper engagement with the place in the morning.
I returned the next day like an eager student on the first day of term, my bag packed with a sketchbook and pencils, my meditation cushion under my arm. I was determined to spend as much time there as possible, at least as long as my stomach could hold out to a late lunch, and I planned to sit, to meditate and to draw my little fingers off in recording all the impressions I could gather, to make notes on all the dharma I could possibly consume. I walked around the complex to find a good spot to settle and allowed myself to take in all the sights and sounds; draped garlands brightly hanging on every available monument, small floral offerings and cups of water placed in careful arrangements or simply huddled round edges where space was scarce. The shuffling of feet, the deep whirring of spinning prayer wheels, muttered mantras, clicking mala beads, glistening brows of those engaged in repeated prostrations on specially provided boards. This looked quite torturous but it must be a great upper body workout. I found a rare grassy patch and sat for some time to observe the comings and goings.
The stray dogs and busy birds. The monks taking a break to eat from their tiffin boxes. The Chinese, the Indian, the Tibetan, the Western, the traditional, the new age, the tourists, the devotees. The cleaning staff, the shrine dressers, the security guards. I sat and waited for the inspiration to arise in me for a drawing. It didn’t come. I gently tested my mind to see if it was ripe for fruitful meditation. It responded with resistance. I made my way nearer to the central shrine and the Bodhi Tree and realised that what I was feeling was restless and irritable. This did not fall in line with the expectations I had told myself I should avoid but couldn’t help have. Was I tired? Was I hungry? Was I still feeling the aftermath of the station samosa? I swiftly ruled out these physical causes and recognised my unease as having a psychological root. Something was bothering me. Something was making me uneasy and annoyed, which in itself was disturbing me as I felt that of all places, out of every square foot I could have landed in on the globe, surely this was the place where I should be keying in to some sublime spiritual experience, some resonant, Dharmic peace. Not mild irritation with my fellow visitors. Where was the metta!? How undharmic could it be!? If I’ve learned nothing else in my time studying the Dharma, I’ve learned that these moments of unease, or irritability, or dissatisfaction are valuable alarm bells that indicate a place I need to explore more deeply in myself. Like an ‘X marks the spot’ on a treasure map of my mind. Far from being feelings to be embarrassed or ashamed of, far from being thoughts to deny expression, they are clues and hints of an opportunity to dig a little deeper, go a little further, and learn a little more. So I went with it. I found a little gap between the meditators under the branches of the Bodhi Tree and I sat down to really observe what was going on in my mind, as well as in the world around me, calmly and without judgement. I watched the stream of people gradually making circumambulations of the shrine building and the Bodhi Tree. Chanting mantras. Prostrating and standing, stepping forward, prostrating again and repeating one arduous circuit after another. Pushing and shoving to get close enough to the tablet marking the Vajrasana to press their foreheads on the perfume oiled, gold-leaf flecked stone, to leave a coin or a note, to prostrate again. I watched the pilgrims from the east, performing habitual rituals to appease their Buddhist families, I watched the hippies from the west seeking a quick fix enlightenment on an organic coffee break from their yoga retreats, I watched wrinkled, withered monks doing the same thing they do every year; and I felt angry with them. “What good is this doing you!?” I wanted to stand up and scream. “What is the purpose of your actions? Do you even know? How on earth is this moving you closer to enlightenment? How can you be so blind, so ignorant, so repetitive, so dull?!” I felt helpless then, for them and for myself, questioning too my own reasons for being there. What was I expecting? How could I ever achieve this hugely difficult goal? Not if I meditated for every heartbeat I have remaining, or chanted with each and every breath still to come, not if I prostrated until my muscles have atrophied or offered every flower that ever grew; none of this would be enough. I felt that then so sharply and it disgusted me. Suddenly, a layer of distortion seemed to fall away from my perception and I watched the dogs scrapping in the dust, the birds bickering in the branches, the people pushing past each other to feel themselves, or be witnessed by others as just a shred closer to the transcendental and I saw this hopeless struggling in each of them to escape their suffering. The empty or over filled stomachs, the diseased or injured bodies, the anguished minds. The self-abused, the socially oppressed, the poor and in need, the rich yet dissatisfied, the internal pain, the external friction, the hurt, the sorrow, the suffering, the despairing machinations of each and every being, those present in front of me and those on the furthest reaches of the planets crust, all just desperate, so desperate to break free from the rounds of conditioned existence; and my heart simply broke. All that anger and irritation completely dissolved under a flood of compassion that found physical form in my suddenly wet cheeks. So I sat and gazed up into the branches feeling at one again with all of them and never more determined to find my way to enlightenment that I might guide them to the exit myself. ‘Hold tight’ I found myself willing every other being on the planet, for not the first time. ‘I’m not sure how or when but I’ll do it. I’ll find the way and I’ll bust us out.’ Once the flow had ebbed, I found finally beneath it the motivation to draw and at last fetched my sketchbook from my bag. I didn’t move, but settled into drawing the thing I had been staring at for maybe ten, maybe twenty, maybe thirty minutes; my sketchbook note suggests I spent nearly an hour drawing the spreading, ancient branches of the great Bodhi Tree.
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Prayer wheels
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Circumambulation
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Prostration
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Floral Offerings
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Heart Shaped Bodhi Leaves
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A drawing of the Bodhi tree, with marigold petals that fell as I drew.
The order retreat was due to start that evening on the Triratna land. I knew, as I had been told by more than one order member, including co-leader Maitriveer Nagarjuna, whom I had got to know through NNBY, that I was welcome to attend the evening pujas to be held every night at the Mahabodhi Temple, but that as I was not yet ordained, I would not be able to join the meditations or talks. To be quite honest, it had not even occurred to me that I might participate in any of the retreat at all and as far as I was concerned it was a coincidental event that had nothing to do with my visit. However; that invitation had planted a seed of curiosity. I had no specific plans for my days and the land was a nice enough place to spend time; there was something about it that reminded me of an English garden during a particularly warm autumn. I realised that if I happened to be sitting there, enjoying the peace and quiet, absorbing the hedges and flowerbeds, the gentle calm and the clear, fresh air, if I happened to hear some of what was being said through the walls of the marquee it was being said in… well… that wasn’t exactly intruding… was it? The fact that on the second day an enormous speaker appeared outside the marquee suggested that if I wasn’t being exactly encouraged (I think it was to reduce feedback from all the equipment inside the tent, not to satisfy a greedy mitra), then I at least wasn’t eavesdropping on any guarded Dharmic secrets.  Of course, this would never have been much use to me had Maitreveer not been co-leading with none other than Subhuti himself, whom, as I have mentioned in earlier writing, delivers his talks in English, with interpretation. My luck was clearly in and so, the rest of my time in Bodhgaya was basically formed around these activities; either sitting at the temple, reflecting, drawing, observing, meditating, or pitched up outside the tent for some insight into what sort of talks and meditations are shared on an order retreat. There are, of course, plenty of other temples, centres and places to visit in Bodhgaya but I didn’t feel like paying them any attention beyond their utilisation as handy navigational landmarks. All I really felt like doing was being at the Mahabodhi Temple, or listening to the Dharma in a language that was familiar to me, both in terms of linguistics and the Triratna style of teaching. In the evenings, I joined the puja with the retreatants. Some of the ritual I could enthusiastically join in with, and it was lovely to discover that I had become familiar enough with a little of the Hindi to join in the positive precepts but I had to shut up half way through; order members commit to ten ethical precepts, not the five that mitras begin on and I didn’t know all of them, in fact, the fifth seemed somehow different too, so I ended up just joining in with the first four and the little bits I was familiar with elsewhere. Though it was a comforting familiarity to feel I was practically participating, really, it was the inclusion itself that mattered. No, I may not yet have had the training and experience to fully participate in the other activities on the retreat, but still my presence, my commitment and my intention, was recognised and valued enough to be included in what for most people is the pinnacle of each day’s practice.
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Twilight drawing until the light failed...
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So the next day, I took my camera...
I have had the recurring experience since studying Buddhism that the course, or book, or teaching I am engaged with seems to do no more than guide me along a path that I pick out for myself. I am on a well-worn trajectory that is far from accidental, yet I am supported to follow a deeply honest personal instinct, as a migrating goose in a flock independently follows a natural truth alongside others, not compelled to shape my journey to a system of given co-ordinate facts by an external, academic discipline. Wild geese do not need to ‘recalculate’ their GPS directions due to unreported road closures. I am sure that if I’ve articulated it well enough, that description will seem familiar to many. I first made this distinct observation when completing courses in Manchester and again in London, when simultaneously studying and reading The Journey and the Guide by Maitreyabandhu. Time and again, the close of a chapter or class would cause me to independently consider certain concepts, or identify particular personal issues that might at first glance appear tangential. Lo and behold; however, the very next chapter, or the topic of the next class would describe just that, sometimes subtly, sometimes quite directly, as if the author or teachers had somehow checked in on my most private thoughts and factored that in to their lesson planning. I tried to avoid interpreting this from the point of view of my conditioning around academic success but I found it to be a very affirming experience.
Of course, you can’t really manufacture it. It just has to happen. It is certainly confidence building though and I was relieved to experience it again in Bodhgaya, despite the piecemeal and somewhat voyeuristic nature of my ‘study’. There were, for example, times when I was making notes during the main talks that I found myself so tuned in to the topic that I was practically writing down what Subhuti was saying as it came out of the speakers. Once or twice, I summarised things to myself in a hastily jotted phrase, only for him to use the same analogy in the next sentence.
That felt a bit like when you think you are finding your way OK based on a rather confusing map, but look up to confirm that a landmark you were hoping to see is, indeed, firmly rooted in the ground before you. ‘Yes! I get it! I’m on the right track!’ In Bodhgaya, I found a couple of particularly notable moments of this affirmative experience, the first of which served to provide me with some clarity the day after my confused feelings of anger-cum-heartbreak-cum-determination under the Bodhi Tree. The theme of the order retreat was compassion and one of the first talks Subhuti gave reflected on the cultivation of Bodhicitta. I’m currently reading into this topic further as preparation for an upcoming retreat and it’s a complex area that I don’t pretend to fully grasp, but it does inextricably link a desire to achieve Enlightenment with the purpose of benefitting all other beings, essentially due to the dissolution of the self-illusion. Once you realise, really feel that ‘you’ and ‘them’ are simply different expressions of the same being, all your actions become wise and compassionate by default because what benefits ‘you’, benefits ‘them’, what benefits ‘them’, benefits ‘you’ and there is a deep understanding of these apparently separate entities as in fact, a single coherent body. I am still definitely interacting with the world through the illusion of self, however, the fact is that I felt an incredibly intense urge to get beyond that, not so I could pat myself on the back and put my feet up with a cup of spiritual tea, listen to Nirvana (bad 90’s music joke, sorry) and enjoy a future of blissful release; but so that I knew how to get everyone else out of their suffering too. I find I am recoiling from writing these words for fear of appearing to seek approval, praise, or status. I don’t know exactly what I felt, or what it ‘means’, if it can be said to mean anything. I am not claiming to be channelling Bodichitta, nor assuming I’ve ever done so, but I couldn’t help feeling, when I heard Subhuti describe this, that I was very, very familiar with his words. ‘Yes,’ I kept thinking, ‘I know how that goes’ and my mind kept returning to my experience under the Bodhi Tree. ‘I wouldn’t have described it so eloquently myself or known to explain it in those terms,’ I thought, ‘but that’s what I felt, that’s what it was.’

