Sex and the Spiritual Life - an interview with Sangharakshita

An interview with Sangharakshita published in Golden Drum in 1988.

This is probably the first time Sangharakshita spoke 'on the record' about his sexual experiences.

A more recent interview, also with Nagabodhi, is available on DVD. It is entitled 'A Retrospective' and covers a wide range of topics including sex.

Nagabodhi: The Five Precepts are the common 'minimal' ethical observance of Buddhists throughout the world. The third precept, Kamesu miccachara veramani sikkhapadam samadiami, is translated: 'I undertake the training principle of refraining from sexual misconduct'. What is the essential meaning of this precept?

Bhante: There is a personal aspect and a social aspect. One must avoid sexual behaviour which is socially disruptive, and one must at the very least avoid engaging in sexual behaviour of any kind to such an extent that one's ethical and spiritual progress is seriously impeded.

Nagabodhi: In the Buddhist East this precept is often taken to mean simply the avoidance of rape, abduction, and adultery.

Bhante: This is really quite a narrow view. The thought that immediately springs to mind is that of prostitution in Bangkok. Bangkok is almost the world capital of prostitution, so much of it goes on there. Yet Thailand is a Buddhist country, and the prostitutes in Thailand are all, presumably, good Buddhists. So those who engage in prostitution - assuming they are not married women doing it for a bit of extra house-keeping money - are not committing rape, they're not committing adultery, and are therefore, according to the current, popular Buddhist understanding, not committing any breach of the third precept. But one certainly couldn't feel that by having recourse to prostitution they were really leading ethical lives from a Buddhist point of view!

Nagabodhi: Why has the precept come to be interpreted in such a narrow way?

Bhante: I think people in the Buddhist East, including parts of India, don't really examine their sexual behaviour in any detail. At least until recently, you simply conformed to tradition and custom, rather than trying to work out what was ethical or non-ethical for yourself. More often than not, tradition and custom kept you on the right track - one has to acknowledge that - but perhaps not in a very intelligent way. People wouldn't usually examine their sexual conduct any more than they usually examined any other aspect of their behaviour. They'd be concerned only with SOCIAL approval or disapproval. And, naturally, the group interprets the precept in a rather social sort of way.

Generally speaking, in the Buddhist East, they don't worry too much about what goes on between consenting adults in private, provided it does not amount to rape, adultery, or anything of that sort. Certainly, in Buddhism, there isn't that preoccupation with the minutiae of sexual behaviour that we have had in the West, as a subject for gossip and enquiry, nor even, perhaps, for ethical scrutiny.

Perhaps it should also be said that, in those countries, there is no very serious expectation that the lay person will lead a spiritual life. The monks or nuns, on the other hand, ARE expected to lead a spiritual life, and for them there is the Vinaya, in which the precept is explored in far greater detail, probably to make it clear that absolutely all forms of sexual behaviour are excluded.

Nagabodhi: To what extent can the rules of the Vinaya be taken as the Buddha's own words, or as representing a detailed working out of his views on the subject of sex?

Bhante: Whether or not they are Buddha vachana in all their details can be debated; I am not at all sure that the Vinaya offers a fair representation of the Buddha's thoughts on the subject. It is very legalistic in tone, and I don't think the Buddha could have viewed anything in a purely legalistic way. But I think the Vinaya does give legalistic expression to an attitude, or a principle, which was the attitude of the Buddha himself.

There can be no serious doubt that the Buddha expected his monk disciples - those who had Gone Forth from their spouses and families - to be celibate. That seems to have been understood, not only by the Buddha himself, but by others of his day. One who had Gone Forth from home into the homeless life did so probably because he or she wanted to be free from all entanglements. So even if one disregarded the personal aspect of sexual ethics - if one disregarded the effect of sex upon the mind - one would still have to avoid sexual activity if one wanted to be free from worldly (in the sense of household) entanglements. If one did engage in sex, a sexual relationship might develop, children might be produced, and you would be back where you had started.

From this point of view, such abstention from sexual activity would be the concomitant of a certain LIFESTYLE, rather than of the spiritual life as such. The Buddha certainly wouldn't say that one who hadn't completely given up sexual activity couldn't make any spiritual progress, and it wasn't that you couldn't make spiritual progress without being a monk. The Buddha had householder disciples who were Stream Entrants, who appear not to have given up sexual activity. But, if you did follow the lifestyle of a monk, it would have been contradictory to engage in sexual activities in a society where there were no contraceptives.

Nagabodhi: When you were in the East, living as a monk, what part did chastity play in your own personal practice?

Bhante: I'm not so sure that it played a very active part. I knew I was expected to be celibate, and so I was. I accepted it as part of the deal, part of the spiritual life; but looking back, I don't think I regarded chastity as a PRACTICE, something I should WORK on.

I was chaste for many, many years, in body, and I think in speech. Unchastity of speech always displeased me from a quite early age. But I don't think I made a particular effort to eliminate sexual thoughts. I was more concerned with eradicating unmindfulness, and was much more distressed by angry or violent thoughts than I was by sexual thoughts - which I tended to think of as being more 'natural'.

But, even when I was in the army, these feelings, though strong, were very much at the background of my mind. I was finding the East so interesting. I was reading whatever Buddhist books I could get hold of; I was writing - it was a very exciting time for me. So even sexual THOUGHTS played a very minor part in my life. It was only when my thirst for such things as the Dharma, literature, poetry, and philosophy had been slaked to some extent that I started thinking about sex, towards the end of my stay in India.

Nagabodhi: In your experience of the modern Theravada, did the monks seem to be spotless in their practice of chastity?

Bhante: Some of them did talk to me about these things, and from what they said I gained the impression that most Theravada monks had committed minor breaches of celibacy, at least from time to time. I even met and heard of a few Theravada monks who had wives and children - though they kept them as secret as they could - but who none the less continued to wear the yellow robe and expected to be treated as monks.

Minor breaches of celibacy were generally overlooked, as if it was almost too much to expect of ordinary human beings that they should be completely celibate in body, even though they were monks. Among themselves, the attitude was fairly forgiving. After all, many of them had become monks purely for social reasons: because their parents wanted them to become monks, or because, by becoming monks, they could be sure of receiving a good education, or of achieving economic security. So there would be no question of any conflict between their breach of the precept and their spiritual aspiration. They were usually only concerned with what might happen if they were found out by the lay people.

Nagabodhi: Even so, in many traditional Buddhist countries, sex is the 'great divider', perhaps the major point of difference between the life of the monk and the life of the lay-person. The monk is chaste; the lay-person is not. Is this a fair observation?

Bhante: It is certainly fair with regard to the Theravada countries and those Mahayana countries where they do have celibate monks. But it wouldn't be a fair observation with regard to Japan, where celibate monks ceased to exist centuries ago, or to some of the sects of Tibetan Buddhism who do not emphasise the monastic life, and therefore do not emphasise celibacy.

In the Theravada world, the monks and the laity seem to have very little in common. They certainly don't seem be following one and the same spiritual path. The Mahayana's main emphasis, though, is on the Bodhisattva Ideal, and therefore on the development of the Bodhicitta (or 'Will to Enlightenment').

In the early days of the Mahayana there was a very strong conviction that the Buddha had taught what was, essentially, one path for all: not only in the sense of his having taught one yana instead of three, but also in the sense of his having taught a spiritual path which could be followed regardless of lifestyle. The Bodhichitta can be developed both by the monk and by the layman; the emphasis was very much on following the path of the Paramitas (Perfections), and on becoming a Bodhisattva. Celibacy and non-celibacy thus became less important issues. One did not have to be a monk - or a layman - to develop spiritually. In our FWBO terminology, we would say that commitment was primary and lifestyle was secondary.

