Latest / Buddhistisches Tor Berlin Podcast / In the Footsteps of the Buddha and my Teacher

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In the Footsteps of the Buddha and my Teacher · 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
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centre in Berlin, exploring themes such as meditation,
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ethics and the path of awakening in everyday life.
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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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So yeah, it's wonderful to be here again.
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So the last time I sat here with you was in January 2025, SA bit
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more than a year ago. And it was two days later that I
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went on my second journey or like, yeah, a journey to India,
0:59
my second journey to Nepal. And at that point, I think
1:03
Sanghar, Sanghar Darshani asked me if I would maybe in the
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future come back to share my experience.
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So I feel like there was an open promise and I really want to
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keep my promise. So this is what I thought I'd
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talk about today. And I don't not just want to
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talk about my own journey, but about 3 different, different
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journeys, as you will see, which are all in some ways interwoven
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and interconnected. So the first journey is the
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journey of the Buddha and everything that unfolded from
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his experience and what we now call Buddhism.
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And then the second journey is the journey of Sangarakshita, a
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young Englishman who in the 1940s came to India to search
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for the Buddha and to search for Buddhism.
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And he ended up staying in the East for 20 years before he went
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back to the UK to found our community, this community, the
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Triatna Buddhist community. And then the third journey is my
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own journey in the footsteps of these two men, which I did a
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year ago. And I had to limit myself to
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three places, otherwise I probably could be sitting here
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and talking for a long time. So, but I not only want to talk
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about a physical or historical journey, I also want to talk
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about how being on a journey is relevant for all of us here.
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So in a sentence, we are all pilgrims on the journey of our
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lives. So I also want to explore
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pilgrimage as a practice or maybe an attitude towards life.
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And I think this is especially appropriate if we are living a
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Dharma life and aspiring to follow in the footsteps of the
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Buddha. So where does our journey begin?
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Where does Buddhism begin? And geographically, this is in a
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place called Botgaya in Northeast India.
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And this is also where my journey to India, my trip
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started last year in Botgaya. And I want you to, I want to
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invite you to imagine this place in your imagination.
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So Botgaya is in a very poor state called Bihar in the Indian
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countryside, the plains of dust and sand and a few rice fields,
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some very, yeah, simple villages.
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And then in that countryside, there is this small town that is
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full of international visitors. And the small town has at its
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center a place called the Mahabodi Temple.
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And it has a kind of a bit like a stupor like structure like
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this cone and several terraces around it where people come.
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Thousands, actually thousands of pilgrims go there every day and
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they come there to make offerings.
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They come there to recite texts and many people, especially
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Tibetan women, they also do full body prostration.
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And they all in some ways circumambulate this temple
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building. And there's this constant flow
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of people kind of circumambulating around this
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center, this very important spiritual center.
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But the true spiritual center is not the building itself, but the
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heart is the the Bodhi tree. It's a massive, huge tree.
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And why is this place so important?
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So in the Buddhist tradition, this place is called the seed of
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awakening, and it is the place where the Buddha woke up, so
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where he became a Buddha. And this is what Buddha means.
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The Buddha means somebody who has, who is awake, who has woken
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up after having been on a journey to find the truth for
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seven years. So this happened 2500 years ago.
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And what happened? So the Buddha had been before he
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was a Buddha had been searching for the meaning of life.
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At a young age. He had an encounter and he
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realized if we all have to die, if we all have to suffer from
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getting I'll losing the people that we love.
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So what's the meaning of life? What's the point of it all?
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What's the point of enjoying pleasures and buying things,
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having a comfortable a comfortable life?
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What's the point if at the end we we just die?
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And so he went on a journey to find an answer to that question.
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And in the night of his awakening, the Buddha saw that
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we all suffer because of losing what we love and we lose and
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having to die. But there is a reason for the
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suffering, and this reason is our blindness.
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So we are so attached to the world and to the things and our
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own habits that we just can't see and imagine that we do have
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the potential to be free within us.
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So we could be something completely different, and we
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could also operate in the world from a completely different
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place. And this inner place, it's the
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awakened mind. It's the place that the Buddha
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attained to, the reality he woke up to.
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And this awakened mind is a mind that is characterized by
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limitless wisdom, compassion, and boundless creativity.
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And it is the only thing that will truly make us happy.
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So all other things like nice food, a successful career, the
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perfect partner can only give us very short term and a limited
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amount of satisfaction. So if you look for a true source
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of happiness, we will only able to find it by turning inwards
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and by transforming our own minds.