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Rubbings of words selected from a plaque at the Mahabodi Temple
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Trees at Sunset on the Triratna Land
The next evening, sitting again outside the tent in the late, amber sun (actually I think I had a better deal than those inside, quite frankly) I learned, for the first time, the Development of Bodhicitta practice of meditation. It was not one I had come across before in either my experiences in Triratna drop in classes, or on open retreats and I suspect that it’s not normally introduced until a little further down the line of study. I also suspect that a standard way of learning it would be to build up to it slowly, one stage at a time. I’m nothing if not committed though, and previous incarnations of self, have me led to develop a kind of sturdy resilience that I try and avoid feeling proud of. In other words, I have a personality that enjoys the challenge of the deep end and I am no stranger to feelings of both emotional and physical pain and discomfort. Let me at it. In the Development of Bodhicitta meditation, one begins from a strong foundation of metta, or loving kindness for oneself. From this base, you imagine that you are ‘going for refuge’, or seeking Enlightenment from the teachings and practices of Buddhism, with all other sentient beings for their benefit. From here, you build up a sense of your own unshakable commitment to this, imagined as a clear, bright, white light at your heart, alongside a sense of the suffering and unskilful actions of the other beings, seen as a dark black smoke in theirs. Now, you visualise yourself breathing in their black smoke, physically inhaling their suffering, relieving them of it in order to neutralise it in the intensity of the light of your purpose. For myself, I imagined this very visually, like when you drop ink into bleach and that staining simply fades away on contact. I found myself able to focus during this meditation and felt no ill effects. I quite enjoyed it as a new experience and I appreciated the mental aesthetics it encouraged. The next morning; however (I have long thought a good meditation is a bit like a hot chilli; you only appreciate it through the after burn), I wrote this:
‘Feeling sick today. Sick and no motivation. Yesterday, began feeling like I’ll never be able to do this. It’s too hard. I am inadequate. Oh, hi Mara. Too much work. Thinking about the analogy of the black smoke, yes, I feel polluted. Poisoned. Exhausted too. I feel like I could scream in frustration. Honestly, I feel that emotional, I feel like I’m railing against the reality of the way things are, like a slumbering teen, shouting and swearing at the caring parent who is trying to wake them up. Where is this anger from? It’s too easy. It’s just too f**cking easy to accept a bit of suffering in exchange for the pleasurable moments, to accept the occasional dissatisfaction for the comfort of impotent complacency. This Dharma sh*t is f**cking hard work. It’s painful and it’s tough and it’s messy, but once you’ve seen that it’s the only way forward, for the whole damned universe, how can you ignore it? The illusion that is me feels very emotional today.’
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Then, I wrote a poem about self-clinging and ignorance.
In composing this post I’ve avoided, until now, spilling out great reams from my sketchbook notes and I am making genuine efforts to edit and summarise my most important experiences but these musings from the morning of February 8th still seem so rich and direct and honest that I’ve made an exception in this case. They are also by way of being an introduction to my next experience of being ‘one step ahead of the text book’. It’s perhaps not so strange that I had thought in terms of the ‘folklore’ of the Buddha’s Enlightenment, being so close to the source and surrounded by various retellings of how Mara flung arrows at the meditating Siddhartha in an attempt to distract him from his task. I did genuinely have a sense that my feelings of rage, inadequacy, irritation and discomfort were no more than some kind of counterintuitive force (a bit of my own head no doubt, anthropomorphised as Mara), dragging me away from the effort of commitment to serving the Dharma, and, being a poetic type who revels in analogy, I’d already couched them in terms of being akin to Mara’s arrows. It felt very ‘right’ then, that Subhuti’s talk that afternoon took the next part of this same story to explain how to deal with them. The story continues that the determined aura of the meditating Buddha-to-be is strong enough for the arrows to be transformed into flowers as soon as they meet it, raining blossoms instead of threat. This, Subhuti explained, is something we can do in our own lives.
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When we notice moments of irritation, pain, unhappiness, anything serving as a distraction from our practice, we can take the time to acknowledge it, be aware of it and respond mindfully, transforming it instead into a flower of compassion, be that compassion towards ourselves or others. We can recognise the hate, or anger, or fear in the world and we can see past the apparent threat to the underlying suffering that causes it and respond to that suffering lovingly, rather than react to the unpleasant experience in a way that fuels or exacerbates it. Yet another experience where it seemed my thoughts had been responded to, very directly, very personally. If I believed in an interventionist god, I’d certainly have believed my prayers answered. The next morning, still feeling unsettled and fractious, I began a little creative project that I maintained for the rest of my stay, in which I acknowledged such moments as ‘arrows’ and drew them as seeds, from which I visually described the ‘flower of compassion’ bursting. I hoped that the time I took to put pencil to paper and think about what form the flower from that particular seed would take, could be the time in which the reactive feeling would subside and allow me to respond more skilfully. Sometimes it certainly did, sometimes it took a little more work, but I quite enjoyed the activity and though I’ve not yet carried it further, it seems like it might itself be the seed of a wider, deeper project.
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The Development of Bodhicitta meditation was alternated (aside from the basis of the very familiar Metta Bhavana and Mindfulness of Breathing meditations, which were also included), with one other that was slightly more familiar to me. I had read about the Six Element practice, in which one works systematically through each ‘element’ of what appears to be the fixed self to contemplate its transience. For example, beginning with Earth, we develop an awareness of all that is earthy, or solid about us; our bones, flesh, organs, the food we have consumed, and we remind ourselves that our bodies are made from cells that were not with us when we were born and will continue to be refreshed and replaced until we die, when our final materialisation will return again to earth. The atoms that make our cells do not belong to us, they are part of a system of process including all organic matter. We think then of the Water element, our bodily fluids, all passing through us in a daily cycle of drinking and urinating, exhaling, sweating. The Air, our breath, passing in and out of us as the oxygen is absorbed, the carbon dioxide released. Our body heat and energy, the Fire element, generated by our metabolism or borrowed from the sun. In addition to these more traditional elements, we progress then to the Space we occupy temporarily, moving through it, never fixed, and finally consciousness, where we consider the impossibility of fixing the origin of this to anywhere permanent. I am conscious of a pain in my shoulder, but my consciousness does not originate there. I am aware of sense impressions from the outside world, yet my consciousness does not reside in the throat of the bird whose song I can hear, or the released chlorophyll of the grass clippings I can smell, or the current of the breeze I can feel on my face.
The purpose of this meditation is to try and realise the illusive falsehood of a fixed self on a deeper level than the surface fact. we know we are changing, developing, learning, aging and progressing, until we one day die but we can’t help behaving like this only applies to other people. The Six Element meditation aims to bring us in to a closer, deeper realisation of our own impermanence. I first read about it some months back but I did not feel able to attempt it without guidance, I did not understand it or its purpose well enough to know where I was going with it. I was actually quite excited when I heard it would be included in the retreat and despite managing to fall asleep in my first attempt, I enjoyed it thereafter. I found something very reassuring, very comforting, about feeling I was really only responsible for guiding a collection of ‘stuff’ through a temporary experience that would one day cease to be my problem. That might not be a particularly healthy way to view impermanence and I don’t want to sway too far towards the nihilist or use it as an excuse to deny responsibility for my actions but hey, as aforementioned, this Dharma sh*t is f**king hard work, so I’m gonna take my breaks where I can get ‘em. Pleasant as that was, actually, the most useful thing I derived from the experience was an actual felt sense of my consciousness being no longer limited in my perception to this coagulation of flesh I call ‘me’. I found, particularly through the sense of sound, which was interesting as a primarily visual person, that if I angled my thoughts in the right direction, I could really feel that ‘I’ extended beyond my body in an imagined sphere that stretched at least as far as the origin of sounds I was aware of. I’m aware as I cobble those words together that I don’t yet have a way to properly articulate it. I’m not sure if that’s a sense others would corroborate, I’ve not had the chance to discuss it with anyone yet, but the pleasant thing is, I have been able to easily revisit it in subsequent meditations. I think as far as ‘expanding one’s mind’ goes, I’ve done no more than swell my ball-bearing scale consciousness to the size of a small marble, but it’s been an interesting development to my methods of experiencing myself as a part of the wider universe.
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Rubbings of words selected from a plaque at the Mahabodi Temple
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Bodhi Leaves...
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From the Bodhi Tree...
Interestingly, my reflection that ‘I’ve not had a chance to discuss it with anyone yet’, is perhaps the most important thing to mention in addition to the intellectual learning, about my time ‘on the edges’ of the retreat. No doubt there’s nourishment to be found in gathering the scraps dropped from a table but one can’t be guaranteed the same balanced meal as the guests, nor can one benefit from the dinner party chatter. If I struggled with the week, or the content I absorbed by osmosis, it was at least in part due to that semi-solitary nature and the lack of opportunity to ‘unpack’ my experiences as part of a peer group, something I shall now value even more on my next retreat. I benefitted greatly and I feel deep gratitude that I was able to do so, but I have had cause to really understand the difference between being on a retreat and studying by one’s self. In terms of the Three Jewels, what was missing of course, was Sangha. Actually, as I write that, I realise it was far from missing really, and the fact that my conspicuous scurrying about on the edges was tolerated in the first place is some evidence of that, but it’s a subtle manifestation and not of the same intensity as actually having the spiritual fellowship of shared practice. Nor have I taken lightly that which I received. Even if I have described it as crumbs from a table, still I know there are others starving. I’m all too aware that many of the order members who had paid to attend what I got a lot of for free, will have been scarce able to afford it and will perhaps be able to attend such gatherings only sporadically for that reason. If anyone reading this is thinking that my Dharmic eavesdropping sounds a bit too much like ‘taking the not given’, please rest assured that since I returned to the UK, I have set up a standing order to make monthly donations to the Indian Dhamma Trust, who work to support people otherwise unable to access the teachings or train for ordination in to the Triratna movement.
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Just one garlanded figure of many...
Anyway, just as my body is merely borrowing its elements from the universe, my mind is only borrowing the knowledge I gained. I will, as an aspiring servant of the Dharma, be gladly utilising all my learning for the benefit of others at every possible opportunity. Though I had succeeded somewhat in avoiding a fixed expectation of the trip, I suppose it was only natural that I had some hopes or dreams of encountering a deeply moving, transformational spiritual experience that left me on some kind of elevated plane of consciousness. Perhaps I did find this on a more subtle level, I certainly learned a lot from the talks and I benefitted from the time and spaciousness, from my reflections at the temple and in meditation during the week. I also reengaged with a dormant creative practice in my sketchbook and in a series of photographs taken in the temple complex. I think the true value of the experience will be found in the subtleties though, not in the features. It’s in how I take that learning, those moments of realisation in the conditions conducive to their arrival, and apply it to my daily routine in more mundane surroundings that will decide how fruitful my time at Bodhgaya was. Like a random battery discovered at the back of the kitchen drawer, perhaps the spiritual energy I gained from the trip will not be obvious until I have cause to discharge its energy to an appropriate application.
So no, as I wandered the land of the Buddha's Enlightenment, I didn’t find my ultimate release from suffering the rounds of conditioned existence. I did not achieve Nirvana under the Bodhi Tree. But as our teacher, Sangharakshita has identified:
‘Our everyday life may be pleasurable or painful; wildly ecstatic or unbearably agonising; or just plain dull and boring much of the time. But it is here, in the midst of all these experiences, good, bad and indifferent – and nowhere else – that Enlightenment is to be attained.’