A further development was of course that of the Vajrayana. There were great teachers, even in India, who were not monks. Chandragomin, who composed the 'Hymn to Tara', was a layman. We have the famous example of Vimalakirti, who was a Bodhisattva APPEARING as a layman. Marpa too is a famous example, - though his most celebrated disciple, Milarepa, led an extremely ascetic life and was certainly celibate. In this way, the ground was prepared for the 'married lamas' of the Vajrayana.

Nagabodhi: Do you think the Theravada has placed too much emphasis on the importance of chastity in the monk's life?

Bhante: I think it would be difficult to attach too much importance to chastity. It is, however, possible to attach too much importance to being a monk, in whose life chastity occupies an important place. You could say that the Theravada places too much emphasis on monasticism, too much emphasis on chastity as an aspect of monasticism, and, therefore, too much emphasis on chastity of BODY: on chastity in a purely TECHNICAL sense.

You see, it's not as if you've got the chaste as the sheep, as it were, and the rest as the goats. We shouldn't think of chastity and non-chastity as if they were white and black, and as though you were either one or the other. There are degrees. To begin with, there's chastity of body, chastity of speech, and chastity of mind. We can't divide Buddhists into those who are chaste and those who are not chaste. We can't even divide them into those who are bodily chaste and those who are not. One certainly can't associate chastity exclusively with the monk and non-chastity exclusively with the layman. I would prefer to say that there are infinite gradations, and that everybody is chaste to some extent and everybody is non-chaste to some extent.

Nagabodhi: I believe the Buddha once said, 'If there was another human passion as powerful as the sexual urge, there would be no hope of Enlightenment for human beings': What do you think he meant by that?

Bhante: One COULD argue that the Buddha was simply trying to point out how powerful that passion is, so that his disciples would guard against it. But I take it quite literally.

The sex drive is very powerful. From a common sense point of view, the sex drive is what enables the human race to perpetuate itself; it would seem to be nature's great con-trick. If there was no sex drive, and we were asked, on rational grounds, to do what the sex-drive impels us to do instinctively, most likely we wouldn't do it! If you didn't have any sex urge, or sex drive, would you REALLY want to be responsible for bringing into the world, and supporting, and educating, children? You'd have to be quite altruistic to want to do that on purely rational grounds!

Then again, the sex drive can have a very destructive effect. It can be a source of very strong feelings of attachment and possessiveness, of jealousy, hatred, and despair. It can completely overwhelm people, making it impossible for them to follow the spiritual life, or even think in terms of any higher human development.

I suppose the Buddha's view was that sexual desire is a form of craving. Craving is, of course, an unskillful mental state, and unskillful states hold us back from gaining Enlightenment. For Buddhism - certainly for early Buddhism, and certainly for the Theravada - sexual desire is thus axiomatically unskillful. I doubt very much whether it is anywhere considered that you can engage in sexual activity without, at least to some extent, that activity being an expression of an unskillful mental state.

Nagabodhi: Under no circumstances or conditions?

Bhante: It would seem so, yes.

The emphasis of Buddhism in this respect - its realisation that sex is, or can be, an obstacle to spiritual life - is virtually unique. The theistic religions tend to believe that God created everything in the world: he created human beings, and he created their bodies - including the reproductive organs. So, in a way, God is BEHIND sex, and approves of sex. In some religions, God even blesses sex (- though the Christian position is ambiguous, because the Fall has rather spoiled things).

In the case of Buddhism, however, there is no creator god, no god responsible for sex. So who IS responsible for sex? YOU are. Your past desires - 'past' in the sense of desires experienced in a previous existence - have brought you, in this life, into the gross material human body, equipped with sexual organs, by means of which you can give expression to the desires you have carried from your previous existence.

People are not aware of how powerful this force is. You experience the strength of a force when you oppose it. Usually people tend to go along with their sexual drives, and so don't experience their strength - except, perhaps, when they come up against external obstacles, in the form of parental disapproval, or something of that sort.

So, since Buddhism regards sexual desires (along with others) as binding you to the Wheel of Life and causing you to be reborn again and again, it therefore teaches that, if you are serious about not being reborn, if you are serious about following a spiritual path and attaining Nirvana, then you will need to avoid sex, not simply in the sense of abstaining from sexual activity, but in the sense of overcoming, eventually, those particular desires or cravings that find expression through sexual activity.

Nagabodhi: You have been using the words 'desire' and 'craving'. Craving is usually understood to imply a neurotic element, as distinct from 'desire' - which is sometimes understood to suggest more of a healthy appetite. Is sexual desire always to be regarded as a form of 'craving'?

Bhante: I think traditional Buddhism, especially Theravada Buddhism, would maintain that even a healthy appetite for sex is the expression of an unskillful mental state. It follows from Buddhist principles that one could be Enlightened and at the same time enjoy one's food, without any associated craving. But I doubt if that principle could be extended to cover sexual experience. Buddhists might well acknowledge that even an Enlightened person has to eat; but an Enlightened person does not have to engage in sexual activity, he does not have to procreate.

Then, of course, the sexual appetite usually involves other people. When one comes into close physical, or emotional, contact with another person within the context of a sexual relationship, usually all sorts of psychological projections take place, and sometimes a very complicated, even negative situation develops - which doesn't happen with regard to food, say, or to sleep. Even the so-called 'healthy appetite' for sex, if satisfied, very quickly leads to the development of attachment. That attachment can lead to the arising of very strong emotions of possessiveness, jealousy, hatred, and so on.

It could of course be argued that it is possible for someone to enjoy sex without any of these things arising. But then there would very likely be present in the mind of that person, the unskillful states, not so much of sexual craving, as of indifference, lack of positive emotion, and exploitiveness.

Nagabodhi: To return to the Five Precepts for a moment, you once composed a 'Tantric version', in which the third precept was rendered: 'Do not misuse energy.' Could you expand on that?

Bhante: The third precept represents an important form of ethical discipline. I discovered that a lot of young people in the West didn't take very kindly to the idea of discipline, so it wasn't very easy to talk about the importance of the precept in disciplinary terms.

What I had in mind was that sexual energy was a sort of paradigm of energy in general. I don't think there is, specifically, a special, separate, 'sexual energy'. The psycho-physical organism is itself an expression of energy, and sexual activity is simply one form in which that energy manifests itself. It's obviously important that energy should not be wasted, so if you can point out that sexual energy is a form of energy, then it becomes immediately obvious that that energy should not be wasted.

Nagabodhi: Some people argue that sexual activity - and particularly the orgasm - bestows energy, and that its denial depletes. Could you comment on this?

Bhante: I rather doubt whether sex does actually give people energy, as they maintain. At the time of orgasm there is an expenditure of energy; you experience yourself as spending energy, and therefore you experience yourself as being 'energy full' - as you might when you throw a cricket ball.

When people talk of sex and orgasm actually giving them energy, they are talking about something quite different. I think, especially in the case of men, that when they experience orgasm, there's a sort of sense of achievement, as if they've had their way: they've done something that they consider worthwhile. Their ego becomes a bit bloated and swollen, and this they interpret as a sort of access of energy. It isn't at all a healthy or positive state.

