Latest / Buddhistisches Tor Berlin Podcast / From London 1968 to Kreuzberg Today: The Story of Our Sangha

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From London 1968 to Kreuzberg Today: The Story of Our Sangha · Buddhistisches Tor Berlin Podcast

• 0:04
  Welcome to the Buddhisticious Tour Berlin podcast.
• 0:08
  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.
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  We are part of the Sri Ratna Buddhist community and our talks
• 0:24
  are offered freely in a spirit of generosity.
• 0:28
  We hope this episode supports your practice and your life.
• 0:43
  Very. Yeah.
• 0:44
  Warm welcome. Normally at this stage we talk
• 0:48
  about the Dharma, the Buddhist teachings quite a lot.
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  But I thought because on Monday we have one of our festival
• 0:55
  days, and this time we're not celebrating within the Buddhist
• 0:59
  tradition, but we're going to celebrate our own special
• 1:03
  tradition. I thought it could be really
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  nice just to give you a little bit of an overview where you
• 1:08
  have come to and who we are. Yeah.
• 1:11
  At this Buddhist centre, What makes us sort of.
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  So on Monday would have been the founding day of our Buddhist
• 1:20
  movement in 1967. Yeah.
• 1:23
  So that's quite a long time ago. I was born already.
• 1:27
  I was 2. I don't know.
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  Probably most of you weren't born then, but then the next
• 1:32
  year something quite important on the 7th of April happened and
• 1:38
  our order was founded. So at the heart of this Buddhist
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  movement is an order of really committed people who are sort of
• 1:47
  like practicing together. They are spiritual community.
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  So in this talk, I would love to just tell you a little bit about
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  these beginnings of our movement, but also of our order.
• 1:59
  And then I'm going to say a few words about Sangaraj Sita, just
• 2:03
  a little bit. There's a little picture of him
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  there when he was in his probably early 20s, mid 20s,
• 2:10
  living in India. He's now dead.
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  He died a few years ago. And then I thought I'd tell you
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  just a little bit about my own way, how I got on this spiritual
• 2:21
  path and came into the order. Probably other people would tell
• 2:26
  a totally different story, but I think it's quite nice just to
• 2:29
  give you an idea of what happened and why, you know, why
• 2:34
  I get, I got into this spiritual community, into this order.
• 2:41
  But I thought I'd just start with Sangarachita.
• 2:44
  So he was an Englishman, born in 1925, and at the age of 16,
• 2:52
  without much Buddhism around, he realized that he was a Buddhist.
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  He just read a few texts which were quite deep, I don't
• 3:00
  understand them, but when he read them, he realized that he
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  was a Buddhist. And by chance, how these things
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  sometimes happened during the Second World War, he had to go
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  to the army and they were stationed in India.
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  So at the end of the war, he deserted the army and he just
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  stayed in India. I mean, what a, what a thing.
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  He could have gone to France, He could have gone anywhere, but
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  they went to India. And there he was then ordained
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  in 1950 at the age of 25 as a Buddhist monk.
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  And he ended up living in the North East of India in a place
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  called Kalimpong, which was just where a lot of Tibetans would
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  flee from the Chinese occupation a few years later.
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  So he was just at that moment again, right at the right place
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  where he had contact with quite a lot of Tibetan lamas, some of
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  them very influential, not only for him but now also for
• 4:05
  Buddhism worldwide. And during that time he became
• 4:12
  well known for a non sectarian approach of Buddhism.
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  So in Buddhism I could say a lot, but it's normally the
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  different Buddhist groups can be very different.
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  I don't know if you've been to a Zen centre, a Tibetan centre,
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  sometimes really hard to recognise what brings them
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  together, but he had a very strong impetus to look at the
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  whole of the Prudition Buddhist tradition and take inspiration
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  from that. So he stayed there for about 20
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  years and at some stage in Britain, the Buddhist
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  communities there invited him to come back to the UK when which
• 4:53
  he did in the mid 60s. That's a whole story in itself,
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  but what happened there, it was a total mixture of people.
