Wesak Reflections

This talk was given at the Cambridge Buddhist Centre in 2008

Today we are celebrating Wesak. The word wesak is a Sinhalese version of the Indian Vaisakha, which is the full moon that corresponds to our month of May. It was under the full moon of Vaisakha that the Buddha gained Enlightenment according to tradition. And so today, quite close to that full moon, we are celebrating the Buddha’s great achievement – his Awakening, his Enlightenment. The first question that probably occurs to us when we hear this is – what is Enlightenment, what is awakening? And what is its relevance to us here in 21^st century Britain.

Enlightenment is a profound insight into the nature of reality and a simultaneously arising great compassion for all deluded beings. It is the perfection of Wisdom and Compassion. It is the overcoming of all greed, hatred and delusion. It is Nirvana, the blowing out of the fires of negative selfish emotions.  

There are many ways we could talk about Enlightenment, but in the end we have to try to grasp what it is about intuitively and imaginatively and what we really need to get a feeling for is the direction of Enlightenment, because Enlightenment is not a thing, it is not something that can be possessed or gained or grasped. It is a process, it is a creative journey it is a direction to be intuited, experienced and internalised. When we are being kind, generous, wise, thoughtful, aware, loving, then we are partaking of the direction of Enlightenment, however imperfectly. Of course, when we are harsh and thoughtless and unaware etc., then we are heading in the opposite direction, we are heading in the direction of Dukkha, suffering. It is easy to see how this is relevant to our lives and to all human life.

The Buddha’s teaching highlights for us the fact that all our dissatisfaction comes from delusion. We suffer because we are ignorant. If we can remove the delusion then the suffering, the dissatisfaction will also be removed. It is possible to remove the delusion. We know that because the Buddha did it and all his Enlightened followers since have also done it.

The Buddha has given detailed instructions, teachings on how to achieve freedom from delusion and suffering. In order for us to progress in the direction of Enlightenment and away from ignorance we need, first of all, to notice and acknowledge our dissatisfaction, secondly we need the ability and willingness to change, thirdly we need external conditions that are helpful and fourthly we need to undertake the practices of generosity, the ethical precepts, meditation and reflection.

Noticing and acknowledging our dissatisfaction involves being aware of what we are doing and why we do it, it involves being aware of the tendency of our mind and emotions, what are we thinking about and why, what do we want and why. Our practices of meditation, mindfulness and reflection help us to have a clearer and more objective view of ourselves and are therefore fundamental to any spiritual endeavour.

Our ability and willingness to change is something I’d like to go into a bit more. When we use the terminology of Going for Refuge to the Three Jewels, we are talking about our ability and willingness to change. Within the Buddhist tradition, if we have spiritual aspirations it is important that we pay close attention to our ability and willingness to change. Later I will say something about external conditions and the four practices of generosity, the ethical precepts, meditation and reflection. Our ability to change and our willingness to change could be seen as internal conditions that need to be established in our life to enable us to go for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. The external conditions, which I will say a little bit about later, are prior in the sense that good external conditions help us to establish the best internal conditions.

I am going to talk about ability to change and willingness to change as two separate things. They are my own categories and as with all categories are not to be taken too literally, they are just a convenient way of speaking about something, they have no ultimate validity, just as the Noble Eightfold Path as a list has no ultimate validity – it could be the sevenfold or ninefold path.

In order to have an effective spiritual life we need to be willing to follow the spiritual path as taught by the Buddha and all the great Buddhist teachers and especially as taught by our own teacher Bhante Sangharakshita and we need to be capable of practising what we have been taught. What do we need to do to be more capable of living the spiritual life? How can we increase and enhance our ability to live the spiritual life?

Perhaps you are already perfectly capable of living the spiritual life and practising the Buddha’s teachings, in which case you simply need to get on with it. However I know that some people do struggle and I have often struggled myself. Our ability to practice the Dharma, that is our ability to meditate, to practice ethics, to communicate openly, honestly and with kindness, to befriend people, our ability to reflect, to be honest with ourselves, to take responsibility for our mental states, to access and express faith and devotion; our ability to engage in all of these is affected by our conditioning, the conditioning we have received since infancy within our family, and from the society around us, the conditioning that we are all the time subject to from all the ideas and behaviours we encounter. Our ability to practice the Dharma is also affected by our psychology and temperament and how we have responded to our conditioning. And how we continue to respond to our conditioning.

Also from the perspective of the Buddha and the whole Buddhist tradition to date we are also the product of our karma – our intentional actions over many lifetimes, and that too affects our ability to practise the Dharma. In order to develop, enhance and build our ability to practice spiritual life we need to pay attention to our conditioning, our psychology and our intentional actions of body, speech and mind.

I had a very strong Roman Catholic conditioning and also a strong nationalistic conditioning from childhood until I left home at the age of eighteen. When I started meditating and committed myself to the Buddhist path back in 1983 I had to spend about five years understanding and dealing with the consequences of this conditioning, which undermined my ability to practice the Dharma in many ways. I also spent many more years discovering what was positive and helpful in that conditioning. And some aspects of the conditioning went so deep that I was still making discoveries about how my conditioning had affected me two decades after I had first started practising. For the past decade I have not made any major discoveries in this area so maybe I have got to the bottom of it or maybe there is something buried deeper than I have managed to dig.

The reason I mention this is just to emphasise that we need to take time and pay close attention to our conditioning in order to really know who we are and in order to practise as fully as possible. I used writing, meditation, reflecting, discussion, dream analysis, conscious visualisation, auto hypnosis, painting, yoga, tai chi, dharma study, solitary retreats. All of these were ways in which I delved deeper and deeper into who I was and came to know myself and my abilities better. You may need to try different things, but I thing solitary retreats is one of the most effective ways of really getting to know yourself and of course in the context of a solitary retreat you can try different things out, such as dream analysis or drawing and painting.

Of course our conditioning in childhood goes very deep and can affect us for the rest of our lives, but conditioning doesn’t stop when we grow up. We are being conditioned by the world around us all the time and this is something that is in some ways even harder to recognise and do something about. It demands a lot of awareness. One way of noticing the affect something has on us is to remove it from our lives for a while. For instance if we don’t watch television for a few months, when we return to it we will have quite a different awareness of it’s impact, or similarly with the internet or even just using technology. This is another reason why retreats of all kinds are so useful. They insert a gap, however short, into our lives. A period when we are not engaging with our usual conditioning factors. I have heard however that some people bring their mobile phones on retreat and use them to stay in touch with people. There may be exceptional circumstances when this is necessary, but apart from that I would say it is, to be blunt, quite a silly thing to do, and undermines the value of the retreat considerably.

We can of course experience a lot of resistance to dealing with our conditioning and our psychological traits, tendencies and attitudes. We are comfortable with what we have even if it’s a mess. It’s our mess and we can live with it. Anything beyond what we are accustomed to can be experienced as threatening and frightening.

There are three things we need to do in relation to our habitual ways of being in order to help ourselves to develop the ability to change radically. Firstly we need to accept our habits and tendencies without condemnation. If we feel insecure, for instance, we need to accept that we feel insecure and not condemn ourselves for having that feeling. Or if we often feel angry we need to accept that and not condemn ourselves. It is just a fact – 'I often feel insecure or I often feel angry' – we can say it to ourselves and just acknowledge it as a fact. Secondly we need to become aware of how that habit or tendency manifests, how it gets expressed. For instance ,insecurity might manifest as a desire to please everybody or it might manifest as anger. Or anger might manifest passively in an unwillingness to listen or co-operate or it might manifest in harsh speech. Thirdly we need to take responsibility for this mental tendency or habit. We can say to ourselves – 'yes it is me, it is my mind, my mental states. It is not somebody else’s mind; it is not an inevitable consequence of any circumstances or any event. It is just my habit.'

This taking responsibility for our mental states as fully as possible is an important element in gaining insight into how our minds work and in giving ourselves the ability to change. Until we are able to see and accept that our mental states are something we do, rather than something that happens to us, it is virtually impossible to change. When we do see deeply and clearly that our mental states are something we are doing rather than something that is happening to us, then it is as if habits dissolve in the light of that awareness. There are different levels to seeing into our own minds and we may find that we have to come back again and again to seeing the same habit or pattern at work before we finally see through it completely and it dissolves away.

We also need to see deeply and clearly that our positive mental states are something we do and don’t just happen to us. In seeing this we learn that we can choose positive states of mind, we learn that we can choose to see the world around us in different ways, we can choose to highlight the ugliness or the beauty, we can choose to see the suffering of others or see others as obstacles to our satisfaction. We can choose to be angry or understanding and we can choose to feel lonely or connected. In order for all this to happen we need to accept our mental states without condemning ourselves if they are negative and without getting big headed if they are positive. We need to become aware of how we give expression to our mental states and we need to take responsibility for our own minds at deeper and deeper levels.

