Latest / Buddhistisches Tor Berlin Podcast / 59 Years of Sangha

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59 Years of Sangha · Buddhistisches Tor Berlin Podcast

0:04
Welcome to the Buddhisticious Tour Berlin podcast.
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Here we share talks and reflections from our Buddhist
0:11
centre in Berlin, exploring themes such as meditation,
0:16
ethics and the path of awakening in everyday life.
0:20
We are part of the Sri Ratna Buddhist community and our talks
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are offered freely in a spirit of generosity.
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We hope this episode supports your practice and your life.
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It's the 6th of April of 19701967 and we're in a basement
0:55
in Monmouth St. in London, which is somewhere near the British
1:01
Museum for those of you who know London a little bit.
1:05
And there is a a Japanese Buddhist shop in on that
1:12
location. And in the basement on that
1:14
evening, there happens the dedication of the Tiratna
1:21
meditation and shrine room, and there are about 25 people
1:29
present on that occasion. And Sangarakshita is dedicating
1:35
this shrine room. And probably not everyone here
1:41
in the room knows who Sangarakshita is.
1:42
He was the founder of our community, and I'll say a bit
1:46
more about him in a minute. So on that evening he found it
1:53
through that dedication ceremony that he led and the sevenfold
1:58
pooja that they did. Afterwards he founded the
2:01
Friends of the Western Buddhist Sanga, a small community which
2:06
was a year later renamed into the Friends of the Western
2:10
Buddhist Order when a year later the 1st 12 ordinations happened
2:17
and the Western Buddhist Order came into being.
2:22
So, but on that day it was still the Friends of the Western
2:26
Buddhist Sangha. And to give you a little bit of
2:31
a taste of what how that event was or what happened on that
2:38
evening, I will read a little article that was written by one
2:44
of the people who were present on that occasion.
2:48
And he wrote a little article that went out in a Buddhist
2:52
newspaper in the UK. So an event which may turn out
3:01
to be a landmark in the further development of the Buddha Dharma
3:06
in Great Britain took place on the evening of the 6th of April.
3:12
This was the dedication ceremony of the New Tiratna Meditation
3:18
and Shrine Room. The ceremony was conducted by
3:23
the Venerable Stavira Sangarakshita together with the
3:29
Venerable Tian Chao from Vietnam, the Reverend Jack
3:34
Austin and the Reverend Graham Patchy, both representing Zoto
3:40
Zen. The invited guests, numbering
3:45
about 25, were able to participate in the ceremony,
3:50
which had been especially devised by the Venerable Stavira
3:54
Sangar Rakshita for the occasion.
3:58
The ceremony started with a short talk by the Stavira and
4:03
then proceeded with readings from Buddhist scriptures and
4:07
puja. Those attending also took the
4:10
refugees and precepts a simple but very moving occasion.
4:17
The room itself has been designed, decorated and paid for
4:22
by voluntary contribution, without any connection with any
4:26
official organization or society.
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It is somewhat in the Japanese style, the predominant colours
4:35
being white, gold, rust and natural wood.
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There's a liquid shrine lit from behind by a paper covered
4:46
Japanese shoji window, and the teacher has a slightly raised
4:51
platform where he can use either cushion or a chair.
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They're both cushions and chairs available for the participants.
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The atmosphere of this room is warm and quiet, most conducive
5:05
to stilling the mind. An additional advantage is that,
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being on the premises of London's Buddhist shop, it is
5:14
open during the day to individual meditators.
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Initially, 2 meditation classes conducted by the Venerable
5:24
Ishtavira Sangharakshita will be held each week, one for
5:28
beginners and one for those who have already practiced under his
5:33
guidance. Further classes projected
5:36
consist of a Zen study class to be taken alternately by the
5:39
Venerable Sangarakshita and the Reverend Jack Austin and a
5:43
fortnightly discussion meeting. Pooja will also take place
5:49
periodically, so maybe that gives you a little bit of an
5:54
idea of the atmosphere of the place and what happened and what
5:59
was about to happen from that onwards.
6:02
So basically this evening marks the beginning of our community
6:09
and now 59 years later we're here and in some way we are
6:15
linked to that occasion on the 6th of April in 1967.
6:23
And I want to say a few words about what had happened before
6:29
and what actually led to this event.
6:33
To give you an idea. Who was this person
6:37
Sangaraksheta, who then founded our community?