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  So some people were more interested in Buddhism on a
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  philosophical level, so they had these nice philosophical schools
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  coming together. But then there was also the mid
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  60s, this whole hippie movement of young people becoming really
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  interesting in consciousness and sort of like drugs and, you
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  know, The Beatles and yeah, it was just a very amazing time.
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  So he was just coming back to the UK with this total mixture
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  of people who were coming there, some in the early 20s even, like
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  late teens, and then some people who were in the 60s, seventies,
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  you know, just interesting on a philosophical level.
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  But he realized that if Buddhism is going to come to the West,
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  and he's probably in one of the earliest people there, it has to
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  be communicated in a way which works for Westerners.
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  Yeah. So a lot of Buddhism comes with
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  the whole culture and tradition of these different countries
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  where Buddhism has said. So his thing was, how can I go
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  back to the principles which are free from the culture and just
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  see what's lying underneath, which is actually valuable for
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  all. Yeah.
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  So what are the principles and how could he best apply them to
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  this Western context? And he realised that it needed,
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  in some ways a new Buddhist movement.
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  So in 1967, at the age of 41, he started teaching in a small
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  basement in a Japanese shop. He started teaching Buddhism and
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  meditation. So in some ways, this Buddhist
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  centre has started in a very small place at somebody's living
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  home. And yeah, so it's very
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  interesting how things start. And it's said that the room was
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  12 square metres, so it's probably up to here and then
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  maybe to Costa. You know, the room, it wasn't
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  very big, and they were probably crammed in there like this.
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  And I found a nice description by Vachra Gupta who wrote a
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  biography of Sangar Rachita and it says it's a spring evening in
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  central London in 1967. Along a narrow Rd. of antique
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  and oriental shops. 1 is named Monmouth St.
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  On the left hand side at the far end of the road there's a small
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  shop named Sakura Japanese for cherry Blossom.
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  Down the stairs at the bottom are two small rooms.
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  As your eyes get used to the light, you see that there are
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  about a dozen people crammed into the tiny space.
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  Most are sitting on chairs, but a few sit on cushions on the
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  floor. Midway along the back wall is a
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  shrine with candles burning, a vase of flowers and a small
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  figure of the Buddha. Not as big as ours.
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  Maybe this year. There's one man in particular
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  who grabs your attention. He's an Englishman in his early
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  40s, but of unusual appearance. He's wearing orange robes over a
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  thick jumper. He has longish brown hair and
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  spectacles. But it is his presence that
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  really makes you pay heed. He seems utterly alert,
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  confident, at ease in himself. The look in his eye and the set
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  of his mouth are formidably serious and intent, except that
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  sometimes he catches someone's else eye and breaks into a
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  toothy grim. After a quick check of his
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  watch, he faces the shrine and added in a deep voice, chants
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  and bows to the Buddha, the others following this lead as we
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  did at the beginning. He then sits on a low platform
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  and explains to them about Buddhist meditation.
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  He speaks slowly, choosing and emphasizing his words carefully,
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  but with that same underlying intensity and conviction.
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  The people present are fascinated and after the few
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  minutes of instruction, shuffle into the meditation posture and
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  close their eyes. It begins the period of
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  meditation by wringing a Japanese bowl.
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  The room falls silent, while above, unseen, the red double
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  Decker buses rumble by and the taxi cabs honk their horn.
• 9:32
  I'd like the description. Yeah.
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  So that was the very early beginning.
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  And as I said before, one year later, the order was founded,
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  and it was to be at the heart of this new Buddhist movement.
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  So this is the Buddhist movement here.