As well as working with our conditioning and our psychology, the Buddhist tradition asks us to look very closely at our intentional actions of body speech and mind, our karma, in a word. If we pay close attention to whether our actions, our speech and our thoughts and emotions are skilful or unskilful, we can begin to develop the sensitivity to notice very quickly whether we are being skilful or unskilful. We can also develop the ability to create new attitudes, and a new experience by choosing to act in ways that are skilful. We can deliberately and intentionally be kind and generous in what we do, honest and harmonious in what we say and kind in our thoughts. This is the creation of new karma, which leads to the creation of a new person, a new experience, and a new identity – a major step out of dissatisfaction and into contentment.

When we try to develop our ability to live the spiritual life through looking deeply into our conditioning and psychology and by practising intentional positivity, we encounter resistance within our hearts and minds. Everybody I know who tries to live a spiritual life experiences internal conflict at some time or other. If you have not yet experienced internal conflict of some kind you probably will if you continue to become more aware. There is a basic conflict between our aspiration to Enlightenment and the strong attraction towards mundane life. Even when we get beyond the psychological conflicts, we may experience conflicts about how best to give expression to our spiritual commitment. For instance Bhante Sangharakshita experienced the conflict between the desire to be a poet and the desire to be a monk. Some people experience a conflict between wanting to help others and a desire to withdraw from the world. Many of us experience a conflict between the desire to lead a simple life and the constant craving engendered by this consumer society. Or we may experience a conflict between our aspiration and desire to be generous and our feelings of insecurity and attachment.

There is a conflict between being unenlightened, or deluded and our aspiration to Enlightenment. This is not something to worry about or criticise ourselves for. It is just the nature of samsara, the nature of unenlightened consciousness. There are two ways to avoid this sort of conflict – one is to become less and less aware so that you are so thoroughly deluded that that is all you know and experience and the other is to become more and more aware so that you see through the conflict completely or rather rise above it.

There is a Sutta in the Pali canon, which I think highlights in a very dramatic way this conflict between delusion and Reality. It is the Culasaccaka Sutta in the Majjhima Nikaya, No 35. In this Sutta the main character Saccaka is a man who likes to debate philosophical questions and he has a very high opinion of his own abilities as a debater. He boasts “ I see no recluse or Brahmin, the head of an order, the head of a group, the teacher of a group, even one claiming to be accomplished and fully enlightened, who would not shake, shiver and tremble if he were to engage in debate with me, and sweat under the armpits if he were to engage in debate with me. Even if I were to engage a senseless post in debate, it would shake, shiver and tremble if it were to engage in debate with me, so what shall I say of a human being?” (The Middle Length Discourses, trans. Bodhi, p.322)

Then he hears that the Buddha is in the area and he goes to the local people, the Lichavis and he tells them he is going to have a debate with the Buddha which it will be worth their while hearing. He boasts again, “ Come forth, good Lichavis, come forth ! Today there will be some conversation between me and the recluse Gotama. If the recluse Gotama maintains before me what was maintained before me by one of his famous disciples, the bhikkhu named Assaji, then just as a strong man might seize a long-haired ram by the hair and drag him to and drag him fro and drag him round about, so in debate I will drag the recluse Gotama to and drag him fro and drag him round about.” (p. 323) He goes on in this way, giving three more examples of how he will defeat and humiliate the recluse Gotama.

He meets the Buddha with a crowd of onlookers and he asks the Buddha some questions. However the Buddha asks him something in return and he cannot answer without losing the argument so he remains silent and the text says, “ A second time the Blessed One asked the same question and a second time Saccaka the Nigantha’s son was silent. Then the Blessed One said to him: ‘ Aggivesana, answer now. Now is not the time to be silent. If anyone, when asked a reasonable question up to the third time by the Tathagata, still does not answer, his head splits into seven pieces there and then’. Now on that occasion a thunderbolt-wielding spirit holding an iron thunderbolt that burned, blazed and glowed, appeared in the air above Saccaka the Nigantha’s son, thinking: ‘ If this Saccaka the Nigantha’s son, when asked a reasonable question up to the third time by the Blessed One, still does not answer, I shall split his head in seven pieces here and now.’ The Blessed One saw the thunderbolt-wielding spirit and so did Saccaka the Nigantha’s son. Then Saccaka the Nigantha’s son was frightened, alarmed, and terrified. Seeking his shelter, asylum and refuge in the Blessed One he said: ‘ Ask me, Master Gotama, I will answer.” (p.326)

I won’t tell you the rest of the story, except to say that Saccaka is thoroughly humiliated. But what strikes me about this image of the thunderbolt wielding spirit about to split Saccaka's head and the fact that both he and the Buddha are aware of it, is that it is a very graphic image of the conflict between Reality and delusion and the suffering that will follow if we deliberately ignore or deny Reality. And of course that is what most of us are doing most of the time. The Sutta portrays Saccaka as arrogant and proud and later we see the Buddha humiliating him in a way that seems almost cruel – until we understand the spiritual message that is being conveyed. Reality humiliates the ego-centred consciousness. In later Buddhism we see this in the Diamond Sutra where the Buddha says: “those sons and daughters of good family, who will take up these very Sutras, and will bear them in mind, recite and study them, they will be humbled, - well humbled will they be! And why? The impure deeds these beings have done in their former lives, and which are liable to lead them into the states of woe, - in this very life they will, by means of that humiliation, annul those impure deeds of their former lives, and they will reach the Enlightenment of a Buddha.” (Sangharakshita, Complete Works, Vol.14, p.486) Internal conflict is part and parcel of spiritual practice and sometimes on the spiritual path we have to accept that we are not as clever or wise or compassionate as we think we are, but the humiliation of that is purifying and a symptom of progress on the Path.

I have been talking about our ability to practice the Dharma. Now I would like to say a little about our willingness to live the spiritual life and there may be some overlap with what I have already said. Our willingness to practice is hampered by our deluded sense of a fixed, separate self. Having this deluded sense of a fixed, separate self leads us to expend energy defending that self and continuing to construct and create that self. In order to escape this delusion of a fixed separate self we need acceptance, awareness, reflection and action.

We need acceptance in the sense that we need to accept that we are egotistical and self-centred – whether in a crude or subtle way. This is not any reason to feel bad about ourselves, it is simply a matter of accepting that we are as yet unenlightened, unawakened and therefore deluded and the delusion finds expression in an egotistical way through our actions, words and thoughts. This initial acceptance of our egotism is an acknowledgement that we need spiritual practice, that the spiritual path is essential for our well-being.

Then we need awareness of how this deluded view of a fixed separate self is expressed in our lives. In what ways are we egotistical? We can ask ourselves from time to time in what way am I being egotistical. Or even, when we find ourselves in some particular state, for example, anxiety; we could ask where is the egotism in this. If we are lonely, we can ask where is the egotism in this. If we are gregarious, we can ask where is the egotism in this. Even our positive qualities can be hijacked by our sense of self. For example when I first started meditating I realised that much of my generosity previously had been unconsciously giving me a sense of superiority and was a way of dealing with insecurity. Seeing through that allowed me to become a bit more genuinely generous.

As well as acceptance and awareness we need to reflect. In particular we need to study the Dharma so that our minds become permeated by the concepts of the Dharma – the law of conditionality, karma, the six perfections and so on. When our minds are permeated by the concepts of the Dharma we can reflect on our own experience with the help of these concepts and gradually over time we gain greater insight into our own mind, our own experience and by extension into the minds of others and into the nature of reality. A natural consequence of this is to experience compassion. If we experience compassion we will act on it. In fact compassion isn’t really a feeling or emotion, as we normally understand them, it is better thought of as an activity – ultimately it is the only activity of an enlightened mind.

I have been talking about the internal conditions that we need to create in order to live an effective spiritual life. An effective spiritual life is one that is tending towards Insight and compassionate activity. These internal conditions will enhance our willingness and ability to follow the Buddha’s teaching. In order to help ourselves to create these internal conditions for spiritual practice we need to have good external conditions. The main external condition we need is a Sangha, a spiritual community. We can only have a spiritual community if we engage in creating a spiritual community. A spiritual community is not something abstract and it is not simply a group of people or an organisation. A spiritual community is something dynamic and changing. It is the interactions, the open, honest, kindly communication between people who hold a common spiritual ideal and a common practice.

To create the essential external condition for spiritual practice, spiritual community, we need to engage with others who share our ideals and our practices. We need to gradually befriend some people and build trust and honest, open connections. To do this we need to spend time with people. This is one of the reasons why retreats are so valuable; they allow an opportunity for deeper communication. Of course it is not enough just to see people on retreat, which is why the Buddhist Centre with all its activities is such a great resource. Some people of course want to engage with each other even more deeply by living together in community and by working together. However we go about creating spiritual community we will need to befriend people by listening to them, empathising with them, thinking of them, rejoicing in them and being generous to them. If we do this we will create a growing network of kindness and goodwill, which is Sangha.