6:42
So he was born in 1925 in London, and as a very young man,
6:50
already in his teenage time, he came across Buddhist texts, very
6:58
traditional Buddhist texts that he discovered in a library.
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And he had already had a really strong interest in philosophy
7:09
and spirituality and had been reading a lot.
7:14
And he discovered those texts when he was 17.
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And by reading those texts, he instantly knew that he was a
7:24
Buddhist and he had that strong resonance.
7:27
Something deeply moved him, and he knew that this was the path
7:33
he wanted to pursue. And a few years later, when he
7:40
was 19, he was conscripted to the army.
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And interestingly, without that wasn't his choice, but his unit
7:51
was sent to India. So he was sent to the birth
7:55
place of Buddhism as part of the army.
7:58
And he had the opportunity to pursue his search for Buddhism
8:06
and other Buddhists. And he left the army when the
8:12
Second World War was finished. So of course, I mean, that was
8:16
the time in the 40s of the Second World War, he was sent to
8:20
India. He left the army after the
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Second World War finished. And he started wandering in the
8:27
traditional way through India at some point.
8:32
And he really wanted to look for Buddhists and Buddhism, which
8:38
was difficult at the time because even though Buddhism was
8:41
founded or the Buddha was Indian at the time, that Sanghar,
8:45
actually I came to India there, there weren't hardly any
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Buddhist left. So Buddhism had died out in
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India. And it was really, it took him a
8:53
long time to really find proper Buddhists.
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And he spent some years wandering around and mainly
9:00
meeting Hindu sadhus and Hindu practitioners.
9:06
And he also was very interested in Hinduism and Eastern
9:10
spirituality. But without never forgetting
9:15
that underneath he was really pursuing to become a Buddhist
9:21
and even a Buddhist monk. And that happened at the end of
9:27
the 40s. He received novice ordination.
9:31
And then in 1950, he was ordained as a fully, yeah, a
9:38
proper monk into the Theravadin tradition.
9:40
So that was the only, the only Buddhists you could find were
9:45
Theravadin monks, which most of them had been trained in Sri
9:53
Lanka or Burma. And then he spent 14 years in
9:57
Kalimpong in the Himalayas near the Tibetan border.
10:00
And that was a very crucial time for him because in those years
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he met a lot of other Buddhists from different traditions, and
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especially Tibetan Buddhists who came after the Chinese invasion
10:16
of Tibet. And Kalimpong was very close to
10:19
the border with Tibet. And so he got to know a lot of
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Tibetan Buddhists. And at the end he had six of his
10:30
eight teachers, which are on The Who are on the shrine here, like
10:33
were people he met in Kalimpong during those years, or actually
10:40
seven he met in Kalimpong like one Chinese and six Tibetans.
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And he was really he founded his own vihara in his own little
10:51
monastery and he really enjoyed his life in India.
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And he enjoyed meditating. He also got involved with a new
11:00
Buddhist movement and gave lecture tours throughout India
11:05
to teach the ex untouchables. And he had a really fulfilling
11:09
life for his time in Kalimpong. And he did not think about
11:16
coming back to the West. That was not his idea.
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I think at that time he really thought he would stay in India.
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But then at the beginning of the 60s, he received a letter from
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the Buddhist Buddhist organization in the UK, and they
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invited him to consider coming back to England to teach
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Buddhism there and become, yeah, somehow the the leader of the
11:47
small Buddhist sanga in the UK. And he considered that.
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And I think he talked to some of his teachers.
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And then he felt like, oh, maybe it is a chance.
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And because I'm British, I might have something to give.
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And so in 64, he returned to the West with the idea to stay half
12:07
a year maybe, and teach in England.
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Those six months then turned into two years.
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And after two years he felt, oh, I'm, I'm really needed in the
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West and I'm probably much better here than in India.
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And he decided that the time like that, for him, it was the
12:30
right decision to move permanently back to the West.
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I mean, the Buddhist was very small.
12:36
There were very few Buddhists at the time.
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And he really felt he could give something to establish Buddhist
12:42
Buddhism in the West. And so he went back for a few
12:46
months to say goodbye and to dissolve his monastery in
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Kalimpong. And while he was on his good
12:55
farewell journey in India, he received a letter from the
13:00
Buddhist Association that had previously invited him.
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And they told him that they had changed their mind and that they
13:07
that he could better stay or that he should better stay in
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India and that they would not want him back in the UK.