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And when the Buddha woke up and understood all this, so he woke
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up to the nature of reality, he saw that every one of us, every
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one of us in this room has the potential to awaken, and that
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there's even a clear path that can lead or will lead to
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awakening. So he reflected on his own
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experience and he saw that there were conditions and principles
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at work that were universal and that made it possible to awaken,
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to develop this awakened mind. And so the Buddha was a special
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human being only in the sense that he was the first to
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rediscover the path to awakening in our times.
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But his message is that every one of us can attain what he has
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attained. So in this sense, he's not
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special. So after the Buddha, like being
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this 35 year old man sitting under the tree, had fully
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absorbed his experience, he began to travel throughout
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northern India and to tell people about what he had
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experienced and how he how they themselves could realize the
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same. And so many people did actually
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realize what the Buddha realized, and this was the
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beginning of Buddhism. And Buddhism is essentially a
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spiritual communication from an awakened mind to people who,
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through that communication, can suddenly understand something of
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the nature of this experience. And it's important that the
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Buddha not only taught through his words and through what's now
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kind of been passed on as written literature, he probably
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much more effectively also communicated through his
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exemplification and through his presence.
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And I think a lot of people had a very strong experience by
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being in the presence of the Buddha and by experiencing his
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awakened mind. So when the thousands of
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pilgrims come every day to the Mahabodi temple to express their
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devotion, they do that out of gratitude to the Buddha and to
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all subsequent masters of the Buddhist tradition who have been
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teaching the path to awakening and thereby made it possible for
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us to follow in their footsteps. But at the same time, everyone
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who somehow bows to an image of the Buddha, like for example
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this one, like if we come here and most of us, some of us kind
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of come in and bow to that image.
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It also is an expression of bowing to the Buddha nature, our
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own potential within us to become a Buddha and to realize
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the same awakened mind. So from the seat of awakening in
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Bodkaya Buddhism, the path that the Buddha taught spread
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throughout the world. And this is very visible if one
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looks around at the different visitors and their different
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robes and costumes. So they are like traditional
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Terravadin monks from Sri Lanka and very orange, bright orange
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robes. And then there are Tibetan monks
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and nuns in dark red, maroon robes.
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And you have white lay practitioners from China and
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people in traditional costumes who are lay practitioners as
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well, like Tibetan dresses and Westerners.
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So you can really see like all the different countries to which
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Buddhism spread somehow represented when you look around
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at the people who come to this place.
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And the very special thing about Bodgaya is that it's the only
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place in the Buddhist world that is revered by all Buddhists
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equally. So it's important for all
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Buddhists in all traditions. So the awakening experience of
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the Buddha is the one experience that unites all schools of
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Buddhism. So all methods and practices
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that evolved over the centuries and that might look quite very
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different from outwardly, from outward looking at it.
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They aim at that same experience.
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And it's this experience what gives Buddhism its unity.
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So in early 19/15/1950, the 25 year old Sagaraksha came to
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Bodhgaya for the very first time, and by then he had already
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lived in the East for six years. He had come to India as a
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soldier, but after the Second World War finished, he deserted
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the army and spent some years wandering around.
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And he had known since his teenage years in England that he
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was a Buddhist. But at that time it was very
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hard to meet other Buddhists because there were hardly any
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Buddhists in Europe. And even in India it took him
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years to really find proper Buddhists because Buddhism had
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basically died out 8 to 900 years earlier.
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So there was hardly any Buddhism left in India.
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But he finally managed to find a few monks and get himself
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ordained in the Terravada tradition.
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And it is as a newly ordained novice monk that Sangarakshita
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visits Butgaya for the first time.
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And so the place that he visited 75 years earlier than me is a
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very, was probably a very different place from the one we
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find today, even though they're still the same temple.
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But at Sangra Rakshita's time, it was still a Hindu place of
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worship, and the place was owned by Hindus and not by Buddhists.
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And Sangra Rakshita is quite frustrated about this.
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But then he's very moved when he observes the Tibetan pilgrims
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who come all the way from Tibet to very poor people, very
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sincere people, but so deeply inspired by the Buddha that he
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writes in his memoirs that suddenly through their eyes, he
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can really connect with that experience with the Buddha and
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the awakening of the Buddha through their devotion and
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through their sincerity and faith.
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And he writes some verses in honor of Budd Gaia that I want
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to read to you because I think they express some of the
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inspiration he found in that place.