If we can establish the internal conditions of being able and willing to live a spiritual live and the external condition of spiritual community, which supports us, then our practice will be enhanced enormously.That practice is essentially the practice of generosity, ethics, meditation and reflection.

Generosity means thinking of other people, being aware of them and being willing to help them with time, energy, money, sharing knowledge, creating positive conditions and so on. It is about giving appropriately bearing in mind our own capacity and what is needed. Ethics is all about loving kindness (metta) and awareness. It means bringing metta and awareness into all our relationships, whether our relationship to our self, to other people, to the environment, to parents, mentors, children, politicians, animals, birds, teenagers, and so on – it is about becoming mettaful and aware so that everything and everybody we come into contact with is perceived through the eyes of metta and awareness.

Meditation is the means to opening into higher more refined states of consciousness, and it is important that it doesn’t just remain a technique that we use for an hour a day, but rather permeates our whole life. An effective meditator should be in a higher state of consciousness all the time and this is expressed in positive emotion, awareness of other people, awareness of the world around and a free flowing energy. Reflection is what deepens spiritual practice into Insight. We reflect in meditation, or by thinking about things, or we reflect by writing and by engaging in discussion and study.

Today is Wesak. We are celebrating the occasion when Siddhartha became a Buddha – an Awakened one. Before he became a Buddha he had to make an effort, he had to practice generosity, ethics, meditation and reflection just as we do. In the Dvedhavitakka Sutta (Majjhima Nikaya, 19) he says: “Bhikkhus, before my Enlightenment, while I was still an unenlightened Bodhisatta, it occurred to me: ‘ Suppose that I divide my thoughts into two classes.’ Then I set on one side thoughts of sensual desire, thoughts of ill-will, and thoughts of cruelty and I set on the other side thoughts of renunciation, thoughts of non- ill will and thoughts of non-cruelty.” (The Middle Length Discourse, trans. Bodhi, p.207)

He goes on to talk about how he would become aware of his state of mind and then he would deliberately reflect on the consequences of that mental state – in terms of the effect on himself, the effect on others and whether it would move him in the direction of Enlightenment. I find this Sutta quite helpful and encouraging. Although the basic idea is quite simple and it is a teaching to be found in various forms throughout the Buddhist scriptures, the teaching of right effort, there is something particularly encouraging about how the Buddha talks about himself having to make this effort, needing to reflect, needing to meditate. He says he also noticed that if he spent too much time thinking and reflecting he would get stressed and his antidote to mental stress and strain was to meditate.

According to this Sutta, Siddhartha was not some kind of superman. He experienced negative mental states; he had to make an effort to be aware and an effort to change his state of mind. He had to be careful not to strain too much by thinking too much, so he would relax into meditation to refresh his mind and body. Here we see Siddhartha practising awareness of mental states (which includes emotions), we see him bringing an ethical dimension into his reflections; reflecting on the consequences of his mental states and we see him meditating to refresh himself.

The practice not mentioned here is generosity; in the Sutta he speaks instead of renunciation. However all Buddhist practice is done within an understood and implied context of generosity and compassion. The whole point of Buddhist practice is to alleviate the suffering of ourselves and others by transcending narrow egotism and going beyond the greed, the ill-will and the delusion which are all about bolstering up a sense of a fixed and separate self. This going beyond greed, ill-will and delusion is the ultimate generosity. It is also the ultimate happiness, Nirvana, the blowing out of the flames of all negative emotions.

This is what the Buddha achieved sitting beneath the Bodhi tree. It is this triumph, this victory of all that is best in human consciousness over all that is worst, which we celebrate at Wesak. And the celebration is a reminder to us of what Buddhism is really about; namely, Awakening to wisdom and compassion. It is also an encouragement to us because the Buddha was human and subject to the same mental conflict and struggles that we are subject to and he has shown that it is possible to go beyond these conflicts and struggles. That is why the Buddha is a true refuge. He can be relied upon. That is why the Dharma, his teaching is a true refuge. It can be relied upon. That is also why the spiritual community of his enlightened followers are a true refuge. To make progress we need to move ever closer to those refuges by practising generosity, ethics, meditation and reflection.

Imagine a Sangha

This talk was given at the London Buddhist Centre on Sangha day 2008, which was part of  their 30th anniversary celebrations. 

It is a privilege to be invited to speak on this occasion of the 30th anniversary of the opening of the Centre. Thirty years ago, (3rd December 1978) the shrine room here was dedicated to Dharma practice and the following day Bhante Sangharakshita gave a talk here. In that talk, he spoke about the vision of what he called Sukhavati. The London Buddhist Centre (LBC) was seen then as part of a bigger project called Sukhavati. Sukhavati, traditionally is a Pure Land. It is the pure land of Amitabha, Buddha of infinite light and Buddha of the West -- that is why there is a rupa of Amitabha here. A Pure Land is a place where the Dharma is being constantly expounded and practised. There are no obstacles whatsoever to Dharma practice in the Pure Land -- everything assists Dharma practice, everything is conducive to attaining higher states of consciousness. 

 This project called Sukhavati of which the LBC was part, was envisaged as an attempt to create an environment where everything assisted spiritual practice, everything conduced to positive mental states. As Bhante put it at the time: "Sukhavati is that society and environment, that social and spiritual context, that context of fellowship with one another, which makes it easier for us to evolve, so that instead of frittering away our energies in resisting the effects Society has upon us we can put them into the process of our development as human beings. At present so much of our energy is spent just trying to keep society at bay! So much of it is spent trying to resist society’s ever present, coercive, crushing influence and preserve ourselves a little bit of space within which we can grow and develop! So much of our energy is spent trying to resist the counter - evolutionary forces! In an ideal environment, like that represented by Sukhavati, we will not have to resist all the time, or be on the defensive all the time, and the greater part of our energy will be available for our own individual development in free association with other, like minded people."  (Talk, Authority and the Individual,www.freebuddhistaudio.com/audio/details?num=138) 

These like-minded people are the Sangha -- the spiritual community. The vision for Sukhavati was that these like-minded people would form communities to live together, create businesses or other work situations where they would work together and come together at the Buddhist centre to study, meditate, discuss, teach and relax. The principle behind all this was that in order for Buddhism to flourish it needed to be practised intensively and for that to happen there was a need to transform conditions not helpful to spiritual development into conditions which are helpful. To put it another way, conditions are important for practice and the work of the Sangha and of each individual Buddhist is to create the best possible conditions for Dharma practice. 

What has happened to the vision that Bhante outlined 30 years ago, which, of course, was not just a vision for here, but for the whole Triratna Community. Many people have lived together in communities over the years and many people have benefited from working together in teams and the Centre itself has been a place of study, meditation, discussion, relaxation and teaching. In many ways, what Bhante outlined then did happen. However, in more recent years, it seems that there is less interest in residential communities, and it seems that less people are interested in working together in teams. The centre itself is fully used in many ways and has the additional facility of a retreat centre and will soon have even more facilities downstairs. Has the vision of Sukhavati been a success? Well, the name didn't stick. Nobody thinks of Sukhavati as an umbrella project of which the Centre is a part. As for the rest: well I think it is probably too soon to tell. 

A vision of a new Buddhist movement and Sangha is an historic vision. It is a vision on a very large scale, and it takes much longer than thirty years to achieve fruition. This kind of vision cannot by its nature account for every practicality. It needs to be based on a broad principle that can find new forms, new manifestations, as the generations roll on. Each generation needs to envision afresh, each generation needs to articulate its own dream, its own vision, based on the fundamental principles but taking account of contemporary conditions and issues. For a Sangha to come into being we need like-minded individuals, we need individuals who have an intuition and a conviction that the purpose of life is to evolve spiritually, to evolve higher states of consciousness, characterised by compassion, wisdom and energy. This intuition and conviction leads to a commitment, it leads us to dedicate our lives to what Bhante calls the Higher Evolution of Consciousness. In more traditional Buddhist terms, it leads us to go for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. 

Sangha is the fellowship, co-operation and activity of those who dedicate their lives to going for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Sangha requires imagination. Going for refuge requires imagination. Spiritual life requires imagination. Perhaps all life requires imagination. Spiritual community happens, where there is imagination and the courage, ability and determination to act from the imagined. Sangha is a vision of an Ideal Human Community, imagined as interactions and relationships between people based in love, imagined in terms of institutions, art, architecture, music, interaction with the natural environment and so on. It is a vision of an ideal human community imagined as a fellowship of individuals who are altruistically motivated and who will work together co-operatively to help each other and all those they come into contact with to awaken spiritually, to awaken to the true meaning and purpose of life. Sangha is a vision of an ideal human community where everybody is dedicated to awakening from ignorance, awakening into Enlightenment, into Wisdom and this provides the primary orientation for people's lives. Sangha is a vision of an ideal human community, imagined as a fellowship of individuals who want to expand beyond any narrow sense of self in as many ways as possible. Sangha is a vision of an ideal human community, and Sangha is the practice of joining together with like-minded others to bring that ideal human community into being. Sangha is about creating Sangha. 