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And that came as quite a surprise and a shock to Sanga
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Rakshita. He had not expected that.
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Yeah. And I think the reason, there's
13:23
probably several reasons. It was quite a complex
13:25
situation. But one of the reasons was that
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he had a close friendship, a platonic friendship with a man
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with whom he was also travelling.
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And there were rumours about his homosexuality, which caused
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people in that Sanga to feel uneasy.
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I mean, at that time it was still the late 60s and
13:43
homosexuality was legally prohibited.
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Another reason was that from he was very outspoken and very much
13:54
innovative and creative. And he also had an approach to
13:58
Buddhism that was probably not so much in line of the vision
14:04
that this Buddhist organization where he stayed had in mind.
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They really wanted to establish a traditional Theravada in
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Sanga, but Sangha Raksha was much more open.
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And as you will see, I mean, he, he, he was inspired by the
14:19
entire Buddhist tradition. So his second return to London
14:25
was in February 1967. So he arrived on the 24th of
14:30
February from his farewell tour. I think he he didn't even for a
14:35
second consider to stay in India.
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Like when he received that letter, it was really clear to
14:40
him that no, he had to go back. And even though he wasn't
14:45
invited into the the established sanga, for him it was clear that
14:51
he had to go back and that he wanted to start something new.
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And that he also that this was also a coincidence that gave him
15:00
the freedom to actually pursue something that he felt was much
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more aligned with his own values.
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He returned on the 24th of February and only, yeah, a month
15:11
and a half later, on the 6th of April, he felt that it was the
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time to establish something else, something new during that.
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And he had found that shop because, I mean, there was still
15:25
some people, there was quite a bit of division between those
15:29
people who stayed with him and some people who stayed with the
15:34
established organization. But he still had quite a number
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of friends and support supporters when he came back and
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some of them, some of them was the owner of this Japanese shop.
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And he immediately offered that they could meet in the basement
15:50
of that shop, which was called Sakura in London.
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And that became the first home of our community.
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And for that special occasion, Bantam wrote the dedication
16:04
ceremony that is mentioned in the in the article.
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And he wrote those verses during the day like itself.
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He writes about that in his memoirs, that he came up with
16:19
those verses that when then were recited as the dedication of the
16:24
Tirana Meditation and Shrine Room.
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And this dedication ceremony is still in use 59 years later.
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And those of you who have been on retreat with us have probably
16:35
recited it many, many times. And the text somehow is very
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closely linked with the founding myths of our community.
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So, and it's probably been recited thousands of times.
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Like imagine all the retreats that have taken place in the UK
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over those years. And like, in places like here, I
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mean, it's, it's probably hard to imagine how many times in a
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community that now comprises thousands of people, these texts
17:06
have been recited. I think that the text of the the
17:10
verses of the dedication ceremony itself reflect
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something of what had become central to Sangar Rakshita, to
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Sangar Rakshita's life as a Buddhist over the past or the
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previous 25 years of his experience in India.
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And what I thought when I was reflecting about what to say
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today, I thought, OK, I will use the text and maybe we can kind
17:36
of bring it into our collective awareness.
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And I will share a bit of the background of Bantis approach
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and share my own reflections and, and use those lines of the
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dedication ceremony as a framework or a guideline to say
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a little bit about what is special from my point of view
18:00
about our community. I will read those verses because
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not everyone of you here is familiar with them.
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So I will read a few verses and then say, yeah, say share a few
18:14
thoughts with you. The text starts or the ceremony
18:18
starts with the following verse. We dedicate this place to the
18:24
Three Jewels, to the Buddha, the ideal of enlightenment to which
18:30
we aspire, to the Dharma, the path of the teaching which we
18:37
follow to the Sangha, the spiritual fellowship with one
18:42
another which we enjoy. So this is very central.
18:49
We dedicate the place in the ceremony, and Sanghar actually
18:56
did so on that occasion, to the Three Jewels, the three highest
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ideals of Buddhism. The Buddha as the representation
19:07
of the awakened mind, the goal to which we aspire, the Dharma,
19:13
the path that he has taught and that we can follow, and the
19:17
community of those who are on that same path.
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I think this is very that is special also because this
19:35
dedication to the Three Jewels is what us as a community
19:40
connects and unites with all Buddhists in the world.
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So all Buddhists go for refuge and dedicate their lives to
19:49
those 3 jewels, the three highest values.