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So, Bod Gaia, Bod Gaia, how many people have come to you in the
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course of ages? How many Pilgrim feed have
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trodden the dust of your Groves? How many pairs of hens been
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joined in silent adoration beneath the wide spreading bows
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of the Tree of Enlightenment? How many heads touched and
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profound Thanksgiving, the edge of the Diamond throne, the seat
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of Awakening. Bod Gaia, Bod Gaia.
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How beautiful you are in the morning with the sunlight
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streaming on the renovated facade of your great temple as
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it rises 4 square against the cloudless blue sky.
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How beautiful in the evening, when in the shadowy depth of the
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deserted temple courtyard, as thousands of otif lamps glitter
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like reflections of the stars. Bod Gaya, I shall always
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remember how beautiful you were the first time I saw you, when
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my heart was young and you made me your own.
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So I had the great fortune to spend a week in Bodgaya, part of
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an order convention with another 900 order members, most of them
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Indian, last year. And we also had that possibility
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to sit under the bodhi trees in the mornings to meditate there
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where the Buddha had gained awakening and celebrate puja.
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So a devotional ritual in the evenings.
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And it was truly the absolute highlight of being there.
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And I think for me, what this place evoked was, was really
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important and was that it brought me in touch with a deep
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sense of humility, just seeing myself as being part of this
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thousands of people coming there to that place.
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And it felt liberating. So just to see myself or one of
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those thousands of people who are part of this flow of
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dedication, a dedication to serve the Dharma.
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And so somehow just being part of this common project that
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unites all who participate in it and that goes far beyond time
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and space. So.
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So the next stage on our journey is a place called Rajkia, about
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70 kilometers north of Bodkaya. And it was once the capital of a
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important Kingdom called Magadan.
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And now there's nothing left of that former glory.
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It just at the time of the Buddha that was really
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important. But now it's just a very poor
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countryside. And near the city is a hill or a
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small mountain called Vulture Peak and at the top of which the
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Buddha like to stay and meditate.
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And this place is earlier is mentioned in some of the
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earliest text, but it became even more important in the later
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tradition that developed centuries after the lifetime of
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the Buddha. And there is a whole body of
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important Buddhist texts that are set on the Walter Peak.
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So they, they, these texts start with the Buddha teaching from
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that place. And what that means is that in
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some ways the Buddha was teaching from a place of deep
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meditation and an experience of wisdom that he encountered in
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the state of meditation. And in that state of
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contemplation, he saw that we as human beings have actually no
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fixed self, that we're just a flow of processes.
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And it is precisely because of that that we can completely
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transform and awaken and become Buddhas ourselves.
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And the most popular of these, of this collection of texts is
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the Heart Sutra. And some of you will probably
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know it, most people who've come on a retreat with us.
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But there's another famous sutra, the Lotus Sutra, which
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was like, according to the legends expounded on the Volta
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Peak. And these scriptures are very
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important for the forms of Buddhism that developed in China
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and Japan. And so it's not surprising that
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the people who come here are a lot Far Eastern Buddhists.
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And when last year Damasara, Gunnavira, Karunada and me
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visited Vulture Peak, there was a Chinese guy with us reading
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Chinese scripture, probably the Lotus Sutra, and there was a
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group of Koreans. With with us at the time and
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going back 75 years. In spring 1950, Sangarakshita
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travelled with his teacher Yagtish Kashyap throughout the
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holy sites that the Buddha had visited in the former Kingdom of
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Magadha. And Yagtish Kashyap was a monk
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and was Sangarakshita's first Buddhist teacher.
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And he was a scholar and had been working at the university
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in Benaras teaching the Pali language and Buddhist
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philosophy. And at that time Sangaraksha had
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been living and studying with him for some months and
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respected him for his profound knowledge.
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But Yaktish Kashyap had become tired of his life teaching at
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the university, and so he decided to go on a pilgrimage to
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the holy sites that the Buddha visited to renew his inspiration
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and to find a new meaning for his own life.
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And so they travelled for some weeks and maybe months through
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the holy places of Magadha. And of all the places that they
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visit, it is the Vulture peak that has the greatest impact on
21:44
Sangaraksha for its spiritual significance.
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Because it is here and through the scriptures that are
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associated with this place that the Buddha reveals himself, not
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just as a historical person, but as a universal principle, the
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principle of awakening. And from that more cosmic
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perspective, awakening is a possibility that is inherent in
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our universe. It is inherent in the nature of
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consciousness. And so from that perspective,
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the Buddha who lived as a human being about 2500 years ago was
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not only a Buddha or he was not the only Buddha.