When one has experienced orgasm, one is often left in a state of what could be called 'enervation'. Having made the effort that the approach to orgasm involves, your natural tendency is simply to rest. If you want to meditate, to overcome the hindrances, to concentrate the mind, and enter the dhyanas, you have to make a very great effort, and after an orgasm, you won't feel like making an effort. Some people may not feel like making an effort - especially that mental effort - for many hours afterwards; for others it might be quite a few days. They are just not able to get their mental energies together. It's not that they feel physically weak, or even mentally exhausted: they have lost a certain cutting edge, not only in relation to meditation, but to all sorts of other areas. They need to give their energies, and especially their mental energies, time to build up again and to want to express themselves.

Nagabodhi: You sometimes hears it said that, at the moment of orgasm, one experiences a dissolution of ego and a sense of union with one's partner. . .

Bhante: There seems to be a confusion here between sinking below the ego and transcending it. Ego is lost in deep sleep; you are not self-conscious in all sorts of situations, not because you've transcended the ego, but because you've temporarily reverted to a state lower than that of the ego, or self-consciousness.

As for 'union', the very idea is nonsensical. Often, those very people who feel this sense of union at the time of orgasm are fighting and quarrelling five minutes later! So where is the union? What has been achieved? If one really achieved unity in a spiritual sense, not just by way of mutual unconsciousness, then one's attitude to the other person would be completely transformed: one would be positive, affectionate, and caring,- which ordinary human sexual relationships rarely are.

Nagabodhi: Even so, sex is usually regarded as a vital route - even the vital route to emotional fulfillment and satisfaction....

Bhante: I wonder whether people really do get emotional satisfaction and fulfillment out of sex. Certainly there is a MEASURE of satisfaction and fulfillment, but it's usually very short-lived.

Emotional satisfaction and fulfillment is quite a big thing. From a philosophical point of view, Buddhism sees man's predicament as stemming from the fact that he is looking for absolute happiness in something which is quite unable to give absolute happiness. He's looking for permanence in something which is quite unable to give him permanence, looking for the real in the midst of the unreal. No finite thing is capable of giving infinite and unlimited satisfaction and fulfillment - emotional or otherwise. But this is very often what people are looking for in sex. So sex may give them a measure of satisfaction, a measure of fulfillment; but it can't give satisfaction and fulfillment to the degree that people expect or hope.

Nagabodhi: But people look to sex at least for the enjoyment of emotional intimacy...

Bhante: Well, there is certainly physical intimacy in sex. Whether there is emotional intimacy is quite another matter. It is well known that all sorts of misunderstandings and confusions occur between people who are involved in sexual relationships. When a sexual relationship comes to an end, it often does so in a very unfortunate and emotionally negative way: the two people separate, perhaps with fairly negative feelings towards each other; their so-called intimacy might never have been.

Nagabodhi: So when people speak of their sexual partners as being their best friends, do you think they are absolutely deluded?

Bhante: Friendship and sexual infatuation are two very different things. Sexual infatuation can arise and reach its physical consummation very, very rapidly. Friendship is a plant of much slower growth; it takes much longer to develop. You become friends with someone as you really get to know them, as you develop confidence in them, as you come to feel that they really do know and understand you. This is very different from the process of sexual infatuation.

It may be that, when sexual infatuation subsides, if the two people are reasonably healthy, and if they have certain things in common, including the raising of a family, or if they have religious and spiritual ideals in common, they MAY be able to develop a friendship in the long run, especially as they get older. But, even so, a sexual relationship is a very different thing from a friendship. If anybody ever tells me that their wife is their best friend, or their girlfriend is their best friend, or their husband is their best friend, or their boyfriend is their best friend, I can't help feeling that they are using the word 'friendship' in a totally different sense from the sense in which I use it.

Nagabodhi: I believe you once said that the worst thing you can do to someone is to fall in love with them. Could you explain what you meant?

Bhante: Falling in love implies psychological projection, or seeing in the other person qualities and aspects which are in fact qualities and aspects of yourself, but of which you are unconscious. This means that you do not see the other person as they really are; in a way, you're not treating them as a human being; you are treating them as an object, a thing. Perhaps you're both treating each other in that way, and it may be that by that means you satisfy certain appetites. But there won't be any question of your development as a human being, much less still of any spiritual development.

Nagabodhi: Presumably, you have had to spend a fair amount of time over the years discussing this aspect of your pupils' lives?

Bhante: In the early days of the FWBO, especially, when people tended to bring their more everyday problems to me rather than to Order members, very roughly a third of my discussion time would be devoted to the subject of sex, and particularly to sexual relationships that had gone wrong or broken down.

Nagabodhi: Did you find that men and women have different problems and preoccupations in this area?

Bhante: It's not easy to generalise, but it does seem that achieving a sexual RELATIONSHIP was more important for women than for men. In the case of men, it was perhaps more a matter of gaining sexual satisfaction - not necessarily with one and the same woman.

In the case of women, sexual desire is very much bound up with the desire for children. At the back of the woman's mind all the time is the desire for a child, and there is therefore the desire to have someone to help her, and look after her, when she is having the child. That question doesn't arise in the case of the man - who has to be wary of adopting a purely self-indulgent and exploitative attitude with regard to sex. Men may want children, but rarely in the passionate sort of way that women very often do.

Over the years, I came very much to the conclusion that the reason why sexual relationships were so difficult, and sometimes ended so disastrously, was that people were investing far too much in them. Very often, they seemed to have built their lives around their sexual relationships, and had no other serious relationships: not with their parents, for example, and certainly not with their friends.

Nagabodhi: Is this a particularly Western syndrome? Or did you have to deal with similar problems in India?

Bhante: I don't remember having to, partly because people - if they did have problems concerning sex - might well have considered it inappropriate to bring them to me, a celibate monk. But I also think that people did not have that sort of problem - certainly the non-westernised people - because most Indians lived as members of a joint family; there was a good spread of relationships, even of important relationships, in their lives.

Nagabodhi: Could there be a lesson in that for us?

Bhante: In the FWBO we sometimes talk in terms of the 'mandala' (or, 'magic circle') The mandala, is your whole life, and what is within your mandala represents the contents of your life. A mandala has a centre, so there will be, in the mandala of your life, something which occupies a central position: the interest, activity, idea, or ideal around which your life is centred. Then, we include the other interests and activities of our lives, putting them nearer to the centre as they are more important, and nearer to the periphery as they are less important.

So, with regard to sex, I think we could say that, for most people, sex has a legitimate place somewhere near the periphery of the personal mandala. It certainly shouldn't be at the centre of the mandala; THERE we place the Buddha, representing the ideal of Enlightenment.

It is possible for a human being to develop spiritually while still engaging in a certain amount of sexual activity. But that is provided that not too much importance is attached to that activity, that our emotions are not invested in that sexual activity to a very great extent, and provided especially that there is a strong spiritual ideal seated right at the centre of the mandala.

Obviously, we have here to be very careful that we don't engage in rationalisation,- which is why I am sometimes very reluctant to admit that sex has a place in the mandala at all! I've heard so many men and women say that they are not very deeply involved in their sexual relationships, but who nonetheless absolutely broke down and were completely demoralised when their sexual partner left them.

Nagabodhi: But how is one to know when one is over-investing?

Bhante: You should ask your spiritual friends to tell you. It is very difficult to tell yourself. Of course, if you want to spend as much time as you possibly can with your sexual partner, then you've probably put them in the centre of your mandala.

You may also notice - or your friends will notice - that if you have a sexual partner and are very attached to them, you tend to relate in a certain way, engage in almost meaningless communication simply to reassure yourself that the other is still there. You find that people who are involved in a sexual relationship often do this. This suggests quite deep attachment and emotional dependence, which is not at all desirable.