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And that's common. And that was something that for
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Sangarakshita was something that he had as a very young man, been
20:03
searching for. He had been searching for the
20:04
unity of Buddhism. And his first articles that he
20:07
wrote were always in search of the unity of Buddhism and he had
20:15
in India. Become in touch with very
20:19
different forms of Buddhism. Charwadan Buddhist, Tibetan
20:23
borders, Zen Buddhism in which was popular in the UK as well.
20:28
So he had seen very different expressions of Buddhism and he
20:31
had always been searching for the unity what unites all
20:34
Buddhists. And over his life, the answer
20:40
that he found was that going for refuge to the Three Jewels is
20:45
what unites all Buddhists. All Buddhists somehow try to
20:51
dedicate their lives to those three highest ideals.
20:56
And he really wanted to understand, So what is actually
20:59
universal about Buddhism? What is universal for true for
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all people, whether they're Asian or European?
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And what is a specific cultural expression?
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And he was in India at a time when for the first time,
21:19
translations of all texts of all schools of Buddhism became
21:23
available and where suddenly Buddhists became aware of each
21:27
other. Before that, people had never.
21:30
Probably when you were somebody living in Tibet and practicing
21:34
Buddhism, you wasn't, you weren't aware of people in Japan
21:38
or in Sri Lanka. And somehow that the situation
21:42
only came into being at the beginning of the 20th century,
21:45
when suddenly all these texts became translated into English
21:48
and when people could study all the different expressions of
21:53
Buddhism. So Sangharakshita was in at the
21:56
forefront of that development and he really understood that in
22:02
a modern globalised world, we need an approach to Buddhism
22:06
that can make sense of the whole tradition.
22:10
And that we are in a situation that is very different from how
22:13
Buddhism had been transmitted over the course of the
22:16
centuries, where probably somebody, a monk, was travelling
22:20
to the neighboring valley and then kind of transmitted his
22:24
form of Buddhism somehow. But now we're in a very
22:26
different situation. We, we have like the whole
22:30
expression, the whole Dharma available to us.
22:35
And he also saw that in traditional, like in Asia,
22:41
traditional societies were in a decline and that somehow the
22:46
lifestyle of Buddhist monks and Buddhist full time practitioners
22:51
was also in decline in Asia. So the conditions were
22:56
different. And he he was looking for an
22:58
answer like how to lead a full time spiritual life under the
23:02
conditions of a modern Western society.
23:07
And So what he came to see was that dedication and commitment
23:14
is what counts and not the outward appearance or specific
23:18
lifestyle. The outward appearance of or
23:21
lifestyle of a monk Just following certain rules doesn't
23:24
really make you a practitioner. Yeah.
23:27
And to me personally, I think being part of an ecumenical non
23:31
sectarian sangha that is somehow ear to the entire Buddhist
23:34
tradition is a really great source of inspiration.
23:39
I also feel like probably I could not have flourished in a
23:43
traditional Asian sangha because somehow, like my impression is
23:49
that somehow something, it's, it's really hard to integrate
23:53
that if you see people who belong to another culture and
23:57
you can't really translate what is cultural and what is
24:00
universal. So I, I feel like for me,
24:03
probably it would have meant that, that there would have been
24:07
something that's not been possible to integrate fully and
24:12
somehow some kind of feeling of, oh, but I'm not, I'm not a
24:17
Tibetan or I'm not. So how do I translate that
24:21
really into my own cultural understanding?
24:26
And I think the beauty of this community is that we can
24:29
integrate and draw inspiration from sources from different
24:32
traditions, which also give ourselves flexibility.
24:38
Because I think historically you would have needed to wonder on,
24:42
like, if you've we're looking for different teachings, you
24:45
would have needed to leave the teacher and the sangha, find a
24:49
new one and somehow go from teacher to teacher.
24:53
But I think we are a community where we can, yeah, find a
24:57
common basis in going for refuge and our dedication to the three
25:01
jewels and integrate more inspiration.
25:06
OK, so the text moves on the dedication ceremony here.
25:13
May no idle word be spoken here, may no unquiet thought disturb
25:20
our minds. And what that is, is an
25:23
aspiration to a stilling of the mind and to leading a life of
25:32
meaning. And what this expresses for me
25:37
is also that this involves a going forth from unskillful
25:46
mental state. The idle words or the unquiet
25:48
thoughts are expressions of unskillful mental states.