The ideal human community creates itself and to do that it needs dedicated and imaginative people. As Jacob Bronowski said, speaking of imagination: "of all the distinctions between man and animal, the characteristic gift, which makes us human is the power to work with symbolic images: the gift of imagination. The power man has over nature and himself lies in his command of imaginal experience. Almost everything we do, that is worth doing is done first in the mind's eye. The richness of human life is that we have many lives. We live the events that do not happen (and some that cannot) as vividly as those that do. If thereby we die a thousand deaths, that is the price we pay for living a thousand lives. To imagine is the characteristic act not of the poet's mind, or the painters or the scientists, but the mind of man. Imagination is a specifically human gift." (The Reach of Imagination, p.2) Aloka in his talk, The Life and Death of Imagination, speaks about imagination as follows: "by definition the imagination is a liberating faculty, it liberates you from the moment. Without it we would be stuck with whatever our present experience was in this particular moment, we would be stuck with that, we would have no way of projecting into the future and no way of really assimilating the past."  (available as booklet from www.padmaloka.org.uk/shop/booklets)

Just as we need imagination to create sangha, the ideal human community, we need imagination for all the different elements that are involved in the creation of Sangha. These elements are broadly speaking, commitment, interaction, and altruism. Commitment or going for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha is very succinctly defined by Bhante in his book, What Is the Sangha: "going for refuge to the Buddha means accepting the Buddha and no other as one's ultimate spiritual guide and exemplar. Going for refuge to the Dharma means doing one's utmost to understand, practise, and realise the fundamental import of the Buddha's teaching. And going for refuge to the Sangha means looking for inspiration and guidance to those followers of the Buddha, both past and present, who are spiritually more advanced than oneself."  (Complete Works, Vol.3, p.396) 

We don't know what enlightenment is, we have had no personal contact with the Buddha. To make the Buddha and all that he represents central to our lives, requires imagination. We find ourselves responding very strongly to the Buddha's teaching, and his life and the lives and teachings of his followers down the ages. We find ourselves responding, being attracted and imagination and intuition enables us to envisage a future in which we too can attain to great wisdom and compassion. That response and that intuition are sufficient to motivate us to dedicate our lives to spiritual awakening. When we encounter a spiritual ideal and spiritual practices that attract us so strongly and from so deep a level of our being we embark on a process of integration, gradually more and more of our energy, more and more of our thoughts, emotions and activities, begin to focus and orientate in the same direction. Gradually our psychology becomes more integrated. We experience less conflict between different aspects of our personality. We begin to become more whole as a person, more aware of who we are and what life is about. As this happens, we become more able to make a commitment to the spiritual path. We become more able to place the ideal of evolving to higher states of consciousness at the centre of our lives. When we are able to make this kind of commitment, when we are able to allow the principles embodied in the Buddha, Dharma & Sangha to be central in our lives, then we will begin to organise our lives around them. 

The more committed we are to spiritual growth, the more it will be the primary consideration in every decision we make about our lives. We will always be asking ourselves - is this going to help me to evolve spiritually or will it hinder me. We will be asking this kind of question when we make decisions about where to live, what work to do, how many children to have, what to spend money on, what to do with our leisure time, even how to decorate the house or flat. Ideally, when we are spiritually committed all our actions and decisions will be supportive of that commitment. Because we are often weak and unintegrated, we inevitably fall short of this and do things that undermine our attempts to live the spiritual life and make decisions that take us off the spiritual path. But of course, if the vision is still there, if the deep response to the spiritual ideal is there, then we may be lost for a while, but all is not lost. 

Paradoxically, one of the things that will enable us to stay on the path is if we are honest and realistic enough to acknowledge to ourselves and others when we make choices or do things that hinder our spiritual growth, or take us in the wrong direction. If we rationalise our behaviour and insist that it is really for spiritual reasons, when it obviously isn't, then we are  on a difficult journey indeed. 

Commitment to the Buddha involves using our imagination to grasp the sublime and un-graspable spiritual ideal and then working that out in our lives. Commitment to the Dharma requires study, reflection and discussion. And of course it means putting into practice what we learn from our discussion, reflection and study. It means actually applying the Dharma to our lives. If we don't make the attempt to practice, to apply the principles of the Dharma to our lives, then we will be in danger of being in a fantasy world rather than the world of imagination. As the Buddha says we will be like a donkey who thinks he is a cow: "Suppose, monks, an ass follows close behind a herd of cows thinking: I'm a cow too! I'm a cow too! But he is not like cows in colour, voice or hoof. He just follows close behind a herd of cows thinking: I'm a cow too! I'm a cow too! Just in the same way, monks, we have some monk who follows close behind the order of monks thinking: I'm a monk too! I'm a monk too! But he has not the desire to undertake the training in the higher morality which the other monks possess, nor in the higher thought, nor in that higher insight which other monks possess. He just follows close behind thinking: I'm a monk too! I'm a monk too!" (Anguttara Nikaya 3.81, Gadrabha Sutta) Hopefully, we don't have anyone in this state here saying I'm a Buddhist too! I'm a Buddhist too!, but not really practising. Commitment to the Sangha as one of the three refuges means looking to the Arya Sangha for inspiration and exemplification. 

 The Arya Sangha or noble Sangha is the Sangha of all those who have gained transcendental insight. It is a Sangha that traverses and transcends space and time and embodies the ideal of spiritual realisation, in actual people in different times, different places and different cultures. They are united by the attainment of insight into the nature of Reality. We can be inspired by the existence of the Arya Sangha, because it shows that it is not just one person, the Buddha, who Awakened to the true nature of things, but many people over the last two and a half thousand years have evolved and awakened. And this means that we too can evolve and awaken. We too can become part of the Arya Sangha. This is what we are committing ourselves to. 

In more general terms going for refuge to the Arya Sangha also means recognizing the principle of spiritual hierarchy, recognizing that some people may be more spiritually evolved than we are and some less spiritually evolved than we are. We can learn from those more spiritually developed and we can help those less spiritually developed. But of course, commitment to the Arya Sangha is put into practice in the actual Sangha that we come into contact with. The insight which characterises the Arya Sangha is a matter of seeing clearly with a direct vision what it means to be a human being, it means discovering that constantly creative consciousness that is always latently potential in us and from the perspective of that consciousness we then see the world around, we see what is real. 

One of the things that is seen at that level of insight is that there is no fixed unchanging self separate from a lot of other fixed unchanging selves. Rather, there is a flowing, intermeshed, constantly changing ocean of selves. Each one of us is a sea of changing thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, perceptions and responses and all together we are an interconnected dynamic matrix of consciousness. As the poet Shelley said: "nothing in the world is single, all things by a law Divine in one another's being mingle...". (Love's Philosophy) To live with constant perception of this mingleing is to live without emphasis on a personal distinct and fixed self. It is to live in fluid creativity with other conscious beings, according them equal value with our own consciousness of self. When it comes to the practice of Sangha; creating a Sangha of like-minded people, who eventually evolve into an Arya Sangha, a transcendental sangha, an Ideal Human Community, then we need to work at trying to accord others equal value with ourselves and for both ourselves and others that should be a very high value. We need to work at seeing the potentially creative consciousness in everybody, that consciousness which is awake to Reality. In other words, we try our best to relate to the highest and best in each other. 

We create a Sangha or we engage in the practice of Sangha by interacting with each other, by relating to each other. What this means in practice is observing the ethical training principles and especially the speech precepts. Truthful, kindly, helpful and harmonising speech is what we are aiming for in the Sangha and it is what helps to create the Sangha. When we create a Sangha we are endeavouring to create the best possible conditions for spiritual practice. The Ideal Human Community is one where everything is conducive to spiritual practice, everything is helpful. When conditions are helpful, then we have more energy available for practice because we are not always struggling against the tide of difficult conditions in the world around us. 

There are many conditions which are not helpful to spiritual practice: there are many conditions that are even antithetical to the spiritual life and we use up energy struggling against those things. For instance, the predominant world view around us is that sufficient wealth and material well-being is the road to happiness and contentment. It is a materialistic view. Buddhism acknowledges the need for material well-being, as a starting point but not something to chase after or be attached to as an end in itself. But we live in this world of rampant consumerism and we inevitably get caught up in it, often in ways we don't even notice. We buy what we want rather than what we need. We replace because a replacement is available rather than because we need to replace. We become addicted to the shops as a quick route to satisfaction and remain dissatisfied. To service our high levels of consumption modern life makes many demands on us and is very stressful for many people. Commuting to work each day can be stressful. The work environment itself can be stressful. Family life in our atomised society can be stressful. Bringing up children can be stressful, with a thousand and one pitfalls and dangers. Even leisure can be stressful, if it involves a lot of TV,  Internet and social media all of which tend to sap energy. 

