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.

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.

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.

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?’

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

 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,

‘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.

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.

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.

 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.’

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.

‘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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

Twelve days and counting... A new beginning awaits!