25:54
And yeah, for example, the busyness of the worldly life,
26:01
the constant stream of distraction of chatter that
26:04
comes through social media, superficial communication.
26:08
I mean, we have so much of that, and we're trying to create a
26:12
place where we consciously go forth from all that stream of
26:20
distraction and shatter, and we create a place where we actually
26:25
can still our minds. And we really need conditions
26:30
that help us turn away from that, pull into the the mental
26:36
chatter, the superficial communication, the preoccupation
26:41
and all the anxiety that comes with it, the busyness, anxiety
26:46
aversion, whatever unskillful mental states.
26:51
So we create a place here. We want to create a place where
26:55
we can find stillness and a difference, a different where
27:01
something else will be possible. And in some ways in that
27:07
dedication ceremony, when we talk about place it, this is a
27:14
metaphor. It's of course there is an
27:16
actual physical space, but it is also a metaphor for a place that
27:23
we create collectively through our own individual dedication to
27:30
practice. So and through the practice we
27:32
share with each other. So we create this place as a
27:36
community between each other, and our collective practice
27:40
somehow crystallizes in time and space in a place like this here
27:45
or in the place in Monmouth St. in 1967.
27:50
But basically the place that we're trying to create is exists
27:56
also on a different plane and sacred spaces.
28:03
These places that we're creating through this dedication to
28:07
practice are something very rare today.
28:12
And it's really interesting that there is something tangible that
28:15
people can pick up when they come in here, something that
28:19
really makes it a different place.
28:21
I've just three weeks ago had a friend who came here for the
28:25
first time, and I showed her and she had no connection with
28:28
Buddhism. But she really said this is a
28:30
special place. And you could really sense how
28:33
she, yeah, she could pick up something.
28:36
I think for my path as a Buddhist or as a Dharma
28:41
practitioner, some of the places that we as a community have been
28:47
created or have created over the past six decades that our
28:54
community has existed have been enormously important.
28:59
And especially I think I think of retreat centres in Germany,
29:02
in the UK and in Spain. So somehow these places have a
29:08
different, they accumulate practice and they become places
29:13
where transformation becomes possible.
29:18
And I've just been to a workshop last week in in Adistana with
29:25
some where we had a workshop on the future of Turatna and to
29:31
envision how the future, what the future could look like.
29:36
And we were talking about creating points of power.
29:40
And I really like that image that it's a point of power
29:45
somehow, a point that can draw in people and become not power
29:51
in the worldly sense, but like points of spiritual power that
29:54
can really attract people and give people an intense, yeah, an
30:01
an intense opportunity. Yeah.
30:04
And I think we need these points of power.
30:06
We need places like this one to turn away from distraction and
30:09
to turn towards the stealing of the mind and a simplification of
30:14
our lives if we want to find meaning.
30:18
And I think for Sangarakshita this is was was his main driving
30:22
force to find a spiritual path that was meaningful and relevant
30:27
for people who live in our set of conditions.
30:31
OK, so to the observance of the five precepts, we dedicate this
30:36
place. To the practice of meditation,
30:40
we dedicate this place. To the development of wisdom, we
30:45
dedicate this place. To the attainment of
30:49
enlightenment, we dedicate this place.
30:54
So what we're doing here is to dedicate ourselves to following
30:59
the teaching of the Buddha and the path that he taught.
31:03
And it consists traditionally of three stages, the precepts,
31:08
which is ethics, samadhi or meditation, and pranya or
31:13
wisdom. So there are three stages.
31:16
And on the basis of our ethical practice, we can cultivate our
31:21
mind in meditation. A mind that is more stable and
31:26
positive, and a mind that is so prepared can develop wisdom.
31:32
And wisdom starts with intellectual understanding that
31:36
then can mature into intuitive wisdom.
31:42
And this path is universal to all forms of Buddhism.
31:47
And even some traditions might emphasize one stage more than
31:51
another. So Zen Buddhism is probably more
31:54
on the basis of on the end of meditation, other practice more
31:58
on emphasizing ethics. But if every one of us has to go
32:04
through all stages at some point, So that's the past and
32:08
it's also universal. And I think what attracted me
32:14
to, to Ratna, it's also that banter was always very clear and
32:19
uncompromising that we practice for the attainment of
32:23
enlightenment and that the goal is has not been watered down.