With all the demands and potential stresses of life, it makes sense to try to create better conditions, if we want to make spiritual progress. This brings us back to imagination. To create better conditions for ourselves and others we need to be able to analyse and imagine what those better conditions might look like. One of the conditions we need in order to make spiritual progress is communication with people who share our aspiration and commitment. Communication here means more than the usual exchange of information or chatting about where you've been, what you've seen and who is making up, taking up or breaking up with whom. In the Dedication Ceremony used in the Triratna Community, it says "may our communication with one another be Sangha". This kind of communication goes deeper. It is a communication of what is most meaningful for us, it is a communication that acknowledges and confesses faults and failings, it is a communication that involves listening, empathising and learning. It is a communication, above all, that leads to greater awareness. We become more aware of ourselves, we gain self-knowledge and we become more aware of our friends through this friendly, deep, sometimes moving, sometimes playful, sometimes painful, sometimes ordinary, but always worthwhile communication. So in terms of improving conditions for spiritual life, one of the questions is, what kind of conditions will invite and encourage this kind of deeper, more aware communication to happen. 

This kind of communication requires spending time with someone -- it requires seeing people in lots of different kinds of situations -- seeing them relaxed, seeing them busy, seeing them relating to others, seeing them angry, tired, upset, happy and so on. Meeting in a cafe once a week doesn't really do it. Now the answer to this that Bhante outlined as he spoke thirty years ago, was for people to live and work together in residential spiritual communities and team-based right livelihood businesses, and to have their social interactions focused around the Buddhist centre. Is that the end of it? I said earlier that we need to imagine more, we need to dream and we need to articulate our dreams. The basic need for conditions that enable and encourage deeper communication can perhaps be fulfilled in other ways. 

Thirty years on, the vision of the project that was then called Sukhavati needs to be looked at afresh, needs to be imagined, dreamed, envisioned afresh. It has gone through changes. Some people like the imagery of building the Buddhaland. Whatever we call it, and names can be important, I believe it will be helpful if we imagine on the grandest scale, dream big dreams, and then see whether we can move towards our dreams. For instance, a number of Buddhists now live in flats around this area. Imagine if they all lived in the same block of flats, imagine they all owned that block of flats and then they could make changes, could make decisions about doing some things communally, to save money, to help the environment and to deepen their communication. Imagine bigger than that. Imagine a whole tower block, like the one just across the road, owned and occupied by Buddhists, with many shared facilities - shrine room, meeting room, library, laundry room, perhaps even a dining room, cold store and so on. This would have spiritual and environmental benefits. Imagine bigger than that. Some years back the old town Hall in Patriot Square was for sale and another time it looked like the hospital on the Approach Road might be for sale -imagine a big complex like that -with residential space for individuals, couples, families, small communities, large communities and space for a natural health Centre, an arts centre, a Buddhist Centre, a home for the elderly, study facilities, a library, studios, small businesses. Imagine such a thriving Buddhist community in the heart of London. 

 Okay, not many Triratna Buddhists may want to live in large single sex communities these days, but we can imagine co-housing situations on a large scale that can include space for communites and other types of accommodation for singles, couples and families. Not many Buddhists may want to work in shops or restaurants these days, but we can imagine other types of enterprise, in the caring professions, perhaps in education, architecture, building, technology. It may even be that initially people from similar professions just get together to share their experience and talk about how to practice spiritually in the workplace, how to remain ethical, how to avoid the character assassinations and politics of the workplace, how to have a positive influence. It may be that some people want to look at the altruistic side of work and look into how to generate money for Dharma work. There are ways in which a pooling of resources could occur. I've been amazed at how much good can be done with relatively small amounts of money like £5000 or £10,000. If a group of people involved with the Centre set up a fund and put a little in every month the combined value would be greater than any one person could achieve and a substantial donation could be made to the centre each year similar to what businesses have done in the past. 

 There are other ways in which people can have an intensive experience of communication and working together through teams for retreats, classes and other projects. I don't know how many social events happen around the centre these days, but I think social events are a very good sangha activity and the work that goes into organising them can be a very good way of building spiritual community. The main point I want to make here is that we need to imagine, we need to inspire ourselves with the dream of what could be, what the future could look like. It could be different from any of what I have just mentioned. Perhaps, rather than a big complex, there could be hundreds of small cells of Buddhists around London. 

There was a song that said, "the future is not ours to see, que sera sera, whatever will be will be." This is not completely true; the future is not ours to see, that's true enough, although we can imagine it. But it is not a case of "whatever will be will be", it is more a case of whatever we will to be will be. The future is not ours to see, but we can begin to create it, we can begin to set the train of activities in motion that move in the direction of our future vision. The future is not ours to see, the future is ours to make. The vision needs to be there, the dream, the imagined future and it needs to be articulated. The more we talk about something, the more likely it is to happen. Talking sets up the conditions that begin to attract the right resources. The practicalities can follow. It may take years, generations even, before a vision is realised. And then it may even look quite different from what was originally envisaged, but the important thing is to begin, to dream and talk. Sometimes the money or the people or other resources are just not available, but you can still make a start.

 For instance, when we thought of getting a new retreat centre for the LBC over ten years ago, we didn't have the money, we didn't have the people, we didn't have a place in mind, all we had was the idea, the vision and enthusiasm, determination and courage. Everything else manifested in time and now Vajrasana Retreat Centre is there. At the time some of us had a very big vision of what we wanted; for example, there was going to be a shrine room with large murals painted on panels all-round, and there was going to be a library. It has not happened like that, maybe it will never happen, but a start has been made. The place is there and the potential is there. The will and the vision and the resources to transform it will emerge over time, and what eventually happens will be something we could never have envisaged ten years ago. 

This Buddhist Centre is of course is another vision that began over thirty years ago, with the shell of a burnt out building and a lot of energy and enthusiasm and very little money. It is still emerging, and being created, almost as I speak. The point here is about the importance of vision, a vision of an Ideal Human Community, based in the values and ethics of Buddhism and manifesting in the world in buildings, in institutions, in people living together, in people working together - a Buddhist village, a Buddhist town, a Buddhist Borough, a Buddhist city - libraries, stupas, shrines, workplaces, temples, streets, shops, all imbued with the spirit of the Dharma. Dreams can be as big as we can imagine, and we should articulate our dreams, talk about them, so that they become seeds of a possible future among all the possible futures. Architects can articulate architectural dreams. Doctors can talk about medical dreams. Teachers can have educational dreams, and so on: funeral directors, street cleaners, train drivers, traffic wardens, whatever your profession, whatever your interests, whatever your talents, dream your dreams and give voice to them. All the dreams can be woven together and articulated as our Buddhist vision of a truly human community, an ideal human community, a sangha, permeated by the vision, the wisdom and compassion of the Buddha’s great insights into the nature of reality and permeated by Bhante's clarity and the radical immediacy of his vision for Buddhism in the West. 

 Going for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha is essentially an altruistic activity. Our spiritual commitment is essentially a commitment to going beyond egotism and selfishness. This involves an outward expansion of consciousness, outwards to include and integrate all of ourselves, outwards to greater awareness of our self and others, an expansion of consciousness outwards in loving kindness towards our self and others. When all those individuals who are committed to expanding consciousness in this way, come together co-operatively in a Sangha, that Sangha will also be characterised by expansion, expanding outwards to include more people, always open, always encouraging. A Sangha of individuals like this, all working consciously to expand outwards in awareness and loving kindness and co-operating together for the benefit of all, this sangha is the ground from which the Bodhicitta flowers. 

The Bodhicitta, the awakening heart of the Bodhisattva, is not a personal possession. By its nature, by it's altruistic transcendent nature, it must be shared and as Subhuti put it "if it is to be conceptualised then you can see it as what arises among a fellowship of friends, working closely together for their ideals". The practices that give expression to the Bodhicitta are the six perfections -- generosity, ethics, forbearance, energy, meditation and wisdom. Of these generosity is the most important and appropriate for most of us. We could think of generosity as being in essence, an attitude, it is that expansive attitude that moves out towards others in giving and in kindness. Before you can give you need to know what is yours, what belongs to you. And in this context, the primary thing you own, which belongs totally to you, is your mental states. This may seem obvious, but the major stumbling block for many of us on the spiritual path is that we fail to recognize and acknowledge that our mental states are our own, that they belong to us and not to others. What has this got to do with generosity? 