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He only rediscovered the path that before him had already been
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discovered by other Buddhas. And after him there will be
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other Buddhas. And there are other wealth
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system with more Buddhas existing even today.
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So it's a world full of Buddhas, and it may be surprising that a
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young Theravadan monk gets so excited about this grand cosmic
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vision of Buddhism that is very much part of the later
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developments of Mahayana Buddhism to which Chinese and
23:04
Japanese Buddhism belong. So in contrast, the traditional
23:09
Theravada relies on the earliest scriptures that present the
23:12
Buddha as a historical figure. So that's where the focus is on
23:17
the Buddha Shakyamuni teaching the people he met in India 2500
23:21
years ago. And those teachings also have a
23:24
very strong emphasis on becoming among or none and going forth.
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But that Sangarakshita gets so excited about this split place
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also reflects his own deeper spiritual inspiration.
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Because as a young man, it was through Chinese Mahayana texts
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that Sangarakshita encountered as a teenager that he was a
23:51
Buddhist and that it had always been a Buddhist.
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He read those texts and he resonated with them immediately.
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And even though he became a Theravada monk, because that was
24:03
the only form of Buddhism that he encountered in India, he
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never exclusively identified himself as a Theravada Buddhist.
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And this is something that is very unique about his approach,
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that from the beginning of his spiritual life, he always
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thought of himself as an heir to the entire Buddhist tradition.
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So from the beginning, he was very much attracted to the
24:29
universal ideal of Mahayana Buddhism to gain enlightenment
24:35
for the benefit of all beings. And he writes in his memoirs
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that when he on his journey set at the platform at Vultures Peak
24:43
where the Buddha used to sit and meditate, that he silently
24:48
recited a prayer with the aspiration to help others to
24:53
find the path to enlightenment. And for me, this is a very
24:59
moving thought to imagine this 25 year old young sangarakshita.
25:04
We have a photo of him on the shrine, so later you could come
25:07
up and see. And I think it must be around
25:09
that time. So this young monk sitting there
25:13
and aspiring to be of service and wishing that people around
25:19
the globe might find their way to the Buddhist teaching and
25:23
then reflecting what has arisen from that sincere aspiration.
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So if you look around this room today or if you look around our
25:32
community, I mean, it's a global Buddhist community with centers
25:36
around the world and 3000 older members.
25:39
So all arose from that prayer at the Vultures Peak more than 75
25:48
years ago. And the Vulture Peak, the hill
25:53
that sang Rakshita, visited and had probably quite a bit
25:58
different feel to it than the place we visited 75 years later.
26:04
So I talked to some people who went there only 30 years ago,
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and they told me that at that time it was still so isolated
26:12
and lonely that they needed police protection to go up there
26:15
as a foreigner. But today it's very crowded with
26:20
tourists, and there's a constant stream of Buddhists of all
26:23
shapes arriving at the peak. And under those conditions, it
26:28
can be a bit of a challenge to open the door to another
26:32
dimension and to connect with this place more as an inner
26:37
place that exists in the imagination rather than a very
26:41
concrete place in time and space.
26:46
But when we went up there, I did manage to find a moment of
26:51
contemplation, and I sat there and internally recited the Heart
26:56
Sutra. Yeah, which felt meaningful
27:01
connecting with those texts. But to my surprise, the
27:08
strongest moment did not happen at the peak, but when we set for
27:15
a few minutes in one of the caves on the way up.
27:18
So there are a few small caves where, according to legend, the
27:23
disciples of the Buddhas Buddha had practiced.
27:28
And for that very short meditation, I had a very vivid
27:32
sense of the presence of the Buddha Amitayus, which is the
27:36
red Buddha of infinite light, love and life.
27:41
And I could feel this presence visually and somatically, but I
27:48
also had the sense that he communicated his presence by
27:53
perfuming the air with a very sweet scent.
27:58
So this was an experience that stayed with me.
28:02
And yeah, it also became important further on the
28:08
journey. And when I prepared for this
28:12
talk and read through Banta's description of his visit of
28:16
Walter Peak again, he reminded me that there is indeed a very
28:20
famous sutra that teaches the meditation of the Buddha,
28:23
Amitayus, that the Buddha is said to have taught to the Queen
28:26
of Magadha at the foot of Walter Peak.
28:31
And I really love these coincidences that can happen on
28:34
these journeys because this is what over time creates resonance
28:39
and meaning. And I think, I mean, I really
28:42
want to look into this text now. And I think it it will have a
28:45
different meaning now that I have this experience and
28:48
resonance with. Yeah, with that place.