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  But at the heart of it there is, yeah, some people, it's quite a
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  few of us here who sort of like really their spiritual practice,
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  their insights, their communication with one another,
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  their harmony with one another. That's what's really attracting
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  people to this Buddhist centre. The first person to be ordained
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  into the Western Buddhist order was a woman called Sarah Boyne,
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  which became Sujata. And it was on purpose that she,
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  as a woman, was the first to be ordained.
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  Together with her, about 11 men and women took the step to
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  commit full hearted to a Buddhist path.
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  It was very unusual day. Something very unusual happened
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  and it attracted a bit the attention of the newspapers and
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  I just thought I'd just give you a sum of the comments.
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  The ordination conducted by the Venerable Stavira Sangarachita,
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  head of the Buddhist monastic community in Britain, were set
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  to were set by the Stavira to be a historic stage in the
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  development of Buddhism in the West.
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  They took place before an invited audience in London,
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  which included eminent Buddhists from Britain and many other
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  parts of the world. In his talk on the meaning of
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  the order, Sangarachita said that there were two extreme
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  views regarding what constitutes A Buddhist. 1 maintained that
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  only ordained monks were real Buddhist and the other that
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  being born in a Buddhist country automatically made 1A Buddhist.
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  The friends as we were called, we are called.
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  The friends of the Western Buddhist order at the time took
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  a middle view, avoiding the exclusiveness of the one extreme
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  and the all embracing character of the other.
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  And Sangrejita said some years later in the talk, it was an
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  order that was open to both men and women.
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  In some quarters of the Buddhist ease, it was regarded as rather
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  revolutionary, not to say all Maya's almost heretical to
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  accept both men and women into the same order on equal terms.
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  So this has been a principle, one of our distinctive features
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  from the very beginning. Today it looks like why wouldn't
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  we be, you know, like ordained on the same level, but at that
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  time, and Buddhism is quite a patriarchal, sort of like it is
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  very patriarchal. It was quite a step to have a
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  woman first ordained and that men and women are ordained on
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  equal terms. He also said our new Buddhist
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  movement would also have to be free from homophobia, as it came
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  to be called, if spiritual friendship was to flourish
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  within it. Indeed, it would have to be free
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  from homophobia if it was to be truly Buddhist.
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  And he said Buddhism is a universal teaching and as such
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  its attitude is one of goodwill matter towards all living beings
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  irrespective of race, nationality, social position,
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  gender or sexual orientation. So this new order, the spiritual
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  community is neither monastic nor just a lay.
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  It's open to both and men on equal terms and it's open to all
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  irrespective of race, nationality, social position,
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  gender or sexual orientation. It's quite, it's quite something
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  especially for the time then. And Sangrajita defined a
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  spiritual community, which is sort of like what we call the
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  order. It's quite a high level, a
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  voluntary association of free individuals who have come
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  together on account of a common commitment to a common ideal, a
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  commitment to what we call the Three Jewels.
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  I'll repeat that later. Again, our order.
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  So this Srivatna Buddhist order, which is at the heart of this
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  community, is trying to be a spiritual community in this
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  sense, a voluntary association of three individuals who have
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  come together on account of a common commitment to a common
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  ideal, a a commitment to what we call the Three Jewels.
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  So as older members, we are aspiring individuals who are
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  trying to become more and more integrated, emotionally
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  positive, independent of group values, freeing ourselves from
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  unhelpful conditioning and thinking for ourselves.
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  It's quite something. I mean, I could give a whole
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  talk on this now, but to really become more in yourself, an
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  individual without becoming individualistic.
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  And we are on a spiritual journey.
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  The term is, I said it a few times.
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  We are going for refuge to the Three Jewels.
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  So the Three Jewels are the Buddha as an ideal, what we
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  ourselves can aspire, the Dharma as all the teachings which help
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  us on the way, and the Sangha is the spiritual community.
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  So other people who have gone ahead of us, who have gained
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  insight, and sometimes we call this gathering also a Sangha.