The photographs used in this post are from a new series titled At the Foot of the Diamond Throne
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Neha; The Story So Far...

8/3/2017

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When I arrived in India, I quickly realised that I was going to meet many people whose stories deserved telling. This was perhaps not because they were particularly unusual, but because they would demonstrate a kind of tenacious determination that I feel is becoming eroded in the west, where many people have learned to take so much more for granted and where relative comforts have, in many cases, made it easier to accept the status quo. I’m not sure this has always been the case though, and I think we’d do well to be reminded of our potential for self-improvement and social development. I didn’t get to write as many of these stories as I’d hoped; I have learned it takes a good deal of time to research the facts, let alone write such a biography well enough to do it justice, especially when your subject has a busy schedule. That’s before you’ve accepted the fact that everything just seems to take longer in India, too! However, there was one story that I was determined not to leave without writing. This is Neha, who is also the first person whose story I realised really needed to be shared. Neha is also one of the first people connected with Aryaloka that I met when she visited the UK in June of 2016 as part of a trip to Europe, having been commissioned to film a documentary about how people from the Romany Gypsy community in Hungary have found inspiration and strength in the work of Dr Ambedkar. This in itself is indicative of the kind of woman she is; you have to be a pretty remarkable person to get such an opportunity when you’ve started life in the conditions she experienced.
Neha is the youngest of three sisters but also has a younger brother. This is significant and the family stops here for a reason. As with many traditional Indian families, her father, if not her mother, was waiting for a boy. What might in other circumstances have been a joyous occasion therefore lacked celebration, in fact ‘Papa’ was so disappointed to have yet another daughter that he became angry with her ‘Mama’ and refused to even see Neha for a month after her birth, professing hate for the new arrival. It’s of no surprise that Neha goes on to reflect on her childhood as ‘not very happy’.
Despite the controversy of her gender, she says she did feel loved at home, though I personally think this is little more
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A recent coffee date!
than a testament to the strength of her mother, a generous and kind lady who I have met on several occasions. Her family could not afford treats or gifts and this in itself caused, and was caused by, a good deal of sorrow. ‘A normal child is playing and joyous’ Neha tells me, describing an idea she has of what a young life should be, not wanting for things such as chocolate and toys, ‘our family was not like that’. The sorry reason for the lack of funds will be well known to many. Until the age of 11, Neha’s Papa was heavy drinker. He was regularly home late and drunk, beating her Mama. He was earning, as he still is, as a rickshaw driver, but much of what he earned was spent on alcohol.
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By the reservoir at Bordheran
At the end of 6th standard, Neha was ill at the time of her exams and she failed. Papa was very angry and decided she would spend the summer going to work with him as a punishment for poor studies. The cycle rickshaw he used was heavy and he was weakened by drinking. Neha’s job was, therefore, to walk behind the cart and push. This was not a passenger vehicle, as he now operates, but a goods service and unfortunately, his main occupation was delivering alcohol to bars, perhaps not how he developed an alcohol addiction in the first place, but certainly not helping him recover from it. Mama found work as a cleaner, going door to
door and working in people’s homes. They all put in long hours in order to keep the family of six fed and clothed, despite their challenges. As I listen to Neha describe her upbringing, I can’t help but ask how she thinks the allotted social status of being from a Scheduled Caste (ex untouchable) family has impacted upon their lives. It’s a question I feel slightly awkward asking, and one I feel I have phrased in the clumsy terms of one who really doesn’t understand the hierarchical system they are questioning. It is perhaps too broad a question to be useful, too unsubtle to get to the heart of the matter. At least she does not seem offended by it, responding simply by saying that most of Indian society would dismiss the difficulties her family faced as the inevitable life of low caste status. A ‘put up and shut up’ attitude that does not empower people to develop either personally or socially. This is your lot. Accept it.