Then, if you want to make sure that your sexual relationship really is towards the periphery of your mandala, you should be very careful not to spend too much time with the person you're having the sexual relationship with, and preferably not live with them. And you should ensure that you have strong friendships with members of your own sex.

In the FWBO, as you know, people who are having sexual relationships often live in separate communities, the man living in a men's community, the woman living in a women's community. I would say that this not only helps to ensure that the sexual relationship occupies only a peripheral place in those two people's mandalas, but also assures a happier, more truly human relationship between them, because they allow themselves space.

Nagabodhi: Would fidelity be an important factor in a 'successful' relationship?

Bhante: Fidelity is faithfulness over a long period of time, especially in the absence of the friend or sexual partner. It implies not only time: it implies space. It implies the ability, or the capacity, to behave in the absence of a friend, or a sexual partner, as though they were present. And you can only behave as though they were present if you have a strong sense of their existence when they're not actually there with you.

For this to be possible you must dwell much more on the 'mental' level - using that term in the Buddhist sense - than on the physical. You must be less susceptible to every passing physical stimulation, be less carried away by the senses, and live less in the present in a forgetful sort of way. Fidelity is a very human, very individual quality, like friendship or 'impersonal' love in the sense of metta. You are able to look ahead, able to imagine - or to feel - the presence of another person who is not physically with you. This suggests that you don't just see the other person as a body: you have some consciousness of them as a mind, as a 'spirit' if you like, and you relate to them in that way and on that level.

Fidelity is of course different from attachment. Perhaps it isn't always easy to distinguish between the two. Fidelity is a positive quality, whereas attachment is not. When you practise fidelity towards someone, you are, as it were, valuing them for their own sake. But when you're attached to them, you are wanting something from them for YOUR sake.

So I've observed that men and women can have very happy relationships, including sexual relationships, provided they live quite independent lives, and see each other just from time to time. When the man and the woman have each placed Enlightenment firmly at the centre of their mandala, they've got something to get on with; their lives don't centre around their sexual partners. Then, paradoxically, the relationship becomes more satisfactory, and they can relate more as human beings. You have to strike a sort of happy balance, where you see someone sufficiently often to keep up a continuity of contact, but not so often that you become attached, or become bored with each other's company.

Then, if you are committed to a spiritual way of life, or if you are committed to your personal development, and if you do see your sexual partner infrequently, and if you do both live in single sex spiritual communities, and if you have strong friendships with members of your own sex, and if you are making a very determined effort to develop spiritually, with the help of meditation, with the help of Dharma study, altruistic activity, retreats, and so on, then the danger of over-investment in a sexual relationship will be far less.

Nagabodhi: Obviously, many couples live together in order to bring up a family. They might argue that having and nurturing children is itself a spiritually challenging activity. Would you agree?

Bhante: Well, every human activity can be regarded as having a spiritually demanding aspect. There is always the possibility of a skilful, positive response, and of an unskillful, negative response.

Supposing it rains. You can have a positive response to the fact that it is raining, but does that mean that rain is, as such, a spiritual experience? In the same way, if you have children, you can be patient, forbearing, kindly, - and that can be a spiritual experience. But that does not mean that having children is, itself, a spiritual experience any more than the weather is.

Raising children and helping them to get on in the world can be a challenging and creative pursuit, but I would say that there are already far too many beings in the world who have never had that help, and who need that help; it would probably be much better for us to direct our attention towards THEM.

Nagabodhi: Even so, as you mentioned a moment ago, bearing children is a major issue - and a major source of conflict - for some women. Is there any general advice that you would offer?

Bhante: Some years ago I wouldn't have ventured to give a piece of general advice. Now I very definitely do. Quite a few women in the FWBO have experienced tremendous conflict between the very genuine desire to lead a spiritual life, and the desire for a child. I have come to the conclusion, after discussing the matter with quite a number of women, and observing women in the Movement who have children, that, if a woman has a genuine desire for the spiritual life, then having a child will not in the long run get in the way.

Of course, for two or three years, she will be very tied down by the child. She won't be able to go on retreats; she may not even be able to attend classes at the Centre, or able to attend Order meetings. She will have to be patient. But that period of almost total dependence of the child on its mother does come to an end; the mother does become more free with the passing of every year. And, if the mother's original interest in, or commitment to, the spiritual life has been genuine or sincere, it will re-emerge, and be free to express itself again.

Of course, if her involvement isn't very strong, the likelihood is that, even if she doesn't have a child, she will drift away from the spiritual life. Men often drift away from the spiritual life without even thinking about having children!

Nagabodhi: I believe you have said that heterosexual sexual activity and attitudes can have a polarizing effect on the individual, leading him or her to a one-sided kind of development. Could you say a bit more about this?

Bhante: If you're involved in a heterosexual relationship, you think of yourself as a man, the other person as a woman, or of yourself as a woman, the other person as a man. In other words, you don't relate to your partner so much as an individual, but as just a man or just a woman. So, within the relationship, only half your total 'nature', has an opportunity to express itself,- because a human being is not 'just a man', or 'just a woman': there are other potentialities too.

Then, if one relates predominantly as a member of THIS sex or THAT sex, the qualities and characteristics associated with the opposite sex are not developed; one becomes one-sided in one's psychological, and possibly even in one's spiritual, development. Thus you get the very 'macho' man and the extravagantly feminine woman, in whom the complementary qualities of the opposite sex have no opportunity to develop.

A human being should try to develop the whole range of human qualities: the so-called 'masculine' and the so-called 'feminine', and in this way become - to talk in these 'sexual' terms - androgynous. This doesn't necessarily mean that a man will become bisexual or a woman will become bisexual; they may continue to confine their sexual activities to partners of the opposite sex. But, nonetheless, they will have developed - if they're truly, psychologically androgynous - the psychological and spiritual qualities of, so to speak, both sexes.

Nagabodhi: Is there less risk of polarisation, attachment, or psychological projection in homosexual relationships than in heterosexual ones?

Bhante: It's very difficult to generalise. I get the impression that, among men who might be described as 'professionally gay', sexual relationships can become quite turbulent. But where the men concerned are not actually gay, or not gay in an extremely one-sided way, it is possible for them to have a relationship in which sex may play a part, if not a very important part.

The case of women is rather different. So far as I've observed - and of course I am generalising - sexual relationships between women can result in very powerful emotional attachments of a very 'heavy' kind. Sex, and the emotions associated with sex, play a much more important, and in a way constant, part in the life of a woman than in the life of a man. So when two women come together, you tend to get a much more emotionally charged relationship.

Nagabodhi: But do you think that people who are looking for a clearer sexual mode might at least benefit from experimenting with homosexuality?

Bhante: I don't think one can experiment with homosexuality - or even with heterosexuality come to that - on purely rational grounds. It simply doesn't work. The essence of the matter is that there is a natural, spontaneous attraction, whether sexual or non-sexual.

Nagabodhi: But is anybody 100% heterosexual or homosexual?

Bhante: There are people who appear to be 100% heterosexual, and to have not even the slightest homosexual inclination; but it is very hard to be sure. The least one can say is that the majority of people, under certain conditions, would be able to find at least some sexual satisfaction with members of their own sex.

But, you see, we've made it all into such a big deal; we've classified and labeled people as 'heterosexual' and 'homosexual'. You can speak of certain actions as homosexual actions, or others as heterosexual, but can you speak of individuals as either 'homosexual' or 'heterosexual'?

I don't like people being spoken of as 'gay', or speaking of themselves as 'gay', as though their sexual identity is the most important thing about them. I don't blame them too much, because that attitude is a reaction against years - even centuries - of oppression of people engaged in homosexual activities by people who did not engage in homosexual activities, but it is nevertheless unfortunate.