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  So going for refuge, this turning towards the through
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  jewels is essentially A profound inner experience, a spiritual
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  rebirth or conversion as a result of which one's whole life
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  is transformed and reorientated. So it's not just a little hobby
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  at the side, it's just like your whole life is sort of like
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  turning there. And at the same time we're
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  coming together with other free individuals, Co creating with
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  other individuals on the basis of our common values and our
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  going for refuge to the three tools.
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  And that is not easy. Yeah, it's a very high ideal.
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  But for me, this ideal, the vision of a spiritual common
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  community, is very much alive in me, even if I'm not always there
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  myself. So to give you a little bit of a
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  taste, I just thought I'd talk about my own experience towards
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  ordination. So in 2007 I was invited.
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  I get a little bit goosebumps myself, sorry.
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  On my ordination retreat on a mountain in Spain, and I was
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  going to spend 3 months there together with 20 other women, of
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  which fourteen of us were going to be ordained.
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  This place is called Akashavana, the forest of luminous space,
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  and is far away from any civilization, away from mobile
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  phones, laptops, Wi-Fi and even other people.
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  So it's really up on a mountain at night, very far away you can
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  see a little bit of light of houses.
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  So it's a very special place where we're going to spend 3
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  months together. It's a beautiful space.
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  It's rough and racket, but at the same time there's a
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  benevolent spirit there and I had prepared for this retreat
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  over the last seven years. On the outside I had been
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  studying the Dharma, the Buddhist teachings at my local
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  Buddhist centre. I built up a regular meditation
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  practice. I became more skilful in my
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  ethical behaviour. I had developed friendships with
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  the order and others, training for ordination, I lived in
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  Buddhist communities and I even worked for the Buddhist Centre
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  in Essen. And over these years I had grown
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  as a person, became more independent in my thinking and
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  more independent from the different groups around me like
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  my family or status or work. I had loosened some of my views
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  about life and loosened some restrictive conditionings and
• 17:49
  habits. I had gained more confidence in
• 17:53
  myself and the Buddhist practices, and I realized that
• 17:55
  some things won't be able to give me lasting satisfaction,
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  which was quite sobering and painful at first.
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  But I also found deeper meaning and things which went beyond me.
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  A whole new world of meaning had opened up before me.
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  And all of these, all these little steps over these seven
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  years had been witnessed by my friends in the order.
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  So on this retreat up the mountain in Spain, there were
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  women from the UK, Scotland, the Netherlands, Mexico, the United
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  States and me from Germany. Yeah.
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  So we had different backgrounds, were of different ages.
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  We had different sexual orientations.
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  Some were mums, some were grandmothers, even.
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  Some lived in Buddhist communities, some with their
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  partners, some on their own, some had jobs in the world, and
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  some worked in our Buddhist movement.
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  So it was very interesting to see at the beginning we were
• 18:58
  drawn to each other by the known.
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  Yeah. So maybe being of a similar age
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  or sharing a language or by our lifestyle.
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  So, yeah, that was quite interesting.
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  We didn't. I didn't know.
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  I knew one person, Fiona. She was actually quite a good
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  friend, but I didn't know all the other ones.
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  But sort of like how you gang together, you know, with what is
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  known. But for all of us, these three
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  months were going to be a stepping into the unknown, a
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  step stepping out of familiarity, and a stepping into
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  this true Ratna Buddhist order, which is still a mystery and in
• 19:33
  some ways unfathomable, unknown and unknown to me.
• 19:37
  A quote again from Sangarachita. You can't really commit yourself
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  to something that you know. To commit yourself to the known
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  is a contradiction in terms. You always commit yourself to
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  the unknown. At least there's always an
• 19:54
  unknown element in that to which you commit yourself something to
• 19:58
  think about. Yeah.
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  So over the weeks, we all got to know each other.
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  We shared our life stories. We studied the Dharma, the
• 20:06
  teachings. We spent days in silence,
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  meditating together, doing rituals.