Though these circumstances put her at a disadvantage in many ways, Neha certainly learned to be a hard worker, particularly in school and she successfully passed 10th standard, moving on to 11th and 12th with no difficulty. At least she had no social distractions to keep her from her college studies; she was very shy and withdrawn, she recalls. She graduated from 12th class with good marks, but with no friends and few reasons to be happy. As something of a vote of confidence, she was advised by her teachers to train as a chartered accountant, which is considered to be a very good, and certainly well paid job. There is an entrance exam to continue studies in this field though, and while she could certainly have passed, she was not able to afford the course fees so she gave up on this idea and enrolled onto a Bachelor of Commerce degree instead.
One day, a neighbour who knew she enjoyed drawing and painting, called on Neha for company while she enquired about a six month animation course. The course cost 15,000 rupees and her neighbour decided she wasn’t interested; but Neha certainly was! She applied and paid the 1000 rupee deposit with all the money she had and no idea where or when she'd get the rest. Knowing she may be forced to leave after the first month, she studied hungrily and learned fast, often being asked for help by her peers! This also encouraged her to become more social and after confiding in a friend on the course about her uncertain place on the course, she was helped to get a job working as a Photoshop operator in a photo studio. The director of the studio drove a hard bargain, asking why she deserved payment if she was inexperienced and unqualified. She explained her situation, that she only wanted the remaining 14,000 to continue the animation course, offering to work every day if needed. Her enthusiasm, if not yet her skills must have been impressive and so she secured the job and the security of finishing her course. During this time, she rose early every morning to help with household work, leaving at six every morning to attend the animation course before working in the photo studio. Her day also included continued study on the Bachelor of Commerce course as well as office work, and yet more study when she returned home not normally until after 9pm, finally ending her day around midnight. After a month at the studio, the manager was sufficiently impressed that he helped her get a scholarship on the animation course and began paying her an actual wage, which she put straight into supporting her family.
This was not just a time of development and personal transformation for Neha. After attending a one day retreat led by Subhuti at Nagaloka, at which he is reported to have had a bottle of wine conveniently stashed in a nearby bush, her papa stopped drinking. One of Neha’s domestic duties had been to prepare tobacco for her father, rolling it into betel leaves to make paan for chewing; but when he came home from the retreat that day, he did not want paan. After two days, he had stopped drinking and now, she tells me proudly, he doesn't even drink chai, taking only milk in the morning and water throughout the day. Neha and her family had thought they enjoyed the freedom of Papa being away for a day on the retreat but could never have guessed how their lives might change as a result of it; no more shouting, no more anger, no more violence.

In 2007, as he continued to attend classes and events at Nagaloka, Papa met Aryaketu (director of Aryaloka) and heard him discussing various creative projects, including those involving animation; he didn’t waste much time in detailing his daughter’s experience and asking about opportunities for her. Aryaketu was looking for help making a comic about Buddhist teachings and so he offered her a chance to demonstrate her skills, agreeing that if her work was of a good standard she would be paid for it. Now she was involved in the Triratna community, Neha’s drive and potential was beginning to get noticed. By the time Shakyajata was organising and recruiting for the first batch of Young Indian Futures students, three different people, all order members, had separately recommended her, keen to support her progress if possible. As such, Neha became resident in the first community of young women, living and studying at the old building in Indora.
PictureNeha at the family home with Mama and Papa
She finished the course at Aryaloka, very happily in 2009, with as much success as one might expect, knowing a little of her determination. She learned English and new creative software such as Maya, also improving her skills in other programmes such as Photoshop. Here, she felt confident for the first time too and made friends with the other eight women in the community, a bigger social group than she had ever previously known. She felt free for the first time too, and even found the confidence to speak with boys, challenging her own preconceptions that they must necessarily be up to no good, realising through this interaction that they were just as human as she, and also capable of good things! Critically, she also learned about the Dhamma and deepened her practice of metta (loving kindness). As the outstanding student of the first cohort, she was invited back the next year for a paid opportunity, teaching animation to the second year of students.

Of course things weren’t always perfect and she recalls the challenge of being away from her family for the first time, at least, she considers, she was not located too far away, which made it easier to adjust and she felt mentally prepared. Making good friends in the community helped too, and though there were quarrels at times, she felt able to stay out of them and not get involved. English was also a challenge for her, though she recalls memories of learning with Shakyajata and fellow UK teacher, Priyadaka, with great affection. She remembers creating a rangoli welcome for Shakyajata and when she finally arrived, such had been the depth of their correspondence by email that she did not feel it was the first time they had met. She vividly describes their first meeting, an emotional occasion where the tears flowed. She laughs at the memory; ‘that time, I am mad! I don’t know why!’ One thing she’s quite clear on though, is the crucial role that the opportunity at Aryaloka played in her development and current life. ‘If I didn’t study there, I wouldn’t be here now’ she states firmly. She didn’t leap straight into employment beyond Aryaloka; however and still faced difficulties turning her knowledge and skills into an income. She travelled as far as Pune, Deli and Mumbai for interviews, with mixed results. For some vacancies, she was still considered too inexperienced, for some, she achieved successful offers, yet her family would not allow her to live alone and so far away. Such is the disadvantage of girls in India, even those with clear talents and ambitions.
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Celebrating her last birthday!
By this time, Papa had not just allowed his discovery of Buddhism to improve his own life, he’d shared it with his whole family, who were now all practicing. Neha didn’t take long to fully embrace the opportunity to become more involved in the Dhamma either and became a Mitra of the Triratna order in 2010. She requested ordination in 2016. In 2011, her hard work finally paid off. She heard from her brother in law of a vacancy for a graphic designer at Lord Buddha TV, an alternative news channel based in Nagpur that broadcasts across the whole of India. After taking her show reel to interview, she was offered the job, a role she still more than fills, frequently spilling over into a myriad of peripheral duties with her multiple talents. It’s hard to imagine someone more dedicated to their employment, especially when the small organisation does not always have a smooth cash flow to enable timely payment of salaries. This is more than a job to Neha though; it’s not just an opportunity to engage in her creative passions either. Far more importantly than that, it is a way of helping to spread the word of the Dhamma and help others find ways to ease their own suffering. After all, such teachings affected a great deal of positive change in her own life and to share this potential is a key motivator for her.
Her success in employment is also something she attributes to her time at Aryaloka. ‘I met Triratna, I learned about Buddha and Dr Ambedkar’, she says, learning that she feels she wouldn’t have got at any other institution. She does not believe she would be working at LBTV either, does not feel she would have found this opportunity to combine her Dhamma practice and her practical skills. In fact, she believes even the longevity of her job (she has seen many other members of staff come and go) is thanks to the depth of her practice and passion, which she would not have got from any other college. ‘I wouldn't have been able to afford it anyway’ she reflects.
Her time at Aryaloka has positively affected those around her too. After she began teaching and earning an income, she was able to support them to live much more comfortably. Her commitment to practice has also helped, feeding into and strengthening that of the whole family.
Thinking back to our conversation as a write this, a snatched hour round the back of the stupa at Bordheran during a busy schedule filming the talks by Subhuti at the NNBY 10th Annual Convention, I realise that I have, in some ways set myself an impossible task. I can’t write Neha’s story yet, for despite the rich material in her first two decades, her story is far from complete, a fact she is all too aware of herself; this is not a fairy tale ending. ‘Is there anything else you think I should mention?’ I ask, half exhausted already from recording the details of so many trials and tribulations. ‘Yes!’ she responds, ‘My struggle is not finished!’ Every day at work is challenging, with more tasks than she can complete. She’s working on big stories too, broadcasting the talks and activities of some of the most senior order members, so there’s a lot of pressure to do so successfully, pressure that she doesn’t always even get paid for, when a key advertising client has not paid their fees, or the tiny channel has simply run out of cash.

She’s had problems with colleagues as well, and recently encountered difficulties with bullying and blame, causing her to return home in tears every nights for a long spell. Her mum supported her through these problems though, and with this help she found the strength to stick it out, not reacting to or fuelling such unpleasant behaviour. Her skills and good will have also been stretched professionally; she was originally employed as an animator but when her manager left after just one month, her future was uncertain. At this time, she only knew how to work in 2D and animation software but the channel director liked her work and asked her to stay on in a different role, as an editor. For this, she taught herself how to work in entirely new editing software because no one else at the company would teach her. It was a similar story when she was invited to run her own programme.
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Filming Subhuti at Bordheran
 Colleagues behaved angrily and with jealousy when she achieved recognition for her work and so she had to learn a substantial set of new skills in filming; suddenly finding herself in the deep end with no camera man willing to work with her, presenting the programmes herself too, despite being very shy and having to learn all this completely on the go.