32:27
That it's not just to feel a little bit better or like a
32:33
small goal that, that it is a goal that probably we, we can't
32:37
know what it is, but we have the highest goal possible.
32:41
And for me, that is something very radical.
32:44
And this is also one of the vows that we take at ordination.
32:50
Like when we're ordained, we take the vow to practice for the
32:53
attainment of enlightenment. And it's a very weighty, weighty
32:57
vow. OK.
32:59
So next, though in the world outside there's strife, here may
33:04
there be peace. Though in the world outside
33:07
there's hate, here may there be love.
33:11
Though in the world outside there's grief, here may there be
33:16
joy. And I think these verses seem
33:20
probably more relevant now than ever.
33:23
But we may not forget that the world in 1967 was also struck by
33:29
conflict. And at the time Sangra Akshita
33:33
wrote those lines, the world was highly polarized by the Cold War
33:38
and the Vietnam War was at a climax.
33:41
And only a week after the dedication of the shrine room,
33:46
there was the biggest anti war demonstration in New York
33:49
against the Vietnam War. So I think he wrote that also in
33:53
a climate of being aware of the world outside and the hate and
34:00
strife and grief that was present.
34:03
And it's the miracle of the Buddha's teaching that we can
34:07
develop the ability to open our heart and allow ourselves to
34:11
feel the pain and the suffering that is part of our experience
34:16
as human beings. And yet we don't need to fall
34:20
into overwhelm and depression. We can open our hearts to the
34:24
suffering and respond with love and compassion.
34:30
And with mind training it is possible to respond with
34:34
compassion, even like when we experience aversion and even
34:39
when it's directed towards ourselves.
34:41
So this is the practice of shanti or patience, and one of
34:45
the mind trainings of the Bodhisattva.
34:48
I deeply believe that it has an effect on the world if we create
34:52
places in which genuine peace, love and joy can be experienced.
34:58
And I think the grimmer the world gets, the more important
35:01
this seems to be. And it's the essence of Buddhist
35:04
practice to love and to care for others.
35:09
But we need also a lot of wisdom to do this.
35:12
And to develop this wisdom is challenging, and it requires us
35:18
that we face and work with our deepest fears.
35:21
Those verses don't mean that we just turn away from the
35:26
suffering of the world and create this place of joy.
35:28
And they might easily be misunderstood.
35:33
It doesn't mean that it really means turning toward the
35:35
suffering and facing the suffering, developing Lovejoy
35:40
and peace. When we succeed in doing this, I
35:44
think we become upholders of a vision, the vision that peace,
35:50
love, and joy are real possibilities even today.
35:54
And I think this was Sang Rakshita's vision of spiritual
35:57
friendship, a mutual, vital, vital responsiveness.
36:03
So, and I think personally, for me, there's nothing more radical
36:08
than this. To aspire to embodying peace,
36:11
love and joy ever more deeply is the only thing that makes real
36:17
sense. And I'm very grateful that
36:21
through this community I found a real place to practice this.
36:26
For example, in our community I live with other six women or on
36:31
the centre team here to run this Buddhist centre.
36:37
And of course, strive. Hate and grief are states that
36:43
all of us naturally experience. And they're not just in the
36:46
world outside, they're also within ourselves and within our
36:49
own minds. So the task is really to
36:52
transform this whenever feelings of resentment or whatever arise
37:01
within our relationships and friendships.
37:04
And I think the 12 years that I've been part of this community
37:08
have given me a lot of trust that we are actually moving
37:13
towards greater harmony. And although it's, it's, it's in
37:18
a challenging practice and it's not always easy, I feel like
37:22
that we're definitely at a very different point collectively
37:26
than when I came along 12 years ago.
37:29
I think there's a lot more natural friendship kind of
37:33
bodying forth here. So I do have a lot of optimism
37:37
for the future when I think, well, for it's possible if we
37:40
continue on that path together. OK, so not by the chanting of
37:44
the sacred scriptures, not by the sprinkling of holy water,
37:49
but by our own efforts towards enlightenment, we dedicate this
37:53
place. So in the next verses we
37:55
dedicate ourselves to an active spiritual life as Buddhists.
38:00
And when Sangra Akshita came back to London in 1967, he was
38:05
very clear that he wanted to found a different kind of
38:08
Buddhist organization than the ones that he had experienced in
38:11
India and England. And in those organisations you
38:14
could just become a member by paying a fee.