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  We also work together doing our daily chores like cooking,
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  cleaning, fetching water from the well, chainsawing tree
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  trunks. Some of us did, and by living
• 20:25
  together, we wrapped up against each other.
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  And then we confessed. We rejoiced in each other's
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  merits, and we got to know each other and ourselves more in our
• 20:33
  depths and our heights. We lived the Dharma, a life of
• 20:37
  Buddhist practice, together. And then after a few weeks, our
• 20:40
  private ordination was upon us. And this was very auspicious.
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  Meet was a meeting of ourselves, just with our private preceptor,
• 20:51
  the person who was going to ordain us.
• 20:53
  So over the years, I had built up a relationship with
• 20:56
  Kulanandi, who was going to be my preceptor.
• 20:59
  So she knew me, you know, in all sorts of, we even lived together
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  at some stage. She knew me in all sorts of ways
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  and she was the one who was going to ordain me.
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  So this first part, this private ordination is just one to one.
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  It's in a secret place which I didn't know where it would be.
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  And the meaning of this ritual is that even if no one else in
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  the world would do this step, I'm willing to go it alone.
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  Yeah. So it's this individual decision
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  where you have to step out and you go on this path on your own.
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  So I went alone. I set out alone on the path.
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  And it was just me and Kolinandi, my preceptor.
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  And she had witnessed me over the journey of the previous
• 21:47
  year, and she had also witnessed my ethical behaviour.
• 21:50
  So in some ways she is the one who sort of like is going to
• 21:54
  give me a set of 10 precepts. Up till then I had five precepts
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  I tried to follow or sort of like who I'm yeah, I was
• 22:06
  following. And she felt confident that I
• 22:10
  was going for refuge affected Flea, which means that I can
• 22:14
  create conditions to effectively keep up my practice under most
• 22:21
  circumstances in my life. It's not about me becoming a
• 22:24
  perfect person, but it was about me being able to set up the
• 22:29
  conditions to keep on with my keep up my practice in most
• 22:33
  circumstances. And she could also feel that I
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  at least had a glimpse of something beyond.
• 22:41
  Yeah, of something transcendental.
• 22:45
  So during that ritual, she gave me the 10 ethical precepts, a
• 22:50
  new meditation practice and a new name.
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  So she gave me the name Sangadashini.
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  She who sees the spiritual community, she who has a vision
• 23:00
  of the spiritual community and our order names express
• 23:05
  qualities. They express enlightened
• 23:07
  qualities we can grow into. So I'm aspiring to be
• 23:12
  Sangadashini. I'm not yet Sangadashini, but
• 23:16
  our names remind us daily of what we can become.
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  I mean, what a gift if somebody knows you really well and they
• 23:22
  see your qualities and they give you this name for something to
• 23:27
  grow into. And the others also went alone,
• 23:31
  meeting up just with their preceptor.
• 23:35
  All our life has LED us to that point as stepping into the
• 23:39
  unknown and letting go of our old identity to be reborn into
• 23:44
  something new, which was expressed through our new names.
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  What a moment. And probably for most, Order
• 23:53
  member is the most significant moment in their lives.
• 23:57
  But this ritual has two parts. So only a few days later, we
• 24:02
  were born into the order on our public ordination.
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  So even if we were determined to go alone, yeah, even if nobody
• 24:10
  else in the world would go, at the public ordination, we found
• 24:15
  ourselves stepping into the order together with all these
• 24:19
  other new beings we had committed, who had committed
• 24:23
  themselves individually and freely.
• 24:26
  And we were welcomed into the Tri Ratna Buddhist order at the
• 24:31
  public ordination was this verse which still rings in my ear
• 24:37
  today. My human life is bearing fruit.
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  I'm born into the Buddha family. I'm a daughter of the Buddha.