There’s another reason her story is not yet finished too; in fact, she has just started yet another new chapter as a newlywed, to Maitri, also a Mitra who has requested ordination and who works running a shop and restaurant as enterprises offering services to visitors at Nagaloka. Maitri is originally from Arunachal Pradesh, a northern state of India, with different customs, languages,
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Resplendent as a bride...
 lifestyles and cultures. This in itself has been something of an issue for the couple; interstate marriages are not common and it took some time for Neha to ease the concerns of her family and achieve their blessings. Not that I suspect it would have stopped her if they’d maintained their disapproval. Aware of the imminent wedding, and as a somewhat excited guest, I was pleased for the opportunity to grill Neha on a happier issue; how did you meet? How do you think your life will be different after the wedding? What are your plans for your future as a couple? At this, she wrinkles her nose and asks ‘It is important?’ She tells me, after a joke dismissal of the question, that whatever happens, she plans to spend at least the next two years spreading the Dhamma through her work at LBTV. There will certainly be no children in the short term. In the long term, who knows? She remains uncommitted beyond her drive to become ordained, and this is something she feels they will be working for together, as Dhamma practitioners. ‘Maitri tells me we will be a team’ she says, ‘there will not be “your work” and “my work” in the home; we both have jobs, we will share the house work.’

There were other concerns too, of course; any young person about to enter into a lifetime commitment may be expected to feel somewhat anxious about such things and, I realised, when talking as a friend, not as an interviewer, that what from a Western perspective is a distinct lack of relationship experience was adding to these worries. I found that particular conversation very difficult at times and really got the sense that though Neha was indeed happy with the idea of getting married to Maitri, this was perhaps still in the context of feeling that she didn’t have much choice about whether or not she got married at all. ‘It’s not too late!’ I felt like saying, ‘run away with me!’ but knowing that would not be helpful, I contented myself with simply listening to her concerns and making it clear that I was willing to continue to do so at any time. If I can trust anyone to have made the right choice for themselves, I feel sure it’s Neha. She had at one time, she tells me, entertained the idea of leaving India entirely and becoming a nun, in order to fully commit to her practice and avoid marriage entirely. This, she feels is a more sensible and balanced approach that will allow her to stay connected with her family and probably to do more meaningful Dhamma work.
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Pakora success!
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And the new husband chips in!
Any fears I, or indeed she may have had, have happily melted since the wedding and Maitri’s promise at least with regards to housework certainly seems to stand true; the wedding was in January, and I received an invitation to dinner shortly after the couple returned from some time away with Neha’s new family. Sure enough, alongside Neha in the kitchen, Maitri was chopping, cooking and washing up too. We had a fine meal, with Maharashtrian specialties cooked up by Neha, (including her first, very successful, attempt at pakora!) and some home treats prepared by Maitri. They seemed happy and relaxed together too, a relief to me, with my cultural preconceptions about equality and gender roles in marriage. Neha is glowing, smiling, as busy as ever at work, but still capable of telling me that she is very happy. Not yet quite a fairy tale ending perhaps, but a very joyful pit stop if nothing else, and it’s certainly a union that’s blessed from the start. There are not many weddings, I think, to which Subhuti, a very busy and senior order member, would fly all the way from Pune and back in the same day to officiate.

Neha is clear that she never would have believed it to be possible for her to be living as she does now. This isn’t a matter of luck though, it’s sheer hard work, raw belief and pure determination that has achieved it. Yes, certain opportunities have arisen for her, but none that would have occurred without her own drive and motivation to realise the fruits of them. ‘If you had a message, for people in the UK who might read your story, if they are Buddhist, or if they are not, what would it be?’ I ask as a concluding thought, unsure that I will be able to articulate her experiences well enough myself to communicate the lesson that I know so many could learn from her example. She looks a little taken back at a difficult question and is thoughtful for a moment.
‘I face difficulties and challenges in my life’ she states, ‘but friendship is most important.’ People, she says, are all the same and we have the same feelings. ‘I know what it's like to be hurt, so I believe in not hurting others. Respect each other. Treat others as you want be treated.’ This, she believes, is what has got her through.
I’ve met many people in India, many of them have told me impressive tales of triumph over adversity, many of them I now feel honoured to count among my friends. I am sure, too, that I shall return when possible, to continue what I’ve left and that I shall meet many of them again. I don’t think, however, that there is anyone else I’ve met in my time here in whom I recognise that spark of deeper connection, a truly common perspective on the world and of our places in it, the kind of friendship you have where you almost instinctively realise a complete trust that this person will be around for the rest of your life, regardless of the circumstances you find yourselves in or the distances between you. If I think hard about it, I can actually only say I’ve met 3 or maybe 4 other people in my entire life with whom I feel such a connection, who I would call my ‘best friends’ and funnily enough, they all live in completely different countries.
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Caught mid-interview at Bordheran!
As I near the end of my first stay in India, I think of all the people I am going to leave behind, all the people I shall miss. Strangely, Neha is not among them and I think it is due to the strength of the bond I feel with her that this is the case. I shan’t miss her because in every important way, she’ll still be with me. I’m not sure where, or when, Neha and I will next meet, but I do feel sure that while her story is not over, she is going to somehow play an continued and important part in mine.
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National Network of Buddhist Youth; 10th National Conference

5/1/2017

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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.

5 Comments

Spiritual Death

20/12/2016

2 Comments

 
It seems appropriate that I come to post this entry on Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. A day when, in the ‘dead’ of winter, we find ourselves cresting the brow of the season and looking forward to the new calendar year that promises spring, as the days gradually but steadily lengthen to bring new growth. Though to a Southern Briton, ‘dead’ of winter in Central India feels more like the ‘light snooze’ of winter, it is noticeable nevertheless and I’m looking forward to the longer hours of daylight.

Non Buddhists may not be familiar with the term ‘Spiritual Death’ and when I first encountered it, I certainly found it rather strange. Thankfully, we’re all about the potential for rebirth here, so it’s not quite as fatal as it sounds. Sangharakshita, founder of Triratna, presents a cycle of spiritual development to us in the stages of Integration, Positive Emotion, Spiritual Death, Spiritual Rebirth and then Spiritual Receptivity. (If you’d like to read more about these stages for yourself, I’m sure my friends in the Manchester Sangha won’t mind me sharing this document produced by Chandana, which gives you an overview of a course that they deliver on the subject). It should be recognised that we don’t necessarily travel through these stages in a progressive fashion, and also that we continue to pass through them again, and again, right throughout our spiritual lives. I guess it’s only upon achieving enlightenment that one ends this, and indeed every other cycle.
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Winter Stars; We still see Orion and Sirius here but at a different angle!
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Not a scene I'll experience any time soon!
The first stage, Integration, often starts with discussions around awareness and mindfulness of yourself. You begin to realise how you behave differently in different social groups, perhaps. Maybe you experience a tension between different versions of ‘you’. You at work. You with the kids. You on a night out with your mates. This wasn’t something I felt I had a particular problem with in itself, I’ve always perceived myself as being quite a ‘straight down the line’, ‘what you see is what you get’ kind of person, but it was still a useful model to contemplate and what I did notice about myself is that I often experienced a tugging between opposing factors of my personality within myself. My actions did not quite line up with my goals. I wanted to feel better rested but wasn’t motivated to go to bed until 1 am, for example. Or perhaps how I truly feel about a situation is a little too difficult to manage in a way I’m comfortable with so I persuade myself I feel differently. “I’m totally fine! I’m taking it all in my stride!” I may believe, as those around me begin to notice the cracks appearing. Anyway, that’s a bit of background, that’s how I engaged with it when I first encountered the teaching. For me now, I see ‘integration’ as being about gathering myself; finding and discovering all the scattered impressions and experiences that form my current self and making room for them to be on the surface of who I am. A bit like going into the garden to cut some flowers and then carefully placing them in a vase so they can each be seen and play their part in the overall arrangement. Of course, the flowers don’t last and the garden itself changes over the seasons, as my learning and experiences shift, so it makes sense that it’s often necessary to revisit this stage.