28:55
So the third place I want to talk about is further north in
29:02
the foothills of the Himalayas. And very shortly after his visit
29:10
to Walter Peak, some Sangarakshita found himself in a
29:15
town called Kalimpong in the Indian Himalayas, very, very
29:20
close to the Tibetan border. And he was still travelling
29:24
around with his teacher. Yaktush Kashyap and his teacher
29:28
had been invited to visit this place, and they spent three
29:32
weeks in the cool climate of the Himalayas and what Sangarakshita
29:36
thought was a holiday. And one morning he suddenly
29:42
found his teacher leaving on his own.
29:44
And he was already in the car and just saying, waving goodbye
29:47
to Sanghar Rakshita. And he told him to stay in
29:50
Kalimpong, to work for the good of Buddhism.
29:52
And he was just about to leave. And I think this came quite as a
29:56
surprise, even as a shock to Sanghar Rakshita.
30:01
But a bit before that, he had taken up a practice to follow
30:08
the advice and guidance that he received from his teacher.
30:11
So in some way, he couldn't really.
30:15
Yeah. He just decided to not question
30:18
this, what's the work, this task and development and respond to
30:25
it creatively. And this event became a major
30:29
turning point on Sang Rakshita's journey.
30:33
And he ended up staying in Kalimpong for 14 years, which
30:38
were very formative years for him and also very happy ones.
30:43
But of course, it was absolutely not easy for him.
30:48
Especially at the beginning, it was very challenging for him to
30:52
find conditions in which he could work for the good of
30:54
Buddhism. Yeah.
30:57
Just imagine a very young monk, a stranger just being ordained
31:04
for a few months. Kalimpong at that time was a
31:08
cultural melting pot with a mix of very interesting people from
31:13
different Asian countries, but also many westerners.
31:15
I mean, this was just very only few years after India became
31:19
independent. There was there were also a
31:24
number of Buddhists in Kalimpong around that time, but Sanghar
31:26
Rakshita found that he didn't really fit in the existing
31:29
Buddhist establishment. So in a way he had to found his
31:33
own organization, which he did. So he founded the Young Men's
31:37
Buddhist Association and started offering activities, religious
31:41
as well as social and cultural for the young men in Kalimpong.
31:46
And by doing that, he, I think he gained himself respect.
31:49
And yeah, he became a respected teacher in Kalimpong.
31:55
But what he did not know when he arrived there in 1950 was that
32:00
only very few years later, Kalimpong would see a large
32:04
influx of Tibetan refugees due to the Chinese invasion.
32:10
And this provided a unique opportunity for Sang Rakshita
32:14
because he could develop friendships and connections with
32:17
some very eminent and respected Tibetan teachers who came to
32:21
Kalimpong to live there for some years or stay there for or just
32:25
pass through. So over those years he met many
32:33
teachers and at the end he had eight main teachers and seven
32:38
out of those he met during his time in Kalimpong.
32:42
One of them was Chinese who lived as a hermit in Kalimpong
32:46
and practiced Chand Buddhism and Vajrayana Buddhism.
32:49
But the other six were Tibetans and belonged to different
32:53
schools of Tibetan Buddhism. And when I visited Kalimpong
33:01
last year, so it was also our next step on the journey from,
33:04
well, Chesapeake to Kalimpong together with my partner Karuna
33:08
Karunada. And I was quite surprised to
33:13
find that some of the places where Sangara Rakshita in those
33:17
years had very important encounters with his teachers
33:20
that were important for him and that he, he had written very
33:24
detailed in his memoirs about those places.
33:28
And quite a few of these places are still there and you can go
33:31
there and visit them. In general, of course, I think
33:35
Kalimpong is a very different city from how San Rakshita
33:41
experienced the town when he lived there.
33:44
So at that time it was probably still quite idyllic with very
33:49
beautiful clear skies and views of the Himalayas, the Mount
33:53
Kanchenjunga that he could see from the window of his place.
33:59
Today, Kalimpong is very densely populated and has lots of
34:04
ecological problems, including air pollution.
34:08
And when we were there, there was no question of a view of the
34:11
mountains, unfortunately. So just thick smoke.
34:15
And that seems to be the situation most of the time of
34:17
the year. And I want to describe one place
34:23
that we visited that was of very special significance to
34:26
Sangaraksha. And it is the place where, after
34:30
seven years in Kalimpong, he finally founded his own small
34:34
monastery of Vihar. And today this bungalow, this
34:40
place with the garden around it, it belongs to a family of
34:44
Tibetan origin who bought this place directly from Sang
34:48
Rakshita after he had decided to move back to the UK permanently.