• 24:46
  Now I will act in such a way that no disgrace will come to
• 24:50
  this spotless family. So a few days after we had been
• 24:59
  publicly ordained, I was sitting in the shrine room in Akashavana
• 25:05
  looking at the other women, and I got a glimpse of what this
• 25:08
  order is about. And Sangrajita's words did ring
• 25:12
  in my ear. A voluntary association of free
• 25:16
  individuals who have come together on account of a common
• 25:20
  commitment to a common ideal, a commitment to what we call the
• 25:26
  Three Jewels. So in some ways, what had drawn
• 25:31
  us together at the beginning of the retreat, What was not
• 25:34
  important anymore, we had all in some ways become so much more
• 25:41
  free and more of an individual individual, each with her
• 25:45
  distinctive qualities expressed beautiful in our new names.
• 25:51
  We had all been witness to effectively code for refuge by
• 25:54
  our preceptor, but also by each other.
• 25:59
  And I cannot really explain what happened to me at that moment,
• 26:02
  but it felt really significant. It was like I had deep faith in
• 26:07
  something new. And yes, from the outside we
• 26:10
  looked like a group, all of us in blue clothes, some with
• 26:14
  shaved heads, chanting together, meditating together, working
• 26:18
  together. But something else was new.
• 26:22
  We could be ourselves, deeply ourselves, and we were connected
• 26:26
  on a deeply level with each other by committing ourselves to
• 26:30
  the truth, the beauty, the good, committing to the three jewels,
• 26:34
  each in her individual ways. There was no outside pressure to
• 26:40
  conform, even to be good, no wanting to receive appreciation.
• 26:47
  We were probably most of the time not wearing masks anymore
• 26:51
  and we come to game together more naked, but still with our
• 26:55
  rough edges. And this was the order.
• 26:59
  This was an experience of the order which is still with me
• 27:02
  after all these years. It was a glimpse of what the
• 27:05
  order can be at its best. But it's not like this.
• 27:11
  I'm not always in these ideal conditions in Berlin life.
• 27:16
  These conditions really have to be worked on.
• 27:20
  It's a practice. And I just will say a little bit
• 27:23
  more about this. So our Buddhist order is like a
• 27:27
  living Organism, a living being held together by our common
• 27:32
  going for refuge. It's a network of friendships
• 27:36
  who have to be worked on. So a few years ago, I gave a
• 27:40
  talk on a retreat where women were training to join the order.
• 27:45
  So we have these retreats for women.
• 27:48
  And at that time, so it's a few years ago, Pope Benedict became
• 27:53
  Pope, the German, the German Pope, and in Germany could read
• 27:57
  all over the build site and everywhere we are Pope.
• 28:00
  I can't know if any of you still remember this.
• 28:03
  And on the retreat I had the slogan, We are order.
• 28:09
  And on that retreat, I reflected, without me, this
• 28:13
  order would not be the order. Each one of us brings their
• 28:17
  individual qualities. The order is not stagnant or a
• 28:22
  fixed thing, but held together by our going for refuge, and it
• 28:25
  is slightly changing shape with each new order member coming
• 28:30
  into the order. And as as soon as I enter this
• 28:34
  order with my ordination, I'm a full member of the order.
• 28:38
  Yes, there will be people who have more experience who I look
• 28:41
  up to, but in terms of responsibilities, I'm a full
• 28:43
  member of the order and the responsibilities.
• 28:46
  This is quite interesting. They are not for running a
• 28:49
  Buddhist centre. So some of us come here and
• 28:53
  we're supporting this body centre, but that's not where our
• 28:56
  responsibility lies. But my responsibility lies with
• 29:02
  deepening my practice towards enlightenment.
• 29:04
  So it's setting up the conditions that I understand the
• 29:09
  Buddhist teachings on deeper and deeper levels and bring them
• 29:12
  into my life and in creating harmony with my brothers and
• 29:17
  sisters in the order. So wherever people are coming
• 29:19
  together, there will be disharmony.