38:18
But he wanted an organization where everyone was actually a
38:22
Buddhist and made an effort to go for refuge to the Three
38:27
Jewels. This is why he eventually
38:29
founded the order a year later. So people who are part of this
38:33
order, who are ordained when they can effectively put the
38:38
Three Jewels at the centre of their lives and that they make
38:41
an effort to do so. And this is, it's not just a
38:45
subscription to be part of it. And I think something I also I'm
38:49
very grateful for is Sangarakshita's translation of
38:52
the Dharma, especially to our own cultural and religious
38:55
conditioning are all translation of the Buddhist teaching with
39:00
our religious conditioning in mind.
39:04
And I think for me, that helped to clarify a lot of the
39:08
misunderstandings that arise from our our attitude towards
39:13
religion that is widespread right now.
39:16
And I think he could do that very well at the time because he
39:19
was translating the Dharma into his own culture and not into a
39:24
foreign culture like other Asian teachers at the time, which
39:27
probably back then didn't have much understanding of Western
39:31
culture, which I think is different today.
39:33
And for me, this was very helpful because I was raised as
39:36
a Christian, but I could never really see an active spiritual
39:40
path in Christianity, although I was probably searching for it.
39:46
And interestingly, through encountering the Dharma and
39:49
reading books by banter, I understood much more of the
39:53
spiritual value of Christianity as a path.
39:56
But I think without his explanations I was really
40:00
blinded by by misunderstandings of what religion is, and I could
40:06
therefore only see it as empty rituals rather than an actual
40:10
path. The community Sangh Rakshita
40:13
founded has offered me a method of development and growth and a
40:18
vision towards what to grow and these are two of the four gifts
40:24
that. Sang Rakshita described in in a
40:28
poem. Now it's getting mythic.
40:32
So around this mandala, this sacred spot.
40:37
May the Lotus petals of purity open around this mandala, this
40:43
sacred spot. May the Vadra wall of
40:46
determination extend around this mandala, this sacred spot.
40:52
May the flames that transmute Sangsara into Nirvana arise.
40:57
So what we're doing with these verses is we're invoking A
41:03
mandala, a sacred circle somehow, which is surrounded by
41:08
a ring of Lotus petals, a ring of Vadras, and finally a ring of
41:15
flames of transformation. And this is the most, most
41:19
mythic passage of the text. So the mandala is a symbol of
41:24
the awakened or enlightened mind.
41:26
The symbol is very widespread in Buddhism, especially in the
41:30
Tibetan tradition. And as a symbol, mandala
41:35
symbolizes the purification and harmonization of mental energy
41:40
around a center, which is truth itself.
41:45
And in the text of the ceremony, we evoke the three rings of
41:49
protection as barriers that separate the mundane world of
41:54
distraction of negative mental states from the spiritual and
41:59
transcendental pure realm that we are trying to enter
42:03
collectively. And when we enter into the
42:06
mandala, which we are aspiring to do together through our
42:09
Dharma practice and our efforts to purify our minds, then we
42:16
come closer to the adistana of the enlightened mind.
42:22
And that means that we experience a stream of
42:24
blessings. So adistana means blessings or
42:27
grace that flows from the Buddha down to us.
42:31
You could also think of that as the golden light that radiates
42:37
from the Buddha. And this is a very mystical
42:41
experience. So to receive the blessings from
42:46
the Buddha is what is truly worth living for.
42:50
And when we're in touch with it, we can see that there's a much
42:53
deeper layer of reality that goes far beyond our rational
42:57
minds. And it's a strength of
43:02
Sangarakshita and our community to uphold a mythic vision of the
43:06
Dharma that is embedded in European culture.
43:10
So he was very eager to explore Eastern Western culture and look
43:14
for common ground. And our community has a strong
43:18
focus on imagination, arts and creativity.
43:22
And I think that has appealed to me from the beginning.
43:26
And I think without that mythic imaginative approach to
43:31
spiritual practice, I would not have been able to engage my
43:34
energies fully. Today, Dhamma is often presented
43:37
in a scientific framework to appeal to rationally thinking
43:41
Westerners. And I think there's a lot of
43:45
value in this. But I think for myself, I I felt
43:51
like without the mythic, I would not have been able to fully get
43:55
myself behind the practice. And so Rakshita believed that we
43:58
need a public and shared myth to help our individual myths, the
44:05
myths of our lives to unfold within this shared public myth.