34:53
And when we visited, there were other to Ratna Buddhists and
34:58
Order members visiting at the same time.
35:00
And two of our friends were staying at this place privately.
35:05
So we had the very good fortune to go and visit them there.
35:09
And it is a very special place on many different layers.
35:14
So one thing that makes it spiritually important is that
35:20
Sangarakshita received the name for this monastery from his
35:24
teacher Shatra Sangyadodi Rimpushe, who was one of the
35:29
most well respected Tibetan masters of the 20th century.
35:34
And Sangarakshita met him in 1957 and received from him an
35:40
initiation into the Green Tara practice, a meditation practice
35:46
that involves visualizing the green female archetypal form of
35:51
awakening that is usually connected with compassion and
35:53
fearlessness. And so this marked
35:58
Sangarakshita's initiation into Vajrayana practice.
36:03
So before that he had been a Theravadan monk with a strong
36:06
interest also in Mahayana scriptures and texts.
36:10
But from that moment in 1957 he also started to practice
36:14
Vajrayana meditation, which involves visualization of
36:19
different archetypal Buddhism and bodhisattvas.
36:23
And so a few days after he received this practice,
36:27
Chattarimbuche visited Sangra Rakshita and he told him about
36:31
his wish to establish his own monastery.
36:34
And Chattarimbuche told him that he would very soon find a
36:38
suitable place for this endeavour and that you should
36:41
call his monastery Triana Vardana Vihara, the place where
36:47
the three Yanas flourish. So the three Yanas are the Terra
36:51
Vada or Hinayana, the Mahayana and Vadra Yana, and they
36:56
represent the three phases of the development of Indian
37:00
Buddhism of the course of 1500 years.
37:06
And I find this significant because this also already
37:10
expressed the vision that would later become a central and very
37:14
unique characteristic of Kangarakshita's approach.
37:18
So when he came back to the West, he was very clear from the
37:22
beginning that he was based his teaching on the entire Buddhist
37:26
tradition. And this is also one of the
37:28
principles on which he founded our community.
37:32
So our approach to Buddhism is non sectarian and collectively
37:37
we draw inspiration from the entire Buddhist tradition.
37:41
Which of course may mean that individually some older members
37:45
may more drawn to early Buddhism, some more to Far
37:48
Eastern Buddhism and other small to Indo Tibetan Buddhism.
37:52
But in some way, in this place, in Kalimpong, it was already the
37:55
precursor on a small scale for the movement that we are now.
38:02
And the Trianna Vada Navihara was also spiritually significant
38:05
for another reason. So towards the end of his time
38:08
in India in 1962, Sang Raksha was initiated into the practice
38:14
of Padma Sambhava by his teacher Khatri Rampushe.
38:19
And this initiation took place in the shrine room of Sang
38:21
Rakshita's monastery. And Padma Sambhava was a figure
38:27
that by that time was already very important for Sang
38:30
Rakshita, and it has been an important figure in the
38:33
collective spiritual life of our community and order.
38:36
And So what made him so important?
38:41
The Buddha himself never travelled to Kalimpong and the
38:46
Himalayas during his lifetime. It took more than 1000 years
38:51
until Buddhism spread to this part of the world, and the
38:57
dissemination of Buddhism in this region is very much
39:00
connected with a figure of Padma Sambhava.
39:04
So he was a great Indian Vajrayana master who lived in
39:09
the 8th century, and he travelled around the many
39:13
different Himalayan kingdoms and finally to Tibet to spread the
39:17
Dharma. And Tibetan Buddhists all
39:22
therefore call him Padma Sambava, the second Buddha,
39:25
because it is through him that they came in contact with the
39:29
teachings of the Buddha. And to me it felt very
39:34
significant to be able to sit and meditate for a while in the
39:38
room that used to be Sang Rakshita's shrine room and
39:42
internally connect with that special moment in his life.
39:46
So Patma Sambhava is also a figure that is very close to my
39:51
heart and who's very present in my meditation.
39:57
And of course, my own connection with Padma Sambhava could only
40:01
arise because he was initiated into this practice and held it
40:06
close to his heart. So in some ways, there's a kind
40:10
of chain reaction that connects my life with Sangaraksha's life.
40:18
And going on a pilgrimage to place like that offers the
40:21
opportunity of going closer to the source of that chain of
40:25
inspiration. And maybe in the future, the
40:31
Triana WADA Navihara will be a place of pilgrimage.