• 29:22
  So it's a real practice, at least on the level of the order,
• 29:25
  and then beyond that, to create harmony.
• 29:29
  You know, we, I live in a community with six other women
• 29:32
  and I think we're great in creating harmony.
• 29:35
  What are we doing about that? You know, how are we forgiving
• 29:38
  the other person or confess to the other person or how do we
• 29:42
  live together? How do we create real harmony
• 29:45
  with one another? And then the third duty we have
• 29:49
  is to work for the welfare of all beings.
• 29:51
  And each one of us is doing that in slightly different way.
• 29:54
  So I said some might work through here teaching, but some,
• 29:58
  I don't know, with their family or being a friend of mine worked
• 30:03
  in a bank. Yeah.
• 30:03
  So how would that look like this commitment to working for the
• 30:08
  good of all beings? So in the order, there cannot be
• 30:13
  any worldly hierarchy or power structure.
• 30:16
  Maybe there exists for a Buddhist centre like this with
• 30:19
  legal responsibilities, but not within the order.
• 30:22
  And just to say the order is not the end.
• 30:25
  That's also quite important. It's just the context from where
• 30:29
  we move from. As I said, this effective going
• 30:31
  for refuge, which is at the stage when we get ordained to
• 30:35
  real going for refuge when we are non returnable on the path
• 30:39
  towards enlightenment. So it's just the context for us
• 30:43
  to move there and each one of us has to take care of this living
• 30:47
  Organism. Sometimes it's so easy to hear
• 30:49
  about some conflicts or misunderstanding and to think
• 30:53
  someone else will look after that.
• 30:55
  Or I have a misunderstanding or conflict with someone and I'm
• 30:58
  never addressing it, and maybe worse, talk with others about it
• 31:02
  without addressing it. But this creating harmony has to
• 31:05
  be worked on. We are conditioned beings.
• 31:09
  We all bring our family, conditioning, our emotions, our
• 31:12
  egos to the situations, often not aware which impact we have
• 31:17
  on a situation. So Sadanandi, an older member
• 31:20
  from the UK who lives and works in a retreat centre, she had an
• 31:23
  interesting image for this. She talked about a community
• 31:27
  being like a coral reef, and coral reefs are amazingly
• 31:32
  beautiful. I don't know if you would have
• 31:33
  ever dived in outside of Australia or somewhere in a
• 31:37
  coral reef. It's very beautiful.
• 31:38
  I mean, they're dying as well, but they need to be clean.
• 31:43
  It needs Clearwater to survive. So any pollution is really
• 31:47
  damaging. So in comparing a community to a
• 31:50
  coral reefs that Anandi asked, do we know the pollution we
• 31:53
  bring to a situation? And maybe that's a good question
• 31:57
  each one of us can ask ourselves for any given context, which is
• 32:01
  of value for us, what pollution do I bring to a situation?
• 32:06
  How do I show up my ego and how do I hold it up?
• 32:12
  And she sort of like, did this little exercise.
• 32:15
  She invited some friends, and she asked these questions and
• 32:19
  she wanted them to engage with her.
• 32:21
  So she first talked about her strengths and her weaknesses and
• 32:25
  then invited, she had a chair next to her and she invited just
• 32:28
  the people, her friends, just to sit next to her and to really
• 32:31
  tell her she really wanted to know how she is polluting a
• 32:35
  situation. I mean, what a brave thing to
• 32:36
  do. I'm still thinking about it, but
• 32:39
  I haven't done it yet. It's a bit scary.
• 32:41
  So I hope I had given you a bit of a taste of this spiritual
• 32:44
  community. It's nothing fixed, it's
• 32:46
  changing. It has to be worked on in
• 32:49
  depends on each of us individually.
• 32:52
  And as an order. We also have a symbol, and
• 32:55
  sometimes symbols speak in a different language.