The stage of Positive Emotion is, to me, the point at which these factors are comfortably balanced within myself and I begin to have more energy for others again, I can become more outward and generous with myself when I know who that self really is. And then we come to the Spiritual Death. If I might couch this in language to make it accessible to the ‘digital native’ generation, I’d say I interpret this as being a bit like the ‘Big Boss’ at the end of a computer game level. You hop along through the game nicely, defeating all the little challenges that are set up for you along the way, steadily making progress. Then, just when you think you’re really getting somewhere, just when you’re nearly there, some big bad beastie comes out of the shadows and bops you off. You reload the level. You start again. Over time, you learn how it moves, where it has weak spots and which of the carefully selected weapons you’ve been given can be most effectively deployed, but still it defeats you. It’s impossible! Finally, just when you were about to eject the cartridge (I’m old school) in disgust and buy a new game, somehow, everything falls into place and you win. You’ve completed that stage! The next level suddenly opens up before you. Of course, that brings with it all its fresh new monsters and obstacles, but you’re a stage higher. You’re more skilled. You’ve upped your game. That’s how I see Spiritual Death; despite all the struggle to get through it, I don’t seem to really know it for what it is until I look back on it, until I realise I’ve finished the level.
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From the space and peace of rural Bihali...
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...To the push and shove of a bustling Nagpur city centre!
I’ve had about three Spiritual Deaths since I arrived in India I think, as each time I shed a layer of preconceived self and opened up to engage more fully with the challenges presented by my new cultural landscape, or to put it more simply, as I ‘settled in’. It’s fair to say; however, that my recent experiences on retreat in Bihali were certainly the most challenging yet, on multiple levels. I think I was always going to find it difficult coming back from that retreat. Having spent two months in Nagpur city centre, the spacious peace provided by the Indian countryside would inevitably be tough to give up. Equally, I would be in unknown territory personally as I entered my third month away from home, the longest I’ve ever been away from the UK. These things would in and of themselves have flung me into a bit of a funk, I think. Post ‘holiday’ blues and mild homesickness, quite enough to be getting on with. Chuck an intensive week of spiritual self-analysis and the need to recover from sexual assault and robbery into the mix and you’ve got a heady cocktail of reasons to be operating in a severely altered state. Such it was, and having maintained to myself and others that I felt absolutely normal in the aftermath of the event itself, as the next week opened up in front of me I found I did not feel normal at all. Thankfully, my colleagues noticed and respected, (perhaps even expected) my subdued nature and kindly cooperated to give me a few days off teaching.
I wouldn’t have felt comfortable to ask for this, I even found it hard at first to accept, but I realised I needed it and I’m very glad I had it. A few days to reboot myself. Recover physically, sort things out practically (simple things like getting a new mobile are pretty complicated in India!) and just have a bit of space to integrate my recent experiences. I didn’t realise it at the time, but that was the main reason why I suddenly felt I had no motivation or confidence, no energy. It was all being used up on integrating. ‘This Life is Currently Under Repair. We Apologise for any Inconvenience Caused.’ So, I guess I had a Spiritual Death experience coming back from Bihali. A big bump back into what passes for reality. Returning to an increasingly familiar set of circumstances but with a  very new set of unfamiliar experiences to reintegrate into them, which is what I then spent the following week doing. So what about the Spiritual Rebirth? Well, you may remember I said they don’t have to go in sequential order!

I didn’t have the motivation to drag myself in to the gym for a few days after getting home. A dull old treadmill in a small, smelly, sweaty gym that lacks air conditioning isn’t exactly attractive after a few runs in the countryside (even if one of them was to get away from an attacker!) I still felt a little physically battered anyway and didn’t want to attract questions on the cause of the bruising. I was apprehensive about my first run but managed to drag myself in on Thursday, expecting it to be tough but determined to get through it. Much to my delight it was far from tough and I experienced what I consider to be an ‘ideal’ run, where I really got into ‘the zone’ and felt my body functioning as it naturally should, arms and legs hanging comfortably from my frame, working together to power my body forward in a very natural movement that really felt like what it was made for. All my component parts unified in their intent to carry out this activity, my mind, my body, performing harmoniously like a well-conditioned machine. I was using my new mobile as a music player (I love running without music when I’m outside but I find I need a boost on a treadmill!) and so I had also updated my running playlist. You know that feeling when you find a fiver you’d forgotten about in the pocket of something you’ve not worn for a while? That’s how I felt when a Guns ‘n’ Roses track I’d not listened to for a long, long time came up on shuffle. As the vibrations in my ears sent electrical impulses to my brain and through my nervous system, I felt a focus. I felt a determination. I felt a power not just in my body, running as it was with strength and momentum, but in my mind. In my self. In my being.

I realised then that a part of me had been dormant for a long while, eighteen months perhaps, or longer. Not repressed, simply not seeking active expression. My experience of leaving professional teaching had been a painful one and I’d found myself feeling very under confident, very worn down. Moving then into a brand new living and work environment had further encouraged me to take a ‘back seat’ within myself as I scouted out the strange and unfamiliar, as I worked out what was what. I think that’s very common when we encounter the novel. We step back to assess both the threats and opportunities, to define and establish a new routine. We take a little time out personally to discover what kind of ‘us’ we’re expected to be by our new social groups and colleagues and decide to what degree we will respond to this. As well as this temporary dilution of myself as a consequence of moving 200 miles and taking a complete career swerve, the Buddhist teachings I was newly following seemed to encourage this fresh mildness, this lack of assertion and perhaps that’s not a bad thing for a time. Learning to really question why I have a feeling before I express it. Deciding how helpful it really is to those around me to express it in the first place. Being careful and mindful, gentle and observant.
As I ran, I had a mental image of a younger (yet somehow older), more vibrant, more assertive ‘me’ calmly putting her hand up; she’d been observing carefully, critically but kindly, from the back of a busy room. She slowly began to move her way through the crowd to the front of the stage that is the arena of my self-awareness, moving back towards the set where the act of ‘me’ takes place publically. ‘Excuse me?’ She said, projecting her voice over Axl Rose and Slash’s best efforts. ‘I think you’ve forgotten something. You’ve forgotten to kick ass. You’ve forgotten that you do know what you’re doing. You’ve forgotten that you’re skilled and talented and effective and able. You’ve forgotten your opinions count and not only deserve to be aired but should be aired so that others can benefit from them too. That’s enough, Mouse. Time to remember the Glitter.’

After that run, after that realisation, I experienced a gradual surge of energy and confidence. Mark had mentioned feeling a bit ill and run down. We’d planned to teach together the next day but I told him to take Friday off. I knew I could cover it, and I knew I only had that energy back because he’d been covering me. Then I thought about Shakyajata, who had not only covered me during that week, but had been entirely on her own with the teaching all the week before, when Mark and I had both been on the retreat itself. She’d been hoping to get a break too but arrangements had fallen through. Suddenly, I had an idea that even if she couldn’t get out of Nagpur, she could take a break. She could have a week off. I could cover. No apprehension. No fear. No worries that I might not be ‘very good’ at delivering the content, no lack of confidence that I’d not only cope, but be able to do a good job in her absence. I even went so far as to suggest that I could lead the morning puja. I had thought about offering this before, I knew I’d enjoy it and it would give her a hand, also mixing up the sessions a bit and giving the community girls some variety. I was worried however, that my offer might be misinterpreted as arrogance, or disrespect of her experience. Suddenly however, I had the confidence to speak my truth and share the idea without fear of being misunderstood. I knew I had the confidence and ability to lead the puja, finally I also had the confidence that I could communicate this fact skilfully. I wasn’t even afraid I’d regret the offer. I’ve found in recent weeks that energy levels can be very unpredictable; vibrant and high one moment, tired and drained the next, which has made me reluctant to commit to things, yet somehow I just knew I had the capacity to see all I was offering through. I wasn’t afraid to be generous anymore because I knew I had the resources to give. I’ve no idea where that knowledge, that self-belief came from but I’m certainly not going to question it. Mark enjoyed Friday off. Shakyajata accepted and is currently taking a break in Odisha. I’m enjoying leading puja and meditation, I’ve enjoyed my teaching and I’ve even had spare energy for creative acts like writing poems.
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There she is...
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It's been a while.
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That looks like her...
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Yep. There she is.
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I hadn’t written a single poem since I left the UK, but suddenly with my energies opened up and the Dharma flowing freely again, three dropped out of my head without me even much trying. I’ve had energy to volunteer some time to help proofread the Triratna Arts and Culture Catalogue. On Monday night, I had the energy to go out for dinner; on a school night! I’ve not even been hitting the snooze button and hiding in another hour of oblivion. I’ve been getting up and enjoying my day, and what’s more is that I’ve sustained this positivity for almost a week; the longest period of my Indian adventure so far. Is this starting to sound a little like Positive Emotion?

Since this discovery, I’ve further mused that the problem with making spiritual progress (or any other kind, for that matter) is that we often feel like things have got harder without realising that this in itself is a symbol of progress, not of regression. If things get easy, we plateau. Imagine you’d never run before but then started to do ten minutes on a treadmill everyday with no control over the fixed speed. It would feel hard at first but then eventually get easier. Then, imagine that one day the engineer came before you started and recalibrated the machine so it now ran half a mile an hour faster. You wouldn’t know, you’d just think ’gosh, this feels hard today’ but actually, you’d have moved your game up a stage, it would be harder because you were making progress and getting fitter.