This raises an issue which is, I think, quite a serious problem for Western men, and especially perhaps for those involved in Buddhism. Spiritual friendship is important, and it can only arise on a basis of ordinary friendship. Friendship implies closeness, mutual confidence, intimacy, and even physical contact.

For most people in the West it would seem that physical contact occurs in association with sex. We consequently seem to confuse the two, or to regard the two as being inseparable. Purely physical contact is therefore quite difficult for people to obtain, especially, I think, for men to obtain from other men. Normally, in the case of other men, there's no 'danger' of sexual involvement. Even so, men find it quite difficult to experience physical contact with other men because of their fear of homosexuality.

I've observed cases where men are even afraid to give each other a brotherly hug! It may take them years to get through that. And when they succeed in doing it, they are quite overwhelmed and overjoyed, as if they've had a real breakthrough! This illustrates the terrible mess we've got ourselves into; such a simple thing has become an enormous problem.

During the time when I was living at the Hampstead Buddhist Vihara, I was quite celibate. Even so, I remember how bothered some people were by my close friendship with Terry Delamare. Actually, as they really ought to have taken for granted, that was a completely Platonic relationship,- in fact it wasn't a relationship in the ordinary sense at all, and certainly not a sexual relationship. The crux of the matter seemed to be people's inability to believe that there could be a close friendship between two men without their being a sexual element.

Women, generally, seem much less inhibited in this respect. They don't hesitate to put their arms round each other's waists or hug each other; they even kiss each other quite freely. Men normally would not dream of doing such things, and limit their contact. Because of that, they very often limit the possibilities of friendship with other men. And so, because they don't develop friendship with other men, they don't develop SPIRITUAL friendship with other men. And because they don't develop spiritual friendship with other men, they're not able to develop what the Buddha declared to be the most important element in the spiritual life.

Nagabodhi: So what can Western men do about this?

Bhante: They must break down their fear of homosexuality, by facing it, and by not being afraid of sexual contact with other men.

This is not necessarily to say that they should have sexual contact with men, but at least that they should not be afraid of the idea. They have to realise that physical, and even sexual, contact between men is JUST physical or sexual contact between men. It is a quite ordinary thing, and one's fear of that should not be allowed to get in the way of one's friendships.

Nagabodhi: Some while ago, I believe you did engage in some sexual 'experimentation' yourself. Could you say something about that?

Bhante: In 1967, when I returned from India to start the FWBO, there was a lot of talk about the place of sex in communication. I therefore thought I should perhaps experiment a little in this field.

In those days, everything seemed to be in the melting pot. I was, in a sense, free to do what I wanted, free to do whatever I felt was best. It was a very important period, a creative period: I was giving all those classes, all those lectures. This was also the period of my experimentation with psychedelic drugs, the period when I let my hair grow. . . You could say I was feeling my way, feeling my way around.

I think I've always been guided by instinct or intuition. I very much tend to DO, and then worry about the implications afterwards. I'm sure that appetite did play some part in the 'experimentation', but it was all definitely more to do with intuition than appetite.

Nagabodhi: The ancient Greeks encouraged 'educative', erotically charged, friendships, especially between older and younger men. Did you have something like this in mind?

Bhante: No, I don't think it was from this point of view at all. I have had hundreds of pupils and disciples without there being any sexual element entering into the relationship. When I engaged in my period of 'experimentation', it wasn't so much within a pedagogic context, as just in a context of ordinary friendship. Of course one can learn from friends, but the experimentation wasn't part of the education of some other person. I was just exploring certain things for my own benefit, for the satisfaction of my own curiosity.

But even now, I don't think I could really explain what it was that I was intuitively reaching for - without setting myself to write about it seriously, when I can really 'dig around' and ask myself what I really felt about things. I do in fact intend to describe this period in a volume of memoirs, which I hope to write in the next few years.

Nagabodhi: Did you come away from that period of experimentation with any conclusions?

Bhante: One of my conclusions was that sex didn't really play much of a part in human communication. Bodily contact sometimes functioned as a MEANS of breakthrough in communication, but it didn't result in a permanent breakthrough: it only gave one a certain opportunity, which one then had to develop. Sometimes the breakthrough came to an end and things were as they were before. In fact, that was almost always the came. So I came to the conclusion that sexual contact wasn't really much help in developing human communication, and again I ended up celibate.

At the same time, I CAN definitely say that, in the case of certain people, I found that having physical contact with them (and I'm speaking now of physical, not sexual contact) certainly did release them from their fear of homosexuality, and enabled them to develop friendships - by which I mean non-sexual friendships - with other men more easily.

Nagabodhi: In the early days of the FWBO you seemed to be very patient with our tendencies to sexual distraction and sexual indulgence. Were you as tolerant and patient as you seemed?

Bhante: I had no choice but to be patient! I was starting out - in the 'permissive' Sixties - with people who were, on the whole, completely fresh to Buddhism. I was more concerned that people should develop some sympathy for Buddhist ideals, and gradually bring their conduct into line with those ideals. I didn't take the view that, 'Well, you've got to give up all your present unskillful actions and mental attitudes, and THEN we can start thinking about Buddhism.' That would simply not have worked. So I mainly followed what I afterwards called the 'path of irregular steps'.

Nagabodhi: Were you ever afraid that the FWBO might disappear in a cloud of sexual permissiveness?

Bhante: Well, sexual permissiveness is not the only danger. We mustn't dwell too much upon that, even though we are at present dealing with the subject of sex. The FWBO could dissolve for all sorts of reasons, and there will always be the danger of it dissolving so long as, within the FWBO, and within the Order especially, we don't have a sufficient number of Stream Entrants. If you're not a Stream Entrant you can resile from the spiritual life, you can resile from your commitment to the Three Jewels; you can become anything, do anything.

Nagabodhi: But do you think that we in the West need to work harder at our understanding of the third precept than those from a more traditional, Eastern culture?

Bhante: I think we have to fight against a cultural message that overvalues sex and regards sex as an unqualified good. A lot of people still think that so long as you don't actually harm people you can have - should have - as much sex as you please. Because of this attitude, there's no understanding of the fact that if you want to develop spiritually, then sex has to take a peripheral place.

We're living in a transitional period. Formerly the great disincentive, particularly for the woman, was the fear of pregnancy. That fear has been largely removed, and people find themselves (or, at least until the advent of AIDS, found themselves) free to engage in sexual activity without the fear of consequences. This has certainly altered attitudes towards sex. But there have been side-effects: the contraceptive pill does have certain physical dangers for some women; then, it may be doubted whether promiscuous sex is necessarily very psychologically satisfying, or even healthy. Perhaps the freedom with which people can now have sex has resulted in an altogether disproportionate amount of attention being given to it.

Nagabodhi: More recently, you have been encouraging us to think more seriously about, and to aim ourselves more decidedly towards, celibacy.

Bhante: Well, in the early days, most of our early members were in their twenties or even in their late teens. One could not really expect or demand celibacy of people of that age. But those who were twenty-five or even younger when they joined us are now in their forties. People of that age can certainly start thinking seriously about celibacy,- and I have asked people to do no more than that: just to think about it seriously.

Nagabodhi: Though you do seem content that a few people are taking the Anagarika precepts - which include a 'vow' of celibacy.

Bhante: I'm not only content: I'm very pleased that they are. They are really nailing their colours, their saffron colours if you like, to the mast. But I never urge anyone to take the vow of celibacy. When people tell me they want to take such a vow, I almost invariably ask them to think about it for a while longer.