The basic attitude we need to cultivate in the Sangha, the most generous and expansive attitude is the attitude of Metta. When we discover that our attitude towards a fellow Sangha member is not one of Metta, which often happens, then we need to ask ourselves why not?, why is our attitude, not one of Metta? And in answering this we should not be content with an answer that blames them. We should also not be content with an answer that just blames ourself. We need to go deeper than that, we need to seek a perspective of Wisdom. If we acknowledge and recognize that our mental states are our own, our very own responses to people and situations, then we have an opportunity to go deeper, to transform, to gain awareness and even insight and if we do that we become more and more capable of generosity, the movement of expansion in consciousness, ever outwards. 

We need to be trying to expand and move outwards from our habitual states as part of our spiritual practice. We need to move from being an habitual critic to being an encourager. We need to move from being an habitual consumer to being a giver. That applies to how we use the Buddhist centre as well. We need to move from a habit of exclusivity and cliqueishness to openness and hospitality. We need to move from a habit of being a commentator to being a participant. We need to move from the habit of being a spectator to being a player. We need to move from a habit of complaining to taking responsibility. There are probably many more. You could come up with your own personal list. Where there are faults and weaknesses and flaws, there is all the more need for Metta. Metta is realistic, it is not an attitude that is blind to faults and blemishes in oneself or others, but it is an attitude that sees these faults as occasion for kindness, for an expansive, generous attitude. 

That expansive, generous attitude manifests in words and actions, in friendliness, in kindness, in hospitality, in harmonising speech and so on. The attitude of generosity is also an attitude of contentment. It is content with a simple life, not overly focused on accumulating and consuming money or possessions or people or ideas. It is an attitude of being content with less and of finding joy in less. It is an attitude that realises the burdensome nature of possessions, and the tiresomeness of being forever restless, restless for the next meal, the next gadget, the next news bulletin, the next sexual encounter, the next episode of Big Brother and so on. 

The imagination and vision which we apply to the external dimension of Sangha can also be applied to this more internal dimension. We can imagine ourself more developed, more expansive, kinder, more generous and try to get a sense of what that feels like, what does it look like, how would we behave, what does it sound like and so on. Imagination is the first step to realization of the vision of an ideal human community, so also with our self, we can imagine as a first step to realisation and we can articulate to ourselves what we see and experience in imagination. This is why images of archetypal Buddhas and Bodhisattvas can be so spiritually helpful to us. 

On December 4th, 1978, when Bhante gave his talk, the day after this Centre opened, among other things, he said this: "all of us, surely, at least sometimes, are dissatisfied: we feel dissatisfied with the world as it is and aspire to a higher, better, brighter, more beautiful world than that which we at present experience, or in which we seem to live - a world where it will be easier for us to grow and develop. Surely, at least sometimes, we aspire in this way." If we do aspire in this way, then we can imagine all the ways we could possibly create a future Sangha, that is large, harmonious, mutually helpful and an example to the world of how life can be lived both joyfully and meaningfully, an example of an ideal human community. 

Many others have attempted to create ideal human communities with varying degrees of success, like for example, the Fairfield Moravian Settlement in Manchester or the Whiteway Colony following the teachings of Tolstoy, or communities of the 1960s like the UFA Fabrik in Berlin, and so on. We can create our own dynamic Buddhist community here in Bethnal Green, we can dream big dreams, imagine great institutions, architecture, parks, libraries, paintings, schools and so on. We can act together, generously, in a spirit of metta and encouragement and allow the Bodhicitta to arise in our midst. The Bodhicitta, that Awakened consciousness that cannot be the possession of any one person, but is the flowering of the altruistic, compassionate activity of a large group of people, working together, awakening together in harmony and friendly fellowship. We can be a Sangha of visions and dreams, a Sangha that dreams and visions itself into being. Here, even here in this corner of this city, at this time in history. This is a great work and it needs individuals who are committed, hard-working, determined, courageous and generous. Some of those individuals are probably sitting here today. If so, I wish you every success in what is a most worthwhile endeavour, the most worthwhile endeavour, the creation of an ideal human community, an effective Sangha.

 

 

A World of Possibilities

This talk was given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre in 2006

A few months ago I watched a film DVD called “What the bleep do we know”. It is a kind of documentary about quantum physics, but looking at the spiritual implications of what quantum physics says about the nature of matter. I have no idea whether it was portraying a completely idiosyncratic view or whether the views expressed are widely held by physicists. Anyway one of the points that came across quite strongly is that there is nothing fixed abut the material world and it changes by the mere fact of being observed. It is more of the nature of energy, constantly moving ,than of matter as we usually tend to think of it. Or even more like consciousness or thoughts. Following on from that was the idea that the world, reality is completely malleable and therefore we can and do create our own worlds. Consciousness, thoughts and what we think of as matter are not that different. They are all equally ephemeral and impermanent, without any fixed essence or substance. The result of all this is that anything is possible. We are only limited by habitual perceptions and a habitual conceptual framework which means we don’t see reality but our ideas about reality. Anyway this was in my mind when I was asked for a title for this talk about transforming the world. So we have “A World of Possibilities”. I am going to make a few points by way of introduction and then I will approach this whole topic under three headings: education, ecology and economics.

The first point I want to make is that the whole universe is interconnected and that of course includes us. There is no such thing as an isolated individual. We may experience isolation on a social or psychological level but real isolation from the rest of the living universe is not possible. We eat food which we buy in a shop where we are served by people and the food was put on the shelves by others and delivered by others and harvested and grown by others and the soil was prepared by others and the seeds provided by others and the plants grew because there was sufficient light and moisture and space. All of these things connect us to vast numbers of people and to the sun and the climate and the earth’s atmosphere and the solar system, the galaxy and beyond. We cannot be isolated from life. Even when we are dead our body returns to the earth and nourishes the plants and worms.

We are also connected to other people by virtue of influence and effect. The influence they have on us and the effect we have on them. Virtually everything we know, all our knowledge, comes from somebody else. We learn from books, from other people, parents, teachers etc., and it is a completely rare event for anyone to have an original thought and even when that does happen it is in relationship to all the thoughts others have had previously in a particular area, whether it is art or mathematics or science. We are made up of influences which we have imbibed since birth and which we continue to imbibe. It is good to try to become aware of this. What has influenced us, what is influencing us? What do we know? How have we come to know what we know? In our western culture a great emphasis is placed on freedom, independence, choice and so on and we are influenced by this emphasis to such a degree that we can become completely blind to how strongly connected to others we are and how strongly we are being influenced all the time. To a large degree we are made up of influences - whether from other people or the climate or the environment we live in. All these things form and shape our consciousness, affect our thoughts and emotions and are very much who we are. So in a sense all we are is interconnection - there is nothing solid or substantial or fixed that we can point to and say that’s me - completely unaffected by any influence from elsewhere.

The other side of this is that we are always having an effect - we are always influencing. Some people are referred to as influential people, but, in fact, everybody is influential. It is not possible to have no effect on anybody or anything. By eating food you have bought in a shop, you have had an effect on the shop and those who work there and the whole chain of supply. I was reading an interview in a magazine recently with the CEO of Tesco’s. The point was put to him that a huge store like Tesco has a lot of power, too much power even. He said that from where he stood all the power was with the consumer and he had to be constantly attentive and sensitive to what shoppers wanted or didn’t want. Otherwise even the biggest business could collapse quite quickly. There is obviously a lot of truth in that. But more immediately than that we have an effect on people we come into contact with. We can never know how much of an effect we are having. Sometimes we say or do something quite small and it has a big effect on someone. Perhaps a little act of generosity where it was not expected or a sharp word or a flippant remark.

I ordained someone a few years ago who in his early life had spent some time in prison. While he was there he was sent to solitary confinement for gross misbehaviour. He found solitary confinement extremely difficult and the prison warder noticed this and deliberately left the door of his cell ajar and sat in a place where he could be seen. My friend said this was a real act of kindness on the part of that warder and it had a huge effect on him. It was the turning point which led him away from a criminal life and towards a spiritual path.

We won’t always have a dramatic effect on others, but we will have an influence. We could go further and say we are always becoming part of the consciousness of others and they are always becoming part of our consciousness. This is the case even with people that we just see in the street or the park or on the bus. They live in your mind, perhaps only momentarily or perhaps for longer. The more focussed and intense our awareness is the more impact we have on others and also the more impact they have on us.