I mentioned earlier that I have experienced real peaks and troughs in mood and energy since arriving in India. I’ve felt healthy and happy one day, but then struggled with emotional or physical wellness the next. Since this re-emergence of a part of myself though, since that Spiritual Rebirth
on the treadmill, since I remembered to kick ass, I’ve found a whole new kind of balance. I feel (so far; no room for complacency here!) as if I’ve stabilised. I think I’ve settled in to another layer of being here. I think I’ve levelled up. I think I’m kicking ass and I think this mouse might finally be once again beginning to glitter.
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Sheetal's Story

11/12/2016

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In my last update, I recounted a trip to an eye hospital with one of our students. This was an eye-opening experience (yes, pun intended) in itself, but there was an important part to the morning that I didn’t mention. A while back, I was fortunate to spend some time speaking with Aryaketu’s father, Triratna Order Member Saccadhamma, and I humbly attempted to write his story, from a childhood of poverty to spiritual discovery, through ordination and the eventual building of his house, which I am currently staying in and that also accommodates the community of young women at Aryaloka, as well as their teaching facilities. There are so many people I have met over the last couple of months whose daily lives I find inspiring, whose background stories I feel sure would greatly benefit those from the West to read. Of course, it is not always practical to find the time required to really listen to their histories from start to finish and so I have resolved to simply share as many as I can but in no particular order. It’s not inappropriate though, having started with the bricks and mortar, both physically and spiritually, to move now to someone that from my perspective really embodies the heart of all it is to be domestic in India.
That’s not to trivialise her other roles though and I was fortunate to realise the opportunity afforded us by the optician’s waiting room to begin hearing and taking eager notes on Sheetal’s Story. Sheetal is Aryaketu’s wife and mother to 15 year old Ojas. She admirably fulfils all the functions expected of her in this role, preparing three meals a day for both the men in her life as well as us, the visiting teaching team, often cleaning up after us as well as undertaking the housework required to keep her home functioning. She supports Aryaketu unquestioningly in his work for the order, even when this brings him home late or takes him right out of the country for many weeks a year. She gently, yet persistently encourages Ojas to make the most of his studies, patiently bringing him back on track when really, like many other 15 year old boys the world over, he’d rather be playing Assassin’s Creed. Her life is by no means limited to the domesticity ascribed to her by Indian society; however. She is also fully committed to Dhamma herself and attends weekly chapter meetings on Tuesdays with study classes on Saturdays in her own progression towards ordination into the movement. This process often takes far longer for women than for men in India as it is much harder for them to secure time away from domestic duties to study, attend retreats and deepen their practice sufficiently. Still undeterred, she carries on. If this doesn’t already sound like a full schedule, Sheetal is also Centre Manager for the Bhilgaon Campus, responsible for not just teaching important parts of the critical MSCIT (Maharashtra State Certificate in Information Technology; a government recognised qualification that is a basic requirement for any individual wishing to obtain good employment in a wide range of sectors beyond physical labouring) but also for the pastoral care of the young women, their spiritual development and harmony in their community, as well as a myriad of administration tasks that come with the job such as managing course fees from the non-residential students and making sure the registrations with the exams office are regularly maintained.
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Sheetal at home in a colourful sari1
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Sheetal and Ojas
Sheetal manages to successfully fill all these roles whilst she works with the long term debilitating disease that is osteoporosis. She was diagnosed with this when she was 35, just over a decade ago, and it frequently causes her a great deal of pain. Having had a similar condition myself in my teens, (juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, thankfully not an active disease any longer) I can almost feel that sharp yet grinding ache in the heart of the joint when I watch her move, often awkwardly, around the house; bringing in lunch, or sweeping the floor after sorting vegetables from the weekly trip to the market. ‘I never drank milk!’ she tells me, ‘not even when I was pregnant. I do not like it. But for the calcium…’ she now drinks a glass every evening, with flavoured protein powder to make it more palatable, and an egg, for breakfast. This may help slow down any further deterioration but it cannot reverse the damage already caused. The homeopathic and Ayurvedic remedies she is prescribed may or may not, do much to help. ‘I used to worry’, she confides one evening as a student demonstrates village healthcare skills by massaging Sheetal’s sore legs and swollen feet with oils warmed over hot coals before deftly wrapping them with castor leaves tied in place with cotton thread until morning. ‘How will I manage when I am old? But this is not helpful. I stay mindful of the present moment. When I cannot sleep with pain I get up and meditate. This is very helpful to me.’
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The model hostess on a recent visitor, Sara's last night in Nagpur.
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A domestic chore; sorting stones from the rice!
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A rare night off cooking; Spring Dosa with Neha at Jaiswal!
Sheetal was born in Nagpur on the 2nd of September 1975, the first daughter of three, into a very full house. There were four uncles, three aunties and three of her grandparents as well as her mum and dad, all living together when she arrived into the family. The house was noisy but not just because there were so many people in it; situated on the Kamptee Road, one of the main routes to and from the city centre, there was constant traffic rumbling past and even more, she tells me, during her childhood than there is now. The Kamptee Road is the ‘main drag’ from Aryaloka Bhilgaon to Aryaloka Indora, where the other half of our teaching takes place and a trip up it is a challenging experience full of dust, fumes, noise, trucks, mopeds, blaring horns, auto rickshaws, coaches, cows, people, bicycles, vans, you get the idea. One needs to allow a certain amount of energy just for the journey before teaching has even begun and so it is hard to imagine living right next to it when it was even busier. Thankfully, it was only the backdrop for the first three years of her life and when her father was successful in applying for a transfer in his government job as auditor for the railway, she moved with her parents and her 18 month old sister to a rented house in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh. These were happy times and she describes this part of her childhood with a buoyant vigour as though somewhere a curtain has opened to let a ray of morning sun play across her face. She shines as she speaks of it, despite the gloom of the eye hospital waiting room. After her second sister was born, her mother’s mum came to help the family and she enjoyed the walks to school, sometimes with her grandmother, sometimes with her dad. When she was five, her father was successful in applying for a government house and this looked out onto a big playground, which was the scene of many a joyful evening, playing with friends after school. They were happy and healthy here, very well looked after by a mother who took the wellbeing of her family very seriously. She left nothing to chance in meeting their needs, researching nutrition to ensure they were well fed, attending school for regular updates, helping with homework. Yet there is no sense that this was in anyway strictly enforced and it seems she was able to balance this with equanimity, taking care also to provide the love, freedom and emotional strength her family needed to flourish. Sheetal describes her mother with so much love and admiration that she really does sound like a model parent and it is perhaps no surprise to learn that when Sheetal’s aunt and uncle ran in to marital strife and began quarrelling, two of her cousins moved in! Preferring the warm, loving environment to their own home, this irritated her mother’s sister intensely.
All good things must come to an end; however and when Sheetal was 13, the family moved, with no shortage of regret, back to Nagpur. Her paternal grandfather owned several properties, which he rented out and they bought one of these from him. Living in their own home did not bring the joy that might have been expected; however, and the family struggled with inconsiderate neighbours in the busy city centre, a far cry from their experience in the suburban community of Jabalpur. Despite this change of circumstances, her mother continued to form the backbone of positivity the family needed to get by. In the Indian education system, it is common for students to attend classes for extra tuition and begin preparing for exams when they reach 10th Standard. Sheetal dutifully attended her first class but found it crowded and unpalatable so told her mother she did not want to go again; she would study hard at home instead. In the interests of seeing their progeny succeed, many parents would have taken none of this wayward behaviour but Sheetal’s mum simply agreed by saying ‘whatever makes you happy!’ This support is remarkable not just to demonstrate the significant amount of trust and faith in daughter by mother but also in the face of surprised criticism from family and friends. Such critics resigned Sheetal to failure; her school in Madhya Pradesh had been a Hindi Medium school, but here classes were in Marathi.
Such a significant disadvantage combined with a lack of tuition would surely result in disaster, they were adamant. But they underestimated Sheetal. She studied hard, just as she said she would, and this seed of determination fertilised by the love and support of a remarkable mum, blossomed in to Passes with Distinction for Marathi, Science and Social Science. This may have surprised and impressed her detractors, but success following hours of home study was hardly a new experience for Sheetal; her mum had spent the summer holiday of 1984 coaching her to a good standard of English before she even began studying it formally at the age of eight. Academic success, just like the formulation of an adequate diet, was never taken for granted or left to the chance of received wisdom, she had been raised to beat her own path to her goals.