One can be a member of the Western Buddhist Order without being celibate. One is only asked to keep one's sex life at the periphery, or towards the periphery, of one's personal mandala,- or at the very least not too near the centre. But if one can be celibate in a non-neurotic way, in a positive and healthy way, I'm sure that will enable one - other factors being equal - to develop spiritually more rapidly, and enable one to be more free to be of use to the Dharma and of use to other human beings.

Nagabodhi: What would be the distinction between a 'neurotic' and a healthy, 'non-neurotic' celibacy

Bhante: You could be celibate because you were so absorbed by the beauty and attractiveness of the spiritual ideal, that sex just didn't interest you. That would be a very healthy sexual mode. But then you could be celibate out of guilt, or for the sake of some material advantage. You could be celibate for all sorts of quite negative reasons, which would be neurotic.

It certainly isn't just a question of being celibate. Being physically celibate by itself probably has very little value. What is more valuable is being RELATIVELY celibate because the main object of one's emotional energies is something of a higher order. You can't be healthily and happily celibate unless you are celibate for the sake of a higher cultural, artistic,, humanitarian, or spiritual interest. You could even say that sexual frustration takes place when you don't have at the centre of your mandala an interest or an ideal which absorbs your emotional energies.

Nagabodhi: In the Udana, Sundarananda complains that his mind is always dwelling on the beautiful girl he left behind when he became a monk. The Buddha takes him to a heavenly realm, and shows him goddesses of even greater beauty. What is the teaching there for us?

Bhante: Sundarananda's experience represents an experience of beauty more refined that ordinary human beauty. So he becomes less attracted, less attached, to lower, human beauty.

I don't think that while still remaining on the level of ordinary human beauty you can simply put it all behind you. You only have a reason for doing that if you have a glimpse of a higher, heavenly beauty.

Nagabodhi: So what are we to do? Pay more visits to the art gallery?

Bhante: A visit to the local art gallery is not to be despised. Then there is refined music, or engaging in a creative activity. This can certainly absorb one's energies.

Then of course there is meditation. So long as you haven't developed Insight you will be swaying between engaging in sex and experiencing sexual craving, and being free from that craving. So, in order to make spiritual progress while continuing to have sex, you have to ensure that the sex is peripheral, and that you are mentally free from the hindrance of sexual desire for sufficient periods, from time to time, to be able to achieve higher states of consciousness, and on that basis develop Insight. Once Insight starts being developed, then of course you are attacking the craving at the source. The more you do of that, then the weaker any craving will become.

Nagabodhi: So there is a sort of gradual path to celibacy: taking some of these things on, developing Insight, adding these refined elements to our lives?

Bhante: Yes indeed! - Like a caterpillar passing from leaf to leaf. While with his rear legs he is still adhering to one leaf, with his front legs he is grasping hold of another. And he doesn't pull his rear legs forward onto the new leaf until he has planted his front legs very securely on the front leaf.

It is quite impossible to give up everything all at once, though some spiritual disciplines seem to demand that: 'Give up everything to God: give up everything to the Guru...' I don't think that is humanly possible; you may have a nervous breakdown if you try. But at least seize hold of the spiritual, just like the caterpillar seizing hold of that leaf with his front legs. In a sense, it doesn't matter if you've got two front legs on that new leaf and twenty legs back on the old leaf: at least you've grasped hold of that new leaf. Then you can proceed to haul yourself slowly forward.

Psychologically and spiritually speaking, it's not so much a question of just giving up the old, but of seizing hold of the new while you are still, to some extent, involved with the old, even trapped in the old. Just make sure you do seize hold of the new, and try to seize hold of it more and more. Don't think there's no point in seizing hold of the new because you haven't yet completely relaxed your hold on the old. There are degrees of celibacy. Everybody is celibate to some extent, and everybody is non-celibate to some extent. No one is engaging in sexual activity all the time (I'm speaking here about physical celibacy), and nobody, except for Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, is celibate in body, speech, and mind all the time.

One should therefore understand the PRINCIPLE of celibacy, which in Buddhism is called Brahmacharya. This can be translated as the 'divine life', or even the 'angelic life'. It represents a transition from a lower to a higher sphere, from the kamaloka to the rupaloka, from the rupaloka to the Brahmaloka. Brahmacharya means, literally, walking with, or 'faring' with Brahma - Brahma meaning a very lofty, spiritual state. When you are celibate in body, speech, and mind, well, you dwell in that state. But you're TRYING to dwell in that state all the time. Some people make a nearer approach to it, others don't succeed in approaching so near. But everybody, one might say, is to some extent on their way - even if only by accident.

Of course, If you're leading a specifically spiritual life, if you've taken up the Brahmacharya, you can try to be more and more celibate. If, for instance, you normally engage in sexual intercourse once a week, then try to make it once a fortnight, or once a month, or even once a year, as some of our friends do. In that way you gradually detach yourself from attachment to the material world, from the senses, from unskillful pleasures, and you experience skilful pleasures more and more intensely, and pursue them.

I see the FWBO - and the Order especially - as never standing still. I would like too see everybody involved with the Movement, everybody involved with the Order, becoming more and more celibate, every day if you like.

I'm not asking anyone to give up sex all at once; I'm not expecting them to do that. But inasmuch as I expect people to progress a little every day, then I expect them, in a way, to give up a little bit of sex every day, so that over the years there is an appreciable difference - so that overt sexual activity plays a smaller and smaller part in their lives.

Nagabodhi: You've said from time to time that, so far as you can see, the monk's life is the happiest life you can imagine. To what extent is their celibacy a factor in that?

Bhante: Well, I must first define what I mean by 'the monk's life'. I don't mean a formally monastic life; I don't mean simply wearing yellow robes and shaving one's head; and I certainly don't mean being celibate in a neurotic way. By the monk's life I mean a life totally devoted to the Dharma, in one way or another, a life which is, so to speak, wedded to the Dharma. I certainly see THAT as the happiest life, and I've certainly seen many, many very happy monks - in the formal sense - in the East. Very often they did seem to be much happier than the lay people who were presumably indulging in the enjoyment of all the worldly pleasures. I won't say that the monks were always strictly celibate; sometimes they weren't. But they were certainly much more celibate than the lay people! And, at the very least, they were to that extent happier.

Seven Years’ experience of Working At Windhorse Trading

Akasaraja
first published in 'Articles Shabda', May 2004

This account has been written as a response to the on-going discussions in the Order surrounding Windhorse. I have seen how easy it is to have strong opinions about such an institution, and it sometimes seems that the strength of the views held can be in inverse proportion to the amount of personal experience of the institution itself! I have considerable personal experience of "the Windhorse way" and hope to provide a reasonably balanced account of that experience. I have returned to this article several months after writing and have been tempted to edit it more rigorously, but have decided by and large to let it stand because it still fairly well conveys the flavour of my experience, even if parts of it are speculative or informed by emotional responses rather than detailed investigation of facts. I hope my friends at Windhorse will forgive any statements or inferences that are not in accordance with their experience.