40:36
The family who owned the place, they are thinking about building
40:40
some huts around the original building that would allow small
40:43
groups of Turatna Buddhists to come and stay there and practice
40:47
together in the main house. And I mean, that's an idea
40:51
that's around, but I don't know if they're following up on this
40:55
idea. But I think it would be truly
40:57
wonderful if this opportunity existed and people could go
41:03
there and connect with this important place in the history
41:06
of our community. So we have the story of the
41:17
Buddhist awakening. His example inspired countless
41:21
others to follow him and find liberation from suffering as he
41:25
did, and thereby his teachings spread all over Asia over the
41:29
course of the centuries. And roughly 150 years ago,
41:34
Buddhism also started to spread to Europe, which allowed
41:38
Sangarakshita to find Buddhist texts translated into English
41:43
and start his own journey in search of the Buddha and his
41:47
experience of awakening. So that's what motivated him to
41:52
go to India. And when he came back to the
41:55
West, he shared the inspiration he found there, out of which
42:00
arose this community. And this allowed me, 50 years
42:07
after Sangra Raksha came back to the West to find the Buddhist
42:11
teaching here in Berlin, in Kurzberg, and another 10 years
42:16
later wanting to go on a pilgrimage to India.
42:20
So in that way you can see that all our stories are intimately
42:25
interwoven. Without the Buddha,
42:28
Sangarakshita's journey would not have taken place.
42:31
Without the Buddha and Sangarakshita's journey, my own
42:34
journey would not have taken place.
42:37
And so personally, connecting my life to the lives of San
42:40
Rakshita and his teachers and other practitioners down to the
42:45
time of the Buddha is what gives my life a lot of meaning.
42:51
And it is what Buddhists have done over the course of the
42:55
centuries and somehow thereby created what we call Sangha, the
43:01
community of practitioners. So to finish, I just want to
43:11
share a few thoughts about pilgrimages practice because for
43:17
me, going on a pilgrimage has become an important part of my
43:22
practice. And I feel that it is a
43:25
possibility to tap into a deeper source of inspiration and to
43:30
contact that layer and bring more of it to life after I come
43:33
back. And the two journeys to India
43:38
and Nepal that I did over the past years have helped me to
43:44
relate to the Buddhist tradition in a different way and to see
43:49
what we're doing here from a much wider perspective.
43:54
And I feel it's very helpful that there are places, places
43:58
that have been visited by Buddhists over the centuries,
44:03
and somehow we can connect to the experience that the people
44:08
made by visiting those places and thereby come closer to the
44:14
experience of the Buddha, come closer to the Buddha himself.
44:19
And the value for my life is not only that I've visited these
44:25
places outwardly, I find that the value is much more that
44:30
these outer places become part of my inner life and that they
44:35
come alive in my imagination and thereby become a resource that I
44:40
can draw from and also reconnect in my meditation.
44:46
And I have been reflecting on a few qualities that I think you
44:49
need if you want to go on a pilgrimage.
44:55
And first of all, I think equality you really need is
44:58
faith. So you need to have faith that
45:01
what you find on that journey will be valuable, it will be
45:06
meaningful, it will be life changing.
45:09
So if you go on a journey with a skeptical or cynical mind, all
45:15
you will find are crowded touristic places that are
45:18
probably unpleasantly hot or cold, dusty and smelly and very
45:22
uncomfortable. So in some ways you need faith
45:27
and you need openness to relate to whatever you encounter, to be
45:32
open to new experiences, and to allow something that goes beyond
45:37
what you can currently imagine. And of course, going into that
45:43
unknown also requires fearlessness because coming into
45:51
contact with the unforeseen, something that maybe even might
45:55
cause us to change the very likely cause an emotional
46:00
response of fear because we cannot control the situation.
46:05
We need courage to confront it. And you also need an ability to
46:12
see beyond. You need the to be able to
46:17
connect with something deeper, something that goes beyond what
46:22
is just there that you can perceive with the census, maybe
46:27
something more archetypal. And also it requires some
46:31
understanding and knowledge of the tradition and maybe the
46:34
value of the places, how it was valuable to people who've been
46:38
there before, in order to be able to appreciate the
46:41
importance of a place and to open up to its influence.
46:46
And I think for me, that was my experience on Vulture Peak, that
46:49
I could connect to the place and have an experience because I
46:52
knew that it was connected to so many text texts that I value and
46:59
cherish. But sometimes also something can
47:02
happen very unexpectedly, like that experience of Amitaios in
47:07
The Cave that I had. And of course, I had no idea
47:11
about the connection with Amitaios at that moment.