All this is by way of introduction. To say that we are interconnected with the whole of life and that we are always being influenced and influencing. We are a part of each other, part of the make-up of each other’s consciousness. This is very much the outlook of Tibetan Buddhism: as Reginald Ray puts it in Indestructible Truth: “we humans are one part of a vast, interconnected web of relationships with all other inhabitants of the cosmos, both those still living and those who are awakened. An awareness of these relationships is critical because, to a very large extent, who we are as humans is defined by this network of relations. To be able to know this fact, and to take responsibility for it, gives us a dignified and directed human life. Within Tibetan tradition, the isolated individual – the one who is unaware of the vast cosmos of beings within which we live and who attempts to live as if it did not exist – is lost. He is a dundro, an animal-realm being in human form, controlled by ignorance, with its nose to the ground.” (p. 47)

This view has also had enormous implications for our own modern world. The collapse of the Soviet empire at the end of the 1980s was at least in part due to a recognition of interconnectedness. Here is how Mr Gorbachov puts it: “We had to create new relations together, but for that we needed to understand that the stake placed on confrontation has yielded nothing. It had only led to a situation where the world was divided into opposing camps. It was a policy of blocs, confrontation and the arms race. This policy had only led us to the edge of a precipice. And we found new paths only by realising that we were all part of one civilization and that we lived in one interconnected world. The new thinking was born, and out the new thinking came the new policy”. (Gabriel Partos “The world that came in from the cold” p.234) When we come to look at this world of possibilities and how it might be transformed for the better we need to bear in mind this fact of interconnection and its’ implication for the effect that all of us have, all the time.

Now I will move on to look at the three areas of education, ecology and economics and the bearing they have on transforming the world and making the best of the myriad of possibilities available. When I say education I don’t intend to say anything about the British school system or how universities work. At least not directly. What I want to talk about is our responsibility to educate ourselves about the nature of the world and the reality that we inhabit. I have just been talking about influence and the fact that we influence each other. One of the most obvious ways in which we influence others is through what we do and what we say. However what we do and what we say are based on what we think and feel. It is important to educate our thoughts and emotions so that we can have a beneficial influence through what we do and say.

As Buddhists we have already begun this process, by thinking about and engaging with questions of value and meaning. However, it has been said that laziness is the besetting sin of Buddhists and often we don’t take our investigation and exploration of values and meaning much further than the most basic stage. We might feel we’ve got a grasp of the five precepts and therefore we know enough about Buddhist ethics or we have been told about impermanence and insubstantiality and shunyata and conditionality and so we are familiar with all the most essential aspects of Buddhism. But it doesn’t work like that. We need to be thoroughly familiar with the teaching of the Buddha and other great Buddhist teachers and in our own case, in the Triratna Buddhist Community, we also need to be thoroughly familiar with Bhante Sangharakshita’s interpretation of Buddhist teachings. But this is just the beginning. It’s as if we have been given a box of tools and trained in what each is for and how to use it, but the next step is to actually use these tools.

As Buddhists this means learning to understand our experience more and more in terms of the Dharma. We need to understand our experience of happiness, anger, loneliness and so on, in terms of the Dharma. We need to get a thorough grasp of the central task of Buddhism, which is to undermine and transcend all egotism, all self-centredness. We need to learn how to gradually stop building a fixed self for ourselves and others. This is what the tools are for. This is what all the Dharmic concepts and lists are for and this is a big task; one that we need to bring as many approaches to as we can and a task that we need to patiently pursue for many many years. Our understanding and ability to use the ideas of the Dharma can feed our meditation, so that our meditation is much more than a pleasant interlude in the day. Our meditation can become a slow unveiling of all that is positive in us, all the qualities that out spiritual aspirations point to, until we are face to face with the Buddha nature, which is another way of talking about the complete absence of egotism.

If we educate ourselves by going deeper and deeper into the Buddha’s teaching and if we allow those teachings to really affect our lives then we will change and as we change we will become more and more of an influence for good in the world. To allow the teaching of the Buddha to really affect our lives we need to give them the prominence and priority in our lives, so that it becomes quite natural for us to contemplate and explore our experience primarily via the Dharma. I am not saying we should not use other ways of looking at our experience, just that as Buddhists we need to give pre-eminent position to the Dharma. Personally I have found many other disciplines useful, psychology and art for example. Especially when filtered through a Dharmic perspective. Our education in values and meaning requires us to become as familiar with the teachings of the Buddha as a carpenter is with his tools or as familiar as an astronomer is with the stars. That’s probably a better analogy, as the astronomer knows that there are always new discoveries to be made and new things to learn. That is how it is with the Dharma too.

As well as educating ourselves in the Dharma, I think it is important that we try to have a really broad knowledge of the world around us. We should try to know something of history, art, nature, science, economics, politics and so on. In order to be able to communicate with different kinds of people and be an influence for the good, we need to know something of the different worlds people inhabit. I don’t mean that we need to have a position or opinion about everything but it is helpful to at least know some facts. For instance, in this country, there are issues about immigration, the education system, the health and welfare systems. These issues impact on the lives of millions of people and it’s good if we have at least a minimum of facts available to us. For instance we ought to know the difference between an immigrant, an illegal immigrant and an asylum seeker. Or if we have at least a vague idea of the history of the 20th century we may understand better some of the forces at work in the world, which influence us all.

It is said that a Bodhisattva should be able to communicate with everyone on their own ground, in their own language, so to speak, and that is something for us to aspire to. So that we can use metaphors and examples relevant to people’s lives when we talk to them or try to explain Buddhism to them. There are many opportunities for Buddhists to have a positive influence on the values and discourses of the world around us. And this influence is not necessarily a matter of telling people about Buddhism. It is more a matter of educating our own hearts and minds in the values and meaning of the Dharma so that all our communication is permeated by those values and then people will notice and be affected by it. People will be affected by honesty and generosity and awareness and kindness and that is one way of transforming the world and giving emphasis to one very beneficial possibility in this world of possibilities.

From education in the sense of educating our hearts and minds with a deep sense of values and meaning, it is a short step to ecology. It is a short step because there is a direct link between the state of human consciousness and the effect that consciousness has on its environment. Having mentioned the environment I want to quickly make a distinction between environmentalism and ecology. Environmentalism can be and sometimes is understood to be concerned with the environment we live in, but in talking about the environment we may subtly or not so subtly exclude ourselves. But we are the environment too. That’s why ecology is a better term. It involves a whole system and we are obviously a part of that system. I believe there is a phrase “deep ecology” which I think takes into account factors like consciousness, which is what I would like to talk about.

Ecology includes us. Nature includes us. What we do to ourselves we do to nature. What we do to ourselves, we do to the ecology of the planet. This is again that question of influence or effect I spoke about earlier. It is not just other people that we influence. We influence the whole planet. Our state of mind as human beings is a major factor in the ecology of the world. Much work in the sphere of ecology in recent years is about trying to get human beings to realise this. As Buddhists we have our part to play because as I mentioned earlier, we have available to us a whole toolkit to perform the work of transforming human consciousness. And transforming human consciousness is ecological work. Much of the damage we have caused to the delicate ecological balance has been due to lack of awareness. This lack of awareness was compounded by some ideologies which saw the natural world as separate from humanity and something that had been given to us to use a we wished.

This unawareness and these ideologies are no longer such a big factor, but there is still a great deal of unawareness around the issue of interconnectedness and interdependence and how each individual has an impact on the overall web of conditions. This is where the Buddhist perspective can be very helpful. With a profound teaching like pratitya samutpada available to us we are well equipped to begin understanding and even explaining the reality of the universe. Pratitya samutpada says that everything arises in dependence on conditions which n turn arise in dependence on conditions and so on until all conditions everywhere and in every time are encompassed. In other words, what pratitya samutpada shows, when we penetrate deeply into it, is that everything throughout time and space is inter-related. This is an awe-inspiring vision, which has implications on the cosmic level, and on the personal level. On the universal level it has ecological, political and life or death implications. On the personal level, it is a way to understand and penetrate more deeply into our minds. We tend to think in linear cause and effect terms. For instance, if we apply pratitya samutpada to a situation where we have become angry because of something someone has said, we will find t hat it is not so simple, straightforward and linear. There are a whole multiplicity of conditions which have led to us becoming angry. Some of them may be to do with what’s happening immediately in our life, some may be to do with our conditioning, some may be to do with the other person’s conditioning and what’s happening in their life, some may be to do with spiritual ignorance and resistance to reality and so on – a whole myriad of conditions. If we can work with pratitya samutpada like this we may find a bigger perspective opens up for us and we gradually move away from the narrow linear cause/effect interpretation of reality and come to more and more to see everything in terms of interconnection or inter-relatedness. If we can do this kind of work on our own minds, our own emotional and mental states, then we will be doing ecological work at the deepest level, transforming the structure of consciousness. And it could be argued that a transformation in the structure of human consciousness is in the final analysis the only answer to the problem of a consciousness that blindly destroys it’s own nourishment. However, as well as that work on the mind, I believe, as Buddhists, we should also be trying as far as possible to put all the other ecology enhancing measures into action in our lives. I won’t go into them here because they are well documented. But we all know the sort of thing; energy saving, recycling, a simpler lifestyle, using public transport and so on.