Windhorse remains a very central FWBO institution. Its development mirrors that of the FWBO as a whole, which makes consideration of its history especially relevant as we try to understand where we have come from in the light of where we are now. Windhorse is controversial because it still derives its ethos from ideas and emphases of Urgyen Sangharakshita which have themselves increasingly been called into question in recent times: the New Society ; semi-monasticism; the heroic ideal; the elevation of single-sex "spiritual friendships" above family life. In addition, Windhorse has in recent times come in for criticism for reasons which are not directly attributable to Sangharakshita, although the criticisms may be understood in the light of his teachings on spiritual hierarchy: poor team management with people finding themselves in unsuitable posts by dint of "spiritual status"; a rigidly top-down approach to decision-making with limited transparency; an inflexible and unimaginative approach to the needs of individuals when those needs have financial implications for the business, to name a few. It has been said to be an organisation in which "yes-men" succeed to positions of authority, and mavericks are ostracised; where criticisms of management are stifled, and an atmosphere of superficially positive group behaviour is encouraged. It is perceived as a dinosaur, a backwater of old FWBO cultish practices. This article is an attempt by one whose life has been intimately bound up with Windhorse for over seven years to give a personal perspective on these criticisms and perceptions; one who himself has long had an ambiguous response to "the Windhorse way", and who, whilst continuing to work in the business, now stands to some extent outside its core institutions. It is an episodic, rather than an exhaustive, commentary on my time at Windhorse, because my memory of my history is characterised by episodes that stand out for various reasons and, I hope, illustrate the points I am trying to make.

I first came to Windhorse in the summer of 1996, fresh from a successful two-year stint in Germany as a teacher of English. I already knew the FWBO, having come across it in Cambridge in 1993 prior to leaving for Essen and continued to deepen my engagement during my time in Germany. Those three years had been a formative time for me, and I was returning to the UK having requested ordination into the WBO at the end of the previous year. The FWBO' s approach to friendship had above all helped to open my eyes to what was possible, and I found the prospect of trying out Windhorse an intriguing one, although I had very little idea of what that would entail. I didn't even know what Windhorse sold until after helping to unload my first container - did those boxes contain microwave ovens or TV sets? Beyond Mahasukha I had no idea who ran the place; it may have been weeks or even months before I caught sight of Vajraketu for the first time. Nonetheless, I loved what we were doing: the sheer physical challenge of unloading a 40 foot container of heavy boxes in high summer without any of the newfangled conveyor belts or other labour-saving gadgets they now have, the camaraderie in the team, the healthy vegan lunches. I tolerated the rituals; although they never particularly spoke to me, I could see how important they were to the mythic identity of the warehouse. I enjoyed with astonishment the spontaneous wrestling matches between senior and responsible Order members.

I particularly relished something which has been a vital part of my Windhorse life ever since: carving out a niche for myself with the freedom to do things the way that I wanted. This freedom to do my own thing has characterised pretty much my whole time at Windhorse, which is one area in which my experience radically diverges from the perception of the place as rigidly hierarchical. Mahasukha, who was a wonderful team leader, encouraged me in this. He also had the ability to exhort and inspire and was the first person to open my eyes to the important place of aesthetics in the warehouse. "You can read them" I blustered in defence of my product code labels. "Well, yes, you can read them" he conceded, " but they look dreadful." He was right, and I was grateful.

I was also grateful to Satyaloka, at that time the director in charge of personnel. We lived in the same community, and I was taken with this well-built and good-looking man. I was grateful as a result of two encounters that we had. In the first encounter, he took me into his office and more-or-less told me to stop smoking if I wanted to carry on working for Windhorse. I did want to, so I stopped. This might look like an example of outrageous control freakery; maybe it was, but it had the desired outcome, and I didn't mind in the slightest. The second encounter was after a series of instances of poor communication in which I managed to upset various people through appearing at best condescending and at worst downright sarcastic, all without meaning it or even being aware. Satyaloka took me for a drive and gave it to me directly, but with what I considered to be great kindness. It is horrible to receive criticism, especially of something of which you are unaware, but I felt no need to be defensive and allowed myself to learn a very valuable lesson about something I was doing that was hurting others. Without this knowledge I couldn't have changed. I respected Satyaloka for his ability to be direct without being hurtful, at least in my case.

I loved everything about the place for those first few months. I enjoyed the regularity of the lifestyle with its bells and gongs. I enjoyed not having to worry about food or bills. I enjoyed the presence of Satyaloka and Lalitavajra in the community. I had my own room - relatively uncommon in those days - so wasn't exposed to the discomfort of sharing a room that wasn't designed to be shared with a complete stranger, which was how it worked at that time. The community was bursting at the seams - there were 13 of us in a house that comfortably accommodates no more than 10 - and was fed from a tiny and dirty kitchen that had previously been first the office of Dharmachakra Tapes and then that of the Chairman of the Buddhist centre. Even then it seemed odd that sharing was the assumed norm for the men, whereas most of the women wouldn't have dreamed of it. The filling of community places was done by diktat, and the community changed frequently, which meant that establishing a settled line up in which people could get to know one another properly over a long period of time was impossible. I think no. 19 Newmarket Road had about 30 inhabitants during the time I lived there. I always thought that there was a basic incommensurability between the realities of the business and the aims of community: such a high turnover of people seemed to make it very difficult for a Windhorse community to be a place where deep friendships could be formed. Time and the beginnings of a change in the Windhorse community culture have to some extent changed my mind about this; at any rate I have succeeded in forming and cultivating friendships which had their origin in that community.

Neither no.19 nor no.17 had their own shrine rooms; we used to traipse off down the road to the old Buddhist centre at no. 25 for the 7.15 sit. I remember frequently going over barefoot into the sun rising along Newmarket Road. Always present was a strange shaven-headed character who always appeared to be doing a headcount before the start of the meditation; I used to wonder whether he might be a kind of community policeman taking the register to ensure attendance. I did hear of community members being leaned on to attend morning meditation, as that was what communities did together, which struck me as distinctly off, but it never once happened to me. Ironically enough, the shaven-headed character, Suvannavira, who later became one of my dearest friends, became himself embroiled in a lengthy running battle with members of his community at no. 17 about his own non-attendance at the morning meditation as well as at supper. What people did in communities was quite tightly controlled in those days, a common feature of Windhorse culture in a range of areas, which has possibly led to the accusation of cultishness, but, as I have said, it never really happened to me.

As time went on, some strange and slightly incongruous aspects of the Windhorse culture started to impinge upon me. One of these had to do with the relations between the sexes, or, more accurately, the lack of relations between them. At this time the infamous "no sex in the mandala" rule/principle/idea was adhered to (one senior WT manager was once jokingly heard to say that "we don't have rules, only principles which must be obeyed"!), at least with regard to heterosexual relationships. Homosexual relationships, however, were being carried on, and I heard personally of homosexual encounters occurring in the community I was living in, as well as in others. One of the relationships was between a senior Windhorse Order member and a young and rather mentally disturbed mitra; this has always struck me as a gross dereliction of the duties of kalyana mitrata, but I am not familiar with the particulars, so I merely mention it. It seems that homosexual relationships, no doubt unofficially, were exempt from the rule. This was presumably because relationships between men were deemed to be less subject to neurotic attachment than those between men and women. Anyway, one of the women mitras got wind of what was going on from one of the male mitras - himself subject to a lot of criticism from Order members in the management for spending time with her, apparently because this was upsetting some of the other mitras - and the matter was subsequently referred to the mens' chapters by one of the seniormost Dharmacharinis. This did not seem to lead to much in the way of discussion, at least not such that was fed back to her.