44:11
And I would say that this is definitely what I have
44:13
experienced by being part of this community and for which I'm
44:17
very deeply grateful. So we are in this mandala
44:21
together. We are in the images of the poem
44:25
of the four gifts. We are dancing this round dance
44:28
together. The ceremony continues here.
44:32
Seated here, practicing. May our mind become Buddha, may
44:38
our thought become Dharma, May our communication with one
44:42
another be Sangha. So now, from within the mandala,
44:48
we're making an aspiration. We're aspiring to becoming the
44:52
Three Jewels ourselves. So may our mind become Buddha,
44:55
may our thought become Dharma. May our communication be Sangha.
44:59
May we have a mind that is luminously aware, boundlessly
45:03
compassionate, and vibrantly creative.
45:07
May all thoughts that arise be an expression of reality.
45:12
May our communication be truthful, kind, helpful, and
45:17
harmonious. And by aspiring to become the
45:21
three duels, we are aspiring to become a refuge for others, a
45:26
fortress or castle that gives a true source of safety and peace
45:32
in a dangerous world, a fortress of Lovejoy and peace.
45:39
And I think we can also aspire to being in the island of sanity
45:43
in a world that is increasingly dominated by psychologically and
45:47
psychological and mental instability.
45:50
And I think it's interesting that Bante called the place to
45:55
Ratna meditation and shrine room so and then wrote these verses
46:02
of dedication and the aspiration to become the three jewels.
46:07
And in a way, it was only logical that our community was
46:10
renamed at some point 15 years ago, a bit more than 15 years
46:15
ago into to Ratna Buddhist community after this first place
46:21
where it manifested. And so the ceremony concludes.
46:27
For the happiness of all beings, for the benefit of all beings.
46:32
With body, speech and mind, we dedicate this place.
46:37
And so finally we dedicate ourselves to the Bodhisattva
46:42
ideal, the aspiration to practice for the benefit and
46:46
happiness of all beings. So this fortress or castle of
46:52
the three jewels that we aspire to become is not only beneficial
46:55
for ourselves but also for others who seek refuge.
46:59
So we offer ourselves to the world through the places and
47:03
institutions that we have, like this place here or that we are
47:07
creating like the water Borg. And the Bodhisattva ideal was
47:12
very important for banter. And although he was ordained in
47:15
the Terravadan tradition, he later took the Bodhisattva
47:19
ordination from Dado Rinpoche and he was very clear that the
47:22
community founded was a Mahayana Sangha and that the altruistic
47:27
dimension of our practice is as important as one's own personal
47:31
development. So self development is as
47:36
important as the creation of a garden in a wilderness with the
47:40
image of the four gifts that he used.
47:44
We're creating this garden for others.
47:46
And this is reflected also in the symbol that Sangra Akshita
47:50
chose for our order and more widely for our community.
47:53
So this is the 1000 Armed. Have a look at Teshwara that's
47:57
here in two different versions on the shrine today.
48:01
And this is just not only a metaphor.
48:05
He encouraged us literally as a community to think of ourselves
48:11
as an embodiment of this bodhisattva of this figure.
48:16
And maybe we can say that as a community we are being protected
48:21
and guided by the spiritual energy that symbolically can be
48:26
represented with this form. But of course, I mean, it's not
48:30
this form. It's more a spiritual energy.
48:32
And we are guided and we we can become the spiritual energy.
48:37
This is the end of the dedication ceremony and it's our
48:41
59th birthday, so you can see that next year we'll have a 60th
48:48
birthday coming. And as a community we're
48:52
probably pretty middle-aged. So we've probably learned from
48:59
all the mistakes we've done when we were young and naive and
49:03
inspired and we've grown, we've established ourselves and we're
49:08
probably at the in a place where we can turn towards maturation
49:14
and wisdom in the future. So, and I thought what we will
49:21
do now with the puja, that we'll celebrate the sevenfold puja,
49:26
but I thought we could just do what Bunted did on this occasion
49:30
on the 6th of April that we do the dedication ceremony before
49:34
the puja to actually bring this text into awareness.
49:38
And we dedicate and, and we can now with, yeah, this text being
49:44
fresh in our minds, we can somehow dedicate this place and
49:48
this plays between us for the next year of our prosperity and
49:56
vibrancy as a community. Thank you for listening.
50:06
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