• 32:59
  And it's the image of the Bodhisattva Avalokateshwara, the
• 33:02
  Bodhisattva of compassion, working for the welfare of all
• 33:06
  beings. And there's an image of him.
• 33:08
  He has 11 heads and thousand arms.
• 33:11
  And as an individual, to work for the welfare of all beings,
• 33:15
  the task is just too big. I can't do it.
• 33:19
  But as a spiritual community, we have a better chance to do that.
• 33:23
  So each of us, order members, is the hand of Avalokatesra and
• 33:30
  each hand holds a different implement.
• 33:32
  So each one of us will work on their task in a different way.
• 33:40
  In 1999, Sangarachita gave a talk to the order called Looking
• 33:44
  Ahead a Little Way. He said if the order is
• 33:48
  spiritually united, if it is in harmony, then a truly wonderful
• 33:54
  thing will happen. The order then will be the locus
• 33:58
  for the manifestation of the Bodhi chitta.
• 34:02
  How to explain what the Bodhi chitta is?
• 34:04
  It's this will towards enlightenment.
• 34:07
  It's this sort of like if you developed a little bit, it just
• 34:12
  is like an urge to move forward with everything which is there.
• 34:16
  So the order then will be the locus for the manifestation of
• 34:20
  the Bodhi chitta. As you all know, we sometimes
• 34:24
  liken the order to the 11 headed and 1000 armed of Lukatehra.
• 34:29
  But so to speak, it's not just a manner of speaking, it's not
• 34:33
  just a figure of speech. We should take take it very
• 34:37
  seriously, even take it literally.
• 34:40
  When a number of people achieve this non egoistic going for
• 34:43
  refuge, this non egoistic arising of the bodhichitta, when
• 34:48
  that stream of non egoistic spiritual energy starts
• 34:51
  manifesting through a number of people simultaneously, those
• 34:56
  people with will be literally hands or arms, even faces of
• 35:00
  Avalokteshra, There will be no question of any conflict between
• 35:04
  them. They will function in perfect
• 35:08
  harmony. It will be a true Sangha.
• 35:11
  It will be an Ariya Sangha. And the Tri Ratna Buddhist order
• 35:15
  has a future only to the extent that it is such a Sangha or to
• 35:20
  the extent that it contains such a Sangha at its nucleus.
• 35:24
  It is therefore imperative that each and everyone of you should
• 35:28
  seek to transform your effective gong for refuge into real.
• 35:32
  Going for refuge should seek to attain stream entry or the
• 35:36
  arising of the real body Cheetah.
• 35:38
  And then he said, it's up to you.
• 35:42
  The future of the order of the movement is in your hands.
• 35:45
  So if we just become like an organization, yeah, sort of
• 35:49
  like, I don't know, not practicing, just sort of like
• 35:52
  looking after the running of a Buddhist centre or the running
• 35:55
  of, I don't know, the institutions, we won't survive.
• 36:00
  So hopefully we take this quite seriously.
• 36:02
  So I'm going to end the talk with another quote by Sang
• 36:05
  Rachita about being involved in a spiritual community.
• 36:08
  So it could be any spiritual community.
• 36:10
  If one's inner experience finds a collective expression in some
• 36:15
  kind of spiritual movement, one could think of that movement as
• 36:19
  having a dream life or a myth life of its own.
• 36:24
  Perhaps it does have an existence on another level.
• 36:29
  Indeed, if it did not, if it were merely an organization on
• 36:32
  the material plane, it would wither away very quickly.
• 36:38
  It needs to have very deep roots, roots in the sky.
• 36:45
  Thank you very much. Thank you for listening.
• 36:57
  If you enjoyed this talk, you are warmly invited to visit
• 37:00
  Buddhist Dishes Tour Berlin in Kreutzberg.
• 37:04
  We offer meditation, Dharma talks, and courses that support
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  practice in everyday life. You'll find more information in
• 37:13
  the episode description.