After her exam success, she took admission to the famous local Sindhu Mahavidyalaya College for 11th and 12th Standard (sixth form or college equivalent). This fame was mixed; the college had a reputation for excellent teaching but also for troublesome and disorderly pupils, especially among the male cohort. This couldn’t have been further from Sheetal’s own temperament but she resolved to put her education ahead of her own sense of personal security; a significant risk following her provincial girl’s school background. Of course, mum was as supportive as ever, coming along to see her off at the gate on her first day. Concerned to avoid unwanted and inappropriate attention from the opposite sex, Sheetal went out of her way to be as unattractive as possible and deliberately dressed in unflattering clothes. ‘I oiled my hair!’ she tells me, demonstrating by dragging her hands down the sides of her head, flattening her now henna-enhanced tresses.
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Enjoying coconut water on a trip out!
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Sharing noodles with Shakyajata at Planet Food!
‘I only wanted to study!’ She knew marriage was one day unavoidable but was determined to make the most of her education while she could. Mindful of her status as eldest child, she was also keen to avoid any conflict or bad impressions. ‘I thought; my father is the only man in the house, what if a boy comes to fight him!? I was afraid of one sided love.’ Such a sense of personal responsibility at this young age illustrates not only a commitment to her family but also a sharp eye on a longer term plan. She knew a good education would secure her access to a higher social standard of suitors further down the line, as well as delaying the inevitable wedding. ‘I wanted to become a graduate.’ Of course, she passed 12th Class and took a BSC at the same college, finishing with a 2:1 equivalent in Microbiology, Chemistry and Botany, taking then a computer course for five months after graduation. I can’t help wondering, when I try and add up how many chapattis those hands roll out each week, if they’d not have been put to better use in a laboratory than a kitchen, but this is a Western woman’s perspective and it is patently clear that Sheetal is very genuinely happy with her circumstances as they have unfolded.
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Rolling out the daily chapatti batch!
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Sheetal with Shakyajata before a trip to the Deekshabhoomi!
Despite her academic success, these years were not easy for Sheetal’s family. Having moved closer again to the conflicted home of her aunt when returning to Nagpur, the impact of the rift that had driven her cousins to live with them in the first place became ever more apparent. Sheetal’s aunt came to their home to argue with her sister several times and this affected the whole family with unpleasant rumours spreading around a very difficult situation. Her mum’s health began to suffer and she became very ill, experiencing chest pains and other symptoms of anxiety in the wake of constant harassment. Sheetal’s sister, equally academic, was studying a pharmaceutical course and contacted a doctor she knew for advice. With this treatment and a lot reciprocal love and support from the immediate family, her mum rallied physically but still she was suffering with mental illness. One family member who saw through much of the gossip and regularly visited to support the family was Sheetal’s maternal grandfather. He lived in an area of Nagpur called Mahendra Nagur and suggested his daughter try attending meditation classes with him on Thursdays at a centre just a one minute walk from his home. It would help, he assured her and asked her several times to come with him, but Sheetal’s mum refused, saying that she had done nothing wrong and it was her spiteful brothers and sisters who should go and learn to live a better life! One night, which was coincidentally a Thursday, Sheetal’s parents were invited to her father’s house for dinner. They were asked to arrive at half past five; too early for a meal but with plenty of time to chat and to go for an evening stroll around the neighbourhood before eating. Lo and behold, their local stroll ‘just happened’ to take them into a local Triratna centre. Despite her misgivings, when she saw the shrine in the open space, the flowers and the Buddha rupa, she felt immediately impressed and enjoyed the meditation and puja that occurred that night. From that day on, says Sheetal, her mother never stopped her Dhamma work. This was in the March of 1998, Sheetal’s final BSc year, and in April she finished her exams. With her time now freed from study, she went along to a Dhamma class with her mum. She was unimpressed when she walked in and saw a young man in a kesa on the stage. ‘I thought, this is the wrong man! How can he teach? He’s too young! I thought, young people go to the cinema and enjoy themselves, they know nothing about spirituality!’ This man; however, gave a talk that impressed her so much with relevant examples that seemed to come from her own life and experiences that she felt he knew her already even before her mum introduced them, post talk.
If you’ve already guessed the Buddha-meets-Bollywood plot twist in this delightful tale, I am pleased to confirm that his name was, indeed, Aryaketu. Still, Indian culture and Buddhist reserve do not lend themselves to heady romance off screen and they did not converse again until Sheetal went to volunteer at the Triratna office on the local Dr Ambedkar Road, helping to produce a quarterly magazine published there. Still they were respectfully distant in their communication, though Sheetal remarks that she never normally talked to boys for fear they’d fall in love with her and is not entirely sure why she talked to this one! Inspired by her own experiences and by the example of her mum (now an ordained member herself), She continued her involvement in the movement, volunteering as a maths teacher at one of the local charitable projects, the Bahujan Girls’ Hostel. She attended Dhamma classes regularly and became well known amongst the Triratna Sangha in Nagpur.
One day, after teaching at the hostel, she came home to an animated reception from her sister who told her that a very exciting thing had happened and that she should try and guess who had visited! Jija, Aryaketu’s mother and also a Dhamma Mitra, had come for chai, along with another mutual friend from the order. It is with some amusement that Sheetal continues the clearly oft-recounted tale; apparently Jija had actually left the room to use the bathroom when the family friend formally suggested that Sheetal and Aryaketu made a good match for marriage! Sheetal was already well known to Aryaketu’s family; she’d attended Dhamma classes run by his father, dancing classes and retreats with his sister. She was pretty, educated to a good level and dedicated to Triratna. There weren’t many more boxes left to tick. Aryaketu was certainly happy for them to suggest the union, though was apparently unconvinced that such a standard of young woman would be interested in a man who did not have a government job or family house. Sheetal’s wider family were certainly not impressed, but when she heard the news, Sheetal was every bit as delighted as her mum and dad. She had always dreaded the day when she believed she would inevitably have no choice but to marry a man with money and status; not something she wanted, fearing that such a husband would be free with his money, his affections and possibly, his fists. Having been brought up by a family who encouraged her to have her own opinions, stand on her own feet and make her own way in life, the thought of winding up in a housewife’s role with little else to occupy her but a demanding husband, filled her with fear. She felt she could trust Aryaketu however; he would not be a philanderer or a wife beater with a commitment to the Dhamma as strong as demonstrated in his talks. As someone so well known in the order, he was unlikely to have any hidden motives or distressing personal secrets.
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Sheetal at home with Aryaketu
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The couple in Coffee Day
After all that worry, Sheetal felt a solution to the problem of marriage that would allow her to pursue the simple life free from money or pressures of status had indeed presented itself and they were married on October 31st, 1999. As newlyweds, Aryaketu was working at Nagaloka, but he was soon ready to move on to new challenges of his own and wanted to provide opportunities for young people. He started the Aryaloka institute in 2000, so it has really always been a part of married life for Sheetal. She worked as a private tutor to bring in some money for the first three years before Ojas was born in April 2002, but then began taking responsibility for the Aryaloka accounts. It was a role that needed filling and it made sense for her to take work that made it straightforward for her to carry out the household management too.
In 2012, the Bhilgaon branch opened and she then became centre coordinator and teacher. Sheetal seems surprised as her narrative catches up with her present life, that she has so much to share. ‘I thought I had no story!’ she tells me again, having dismissed my request to write it in the first instance by saying there was nothing to say. She never imagined, she tells me, that she would live as she does now, in such a big house, with a car, a television, all the symptoms of wealth. Of all three sisters, she was always the one least interested in professional or material gains, in possessions or status, and yet, she tells me, she believes herself to be the happiest of all of them. Her sisters are not unhappy, she explains further, and have good jobs, good husbands, houses, in many respects the lives they always wanted; but they are not as happy as her. She is pleased, she mentions too, to know her parents do not have to worry about her. ‘Oh, Annabeth, I am really very happy!’ she announces, with an air of grateful surprise. She seems mildly taken aback too when I reply ‘Good! You deserve to be!’ But I do not believe for a moment that it is because of the house and the car, the status of being married to an order member or being the coordinator of a school that she is happy, nor do I think does she. Sheetal is an eminently kind woman, a thoughtful and sensitive person who takes the happiness of those around her seriously. She works hard, unceasingly in fact, to maintain this happiness and wellbeing, just as she describes of her own mother. In the short time I’ve known her, I have come to professionally and spiritually respect and personally very much like her. She is now, and I hope will always be even when the miles separate us, a trusted friend. Her faith in her practice of Buddhism goes far beyond the flowery rhetoric of devotional text, or acts of kindness for the sake of fulfilling a precept.
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With the Bhilgaon young women's community students in October
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Showing us how to really wear a sari at a recent wedding!
Compassion and loving kindness shine through from the core of her being and her fierce dedication to professional and domestic responsibilities is balanced by a calm temperament, a consistent, reliable, freindly stoicism which is itself underpinned by occasional flashes of bubbling joy and moments of unconcealed delight. If I gain no more from my time in India than the opportunity to count Sheetal among most treasured friends, however far flung she may one day be, then it will have been no waste in my time and resources. I may continue to relish her company during the remainder of my stay but her influence, I feel sure, will outlast our weeks together and her steady reliability, her lightness, her determination and her selfless nature shall continue to inspire me for many years to come.
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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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Going Forth...

29/9/2016

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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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