As Buddhists what we have to offer to the ecology of the planet is potentially enormous. Awareness, conditioned co-production with its implications of interconnectedness and of course the image of Indra’s net as a graphic description of the dynamic nature of reality. We can offer these tools and perspectives primarily by putting them into practice in our own lives and transforming ourselves. As we do that we will begin to have a beneficial influence wherever we are and add some creative possibilities to the world of possibilities.

Now to move on to economics. I must say first that I am not an economist and don’t know much about the technicalities of economics although I do find the topic fascinating, especially since so much of it seems to be totally sensitive to mental states, in particular confidence, fear and greed. What I do know is that everybody’s life has some sort of economic aspect to it and this can be the source of pain, fear, confusion, joy, sadness and so on. When it comes to the topic of transforming the world, what does Buddhism have to say about economics? I think it is probably usual for Buddhists to have a go at consumerism when it comes to the topic of economics. The usual argument is that consumerism is blind to the damage it causes, it’s insatiable, it is based on the constant encouraging of greed and so on. I have made all these points myself in talks. But today I want to say something different about consumerism.

But before that, let’s have one more blast of consumerism. Here is a quote from Thai monk and activist Sulak Swaraksha: “Consumerism supports those who have economic and political power by rewarding their hatred, aggression, and anger. And consumerism works hand-in-hand with the modern educational system to encourage cleverness without wisdom. We create delusion in ourselves and call it knowledge. Until the schools reinvest their energy into teaching wholesome, spiritual values instead of reinforcing the delusion that satisfaction and meaning in life can be found by finding a higher-paying job, the schools are just cheerleaders for the advertising agencies, and we believe that consuming more, going faster, and living in greater convenience will bring us happiness. We don't look at the tremendous cost to ourselves, to our environment, and to our souls. Until more people are willing to look at the negative aspects of consumerism, we will not be able to change the situation for the better. Until we understand the roots of greed, hatred, and delusion within ourselves, we will not be free from the temptations of the religion of consumerism, and we will remain stuck in this illusory search for happiness.” (Dharma Rain, Sources of Buddhist Environmentalism, p.182) I have just finished reading a book, Paradox of Choice, which refers to many studies which show that too much choice does lead to unhappiness. Sulak Swaraksha is not just engaging in polemic.

Now I want to say something a bit more positive about consumerism. One of the reasons I want to say something positive about consumerism is that barring catastrophe, it is going to be with us for a long time and those who have not had the opportunity to consume the so-called good things of life are going to want to. In the foreseeable future we are likely to have more consumerism rather than less, with India, China, South America and eventually Africa stepping on to the train to go shopping with everybody else. Given that that is what we have and are likely to have, what positive possibilities does consumerism hold for us?

It has been said that these days we are consumers rather than citizens. I was thinking about this and I came to the conclusion that it may not be such a bad thing if people were less identified with being citizens. Being a citizen implies belonging to a particular nation with all the characteristics of group mentality that that implies. As we saw from the Gorbachov quote earlier, it can lead to a sort of defensiveness and isolationism that is both oppressive and dangerous. Consumerism on the other hand crosses boundaries and cultures and at the level of international business it creates a world of connections and relationships that have the potential to defuse dangerous situations. On the personal level it gives a certain amount of power to the consumer. When you vote in an election you exercise some power, but also when you spend money you exercise power. You exercise power because, just as with your vote, you can make a choice. Your vote gives you a choice every four years or so to say who you want to govern or what policies you favour. The money in your pocket gives you a choice every day to say which products and companies you want to support and which you would prefer not to. From my reading about business it is clear that businesses, even the biggest of them, are quite sensitive to what the consumer wants and doesn’t want. It has even been noted that sometimes business is ahead of government in its thinking on issues of an ethical or ecological nature. Anyway the point I am making is that since we are consumers, that means we are connected to a vast international web of trade which has a positive side to it and we can exercise some power in this network of trading by making informed choices about where to spend our money. Another point worth noting is that businesses are sensitive to criticism and if you see a business doing something you think is unethical, it is worth writing a letter to point it out. Every businessperson and politician knows that for every two people that complain there are probably another 20 who have the same complaint but stay silent.

It is not easy to make choices about our spending. To begin with there is so much conflicting information available and international trade is a complex network. But we can still make an effort. Even seemingly small gestures do make a difference. You might need to support local produce for instance, or organic food or fair trade or ethical trading. You can always do a little research and make some small choices, without having to contemplate changing your whole way of life overnight. This is about the power of the consumer to influence business and government by making spending choices.

But there is more to economics and its potential to transform than what we do with our money. If we go a bit deeper we can begin to look at our whole attitude to money. We could start by considering our conditioning in relation to money. What was the attitude of our parents to money? What part did money play in the family? Was it talked about? What was the emotional flavour of conversations about money? Fear? Anxiety? Freedom? Happiness? Joy? Anger? Insecurity? Did you rebel against family attitudes to money? Have they re-emerged as you have grown older? What is your own conscious attitude to money? What do you spend most of your money on? What does this tell you about yourself? It is a very good exercise in self-awareness to become more and more conscious of what money means to us. It is very easy to have consciously held superficial views and attitudes about money, which are not our real and deep attitudes.

But we can go further and ask what is money? Perhaps we know how we feel about money but do we really know what money is? Money is not pieces of paper. Those pieces of paper or the numbers on your bank statement represent something, but what do they represent? Do they represent bars of gold in the vaults of some bank? If they do, what sense does that make? Mainly what money represents is energy. It is the energy of production and trade and money is a convenient way of exchanging products and services without having to resort to barter every time. The money in your bank account or wallet in some way represents some of your energy. You have expended energy in some way and so much money has come to you. And it is lying there with unrealised potential, latent energy. What you do with it is buy somebody else’s energy or if you save it in the bank, you in effect, give it to someone else to use and the interest is unearned income, unearned because you expend no energy for it.

Money is not a thing. It is a movement of energy, with potential for creation and destruction. Money is full of possibilities. That’s why we like it so much. Our attitude to money can be seen as our attitude to energy and potential and possibility. Another thing about money is that there is no security in it. It is a symbol of security and a very potent symbol but money itself is almost the opposite of secure. Security brings up an image of something fixed, safe, comfortable, but money is fluid, moving, never quite what it seems.

I’m trying to take us deeper into the world of economics and its potential for transformation. And Buddhist economics has to be an economics of generosity. Buddhism tells us that we are not fixed separate entities and that all our ego building, protecting, defending, and enhancing our sense of self, is a gross delusion which brings us nothing but sorrow. Buddhism opens out a vision of a vast interconnected web of relations where consciousness is penetrated by consciousness, consciousness is influenced by consciousness, consciousness is in a dance with consciousness. And this is a dynamic vision of a constant interplay of energies. When we can enter into this vision, as a way of being, the expression of it is happiness, compassion, expansiveness and generosity. It becomes natural to give and receive because that is how things are, that is the nature of reality.

Egotistic vision wants to take and keep. Realistic vision wants to give and give. As ego-identified, self-centred beings who aspire to transcending this deluded state, one of the first and most effective practices to help us on our way is the practice of generosity. When we talk about practice, it is good not to narrow it down to meditation. Ego will of course try to take over the practice and say “Look how generous I am. Look what a good Buddhist I am and I’m so humble about it all too. I must be making a lot of spiritual progress.” Well ego is tenacious but that is the territory we are travelling through; vistas of awareness, jungles of ego, and sometimes plodding, sometimes striding, practice of generosity, ethics and meditation. As Buddhists then, to transform the world of economics, we can try to bring some awareness to it and be as generous as possible. The aim is not to be generous but to become generosity. If we become generosity, we will no longer have any sense of being generous. Generosity of spirit has a very positive effect in the world and introduces a really moving and exuberant possibility into this world of possibilities.

What economics means to most of us is work. We work to get the money to pay the bills and enjoy our leisure. Quite a chunk of most people’s time is spent at work. It is worthwhile giving some thought to the area of work then and considering whether there are choices we can make in that area of our life which would give us a better basis for our spiritual practice. I don’t have any particular suggestions to make. It just seems necessary to seriously consider whether the thing you spend so much of your life doing is helpful to reaching your spiritual aspirations. Does it enable you to be generous? Does it allow you to be ethical, honest, kind? Does it leave enough time and energy for some meditation? And retreat? There is an essay on this whole topic in Roads to Freedom, by Subhuti. (chapter 1)

I’ve been talking about transforming the world. I have looked at this under the headings of education, ecology and economics and I’ve made some points about each of these. But really I have just been making one main point, namely: the reality is that all life is interconnected and following on from this is the point that we are all influenced and influencing all the time. These points can be taken from the Buddhist teaching of pratitya samutpada, conditioned co-production, and if we study, penetrate and try to practise with the implications of this profound teaching, we will transform ourselves and set in motion energies that will transform this world from a vale of tears to a world of possibilities.