47:18
And another quality or another thing that is important is
47:22
crucially important is timing on a journey like that, because you
47:27
never know whom you will meet and who will be there.
47:30
So you go and of course there are very, a lot of conditions
47:35
coming together and you might meet somebody, you might have an
47:38
encounter that will change your life.
47:40
It's, you don't know it, it's not in your control.
47:45
And in some ways this, you can't do anything about it.
47:49
But what you can do is somehow to surrender to a flow of
47:53
things. So really let go of your plans
47:59
and concrete ideas of how things should be and of the outcome so
48:04
you can surrender to the flow of things and let what you do next
48:11
arise more naturally and spontaneously and organically.
48:14
And I think when you surrender to that flow, then the timing
48:17
will also be right and you might have the encounters that change
48:22
your life. And entering into this flow
48:26
requires trust, especially trust in yourself, in your own
48:31
mission, that it is valuable and meaningful to be on that
48:35
journey. And you also need to stay in
48:38
touch with your deeper aspiration and motivation.
48:42
So on one level, you need openness to change, but you also
48:46
need to stay in touch with your deeper motivation.
48:49
Otherwise you might just be carried away by things.
48:52
So it's really important to that.
48:56
There's something, some threat that you not let go of.
49:03
And to me, these qualities are qualities that we need not only
49:06
if we want to go on a pilgrimage to India, we need them on the
49:11
journeys of our lives. If we aim to live meaningful
49:14
lives and you don't, you do not need to travel far away to
49:20
practice these qualities. So last year, for example, there
49:23
was a group of people who made a four day pilgrimage walking from
49:28
this place here to a future retreat center 80 kilometers N
49:33
the road book. And I was not part of the group,
49:35
but I was part of the group who welcomed them when they arrived.
49:39
And you could really see when they I got there after four days
49:44
of walking that this experience was profoundly transformative
49:47
and that a lot what arose during that journey was not planned.
49:52
And yeah, something really meaningful happened.
49:57
And you don't even need to go on an outward journey.
50:00
So in February, I went or I planned a three-week solitary,
50:06
and while I was there in meditation, I reflected that
50:11
somehow the same principles apply.
50:13
So if you go on this inward journey, you also never know
50:17
what will happen and what appears in your experience.
50:20
So you need to have faith and to be fearless because what comes
50:23
up in your mind might be frightening.
50:27
You also need to be open to see beyond, see the deeper meaning
50:31
of what's happening for your life.
50:33
And you also need to trust the flow and need trust and connect
50:38
with your aspiration. But you need also to respond to
50:43
the unforeseen. So in my solitary, I had spent
50:48
10 days in very deep meditation. And there were another almost
50:53
two weeks left. And suddenly there was a knock
50:55
on the door. And it was quite, I completely
51:00
didn't expect that. And then there was a person
51:02
coming in organizing the place, telling me that that just
51:06
received a phone call that my grandma had had a stroke and
51:10
that she was in hospital and it looked like she was she was
51:13
going to die. So I was sitting there and I
51:16
needed to respond to this and I needed to take a decision.
51:21
And I decided then after two days I would go home and yeah,
51:25
just respond to what needed to be done and spend time with
51:29
them. And so the journey required me
51:31
to respond outwardly. And at the end it was a really
51:34
positive experience and I still felt it was one retreat over
51:38
three years, even though some bit was inwardly and some bit
51:41
was outwardly. But you also do not need to go
51:45
on a solitary. You can bring the attitude of
51:48
pilgrimage to each meditation session.
51:50
So just encounter whatever comes up with a fresh mind.
51:55
And if we do that, then over time we can see our whole life
51:59
as a pilgrimage, a journey that brings us closer step by step to
52:04
the experience of the Buddha. The experience of the Buddha had
52:08
in Budgaya under the Bodhi tree 2500 years ago.
52:12
And on that journey, our very own journey to the seat of
52:17
awakening, we will find more and more freedom from suffering and
52:23
develop an increasingly stronger taste of the infinite wisdom and
52:28
compassion and the boundless creativity of the awakened mind.
52:42
Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this talk, you
52:46
are warmly invited to visit Buddhisticious Tour Berlin in
52:49
Kreutzberg. We offer meditation, Dharma
52:53
talks, and courses that support practice in everyday life.
52:58
You'll find more information in the episode description.