As far as heterosexual relationships were concerned, men and women who struck up friendships often came to be leaned upon quite heavily by the management. Even where no sexual activity was taking place the mere prospect that it might was enough for strong signals to be sent to the people concerned, even for promises to be demanded that no relationship would be started as long as both parties were still at Windhorse. However, glaring incongruities made the whole "principle” difficult to swallow, such as the uncomfortable fact that Vajraketu - the managing director! - and Padmasuri were in sexual relationship throughout the whole period. The official line was that previously existent relationships were exempt from the rule - of course one can sympathise with this, but it could not help but make the whole principle more difficult to take seriously. Anyway, the whole edifice came crashing down, partly under the weight of its internal contradictions and partly because you can't prevent adults in a spiritual community from doing things they want to do, especially if you yourself are doing them! Subsequent experience shows that the arising of sexual relationships within Windhorse has not led to the collapse of civilisation as we know it; people conduct their affairs discreetly and handle their break-ups with dignity. My only brush with the old regime came when the mitra convenor at WT came up and told me that people were being "upset" by my new relationship with a woman mitra, now Utpalavajri. I was annoyed at what I saw as management dirty work being done by someone whom I hardly knew, and stormed up to see Vajraketu. It transpired that he merely wanted those in the company who were in relationships to be discreet - we had been observed slipping off for tea break trysts - and readily conceded that he would be skating on very thin ice of he were to demand that we stop seeing each other! This had been miscommunicated to me by the mitra convenor.

Aside from sexual relationships, normal human relations between the sexes were, to say the least, underdeveloped. Women would have the experience of being cut dead in the corridors of the warehouse; one of the attractive young woman mitras was taken aside by one of the Dharmacaris and asked to reel in her sexual energies and watch how she dressed, as it was apparently affecting some of the other men. The women didn't have the luxury of their own dining room and had to take their lunches back up to the tea room, where they had to eat with their plates on their knees due to the absence of tables; later they got their own dining room with tablecloths and vases of flowers, and we now share a dining room in which men and women sometimes even share tables! As the meals are held in silence it seems unlikely for passionate alliances to be formed in this context.

The whole culture didn't conduce to the development of sensible adult relationships between the sexes. The separation of the sexes was quite possibly harmful in some circumstances because it wasn't complete; the occasions when women and men came together could easily lead to the kind of displays of strutting and chest-beating that Subhuti has referred to in the past. This I remember well from my own experience. Being partially separated yet still around each other could lead to extreme projection and a failure to treat women with awareness of their humanity. One poor French girl who came to the accounts team had several propositions from men she didn't know, none of whom had stopped to consider whether she might already have a boyfriend or even be a lesbian! "The men are so weird!” she was once heard to exclaim. Once I was in a relationship I felt very easy with the women, having as it were a contact on the inside. I wouldn't really know to comment on the way the sexes now generally relate, by my sense is that an easier and more natural communication is now much more widespread than it was at the time.

But I have jumped ahead in my narrative in my pursuit of this theme. I'd like to return now to another aspect of the culture which I experienced much more positively: the much maligned heroic ideal. When I was approached towards the end of 1996 with the view to becoming a Windhorse van salesman, my response was to feel rather honoured. There was a perception at the time that the salesmen were the elite force: those who operated "out there" on their own, driving all hours through all weathers in the tireless pursuit of sales. They were removed from the comparative safety of the Cambridge warehouse, left to organise their own lives and to get on with their own practice in what could be quite hostile conditions. This idea, as will be no surprise, attracted me strongly, and it was as a Windhorse salesman that I experienced all this to be true and found my first love in the business. I am again a van salesman, about to start monthly trips to Scotland, and I still powerfully experience the pull of the open road. Once you have been a van man it becomes very difficult to settle into any other more regulated sphere of work, well, that is how it was for me. I found in van work a natural avenue for expression of a heroic ideal that seemed to push the boundaries in the pursuit of a higher aim, and enjoyed an experience of team work beyond anything else in the business. We laughed a lot, recounted stories of the week in a speedy fashion at Pizza Express on the Friday, enjoyed the badinage of the office, the brotherhood of loading days. Some of the landscapes were staggeringly beautiful, some of the customers became friends. I remember standing in the lounge of one of my favourite customers near Worcester, listening to a bright eleven year old playing the piano, thinking to myself, how has this arisen? It was magical. We felt special: it's interesting to see how new van men start to swagger after a few trips out. We had total responsibility for our designated areas. We worked hard: 12 or 14 hour days were not, indeed, are not uncommon. It is this sense of the heroic that I tend to miss these days; it's become increasingly difficult to find new salesmen from the warehouse. This may well be because the warehouse teams have succeeded admirably in their endeavour to make work there so rich and attractive that people are reluctant to leave; indeed I feel this to be at least partly the case and rejoice in their efforts. Perhaps the heroism finds a quieter expression amongst the boxes. I imagine that the men in the warehouse value their friendships and dislike the idea of being separated from their friends; despite the criticisms voiced earlier, Windhorse has always been strong when it comes to fostering close friendships between men. Nonetheless, I also wonder whether people know what they are missing; if you are inclined to solitude and self-sufficiency as I am, then I can imagine no better life anywhere within the institutions of the FWBO. It has its attendant risks: I once fell briefly but calamitously in love with a married customer when a long and comfortable visit to her shop turned to the cold shudders of incipient desire and a brief embrace and kiss in the back of the shop. Minutes later her husband turned up. My world fell apart and I felt the twin tortures of guilt and unobtainable happiness. Manjusiddha, then team leader, helped me through this with a kindly smile and a broad shoulder, for which I was very grateful.

Despite the fact that van work was by far my favourite occupation, it seemed that my chances of ordination were being hindered because I was not making myself known to the Order members in the situation. One could with some justification argue that it was their business to reach out to me - indeed Saddharaja apologised to me after my ordination because he felt I'd been somewhat let down - but I have considerable sympathy with the position of responsibility of senior Windhorse Order members to so many mitras. I also was starting to feel a bit disconnected from the mandala. I therefore decided to join the other half of the sales team: that half based at the office and responsible for large non-van customers and trade shows. I lasted three days, and those three days were hell. I've never really worked out why; it was certainly nothing to do with the people, or even the depressingly complex and Byzantine Top Shop despatch procedure that Anomaketu tried to explain to me on my first day. Vilasavajra, one of the most consistently positive and kindest men I have ever met (a member of the Windhorse management forum), tried to understand and to help me, but there was nothing for it but retreat into the familiar comforts of the warehouse, where I joined the Evolution Supply team.

I quickly started to see that things were not well in the EST. Communication between the warehouse and the shops appeared to be poor and often based on mistrust, and the ethos of service that is so essential to the success of a wholesale business was very underdeveloped. It seemed to me that the needs of the shops weren't taken especially seriously, and the convenience of the EST took too high a priority. Some of us set out to reform this, and we gradually introduced a culture of service into our relationship with the shops, which did not go unnoticed. It seems appropriate here to point out one of the key changes of recent months: the change in business nomenclature from "Windhorse Trading" to "Windhorse:Evolution". This may seem pure semantics, but it reflects a re-evaluation of the nature of the relationship between the "centre" and the shops: an orientation towards partnership, which was what we were striving for in the EST back in 1999. This is still being developed today.

I enjoyed my work in the warehouse. However, I felt I'd run out of projects, and it still seemed that I wasn't getting close enough to the senior Order members in the business, so I made the decision to transfer to the office to work with Vajraketu and Keturaja, partly having in mind the need to cover for Manjusura during his ordination course. This happened in early 2000. I shall skim over much of this time, but a few observations are relevant. One observation: neither Keturaja or Vajraketu ever seemed to attend Right Livelihood meetings. Viewed in a particular light this is entirely understandable - both men are key players with a great weight of responsibility, and Keturaja must at that time have been starting to contemplate the Great Warehouse Move - but it still struck me as odd that two of the directors of the business were not participating in the exploration of the themes of Right Livelihood because they were too busy. It was more disinterested curiosity on my part - I have personally almost never found Right Livelihood meetings interesting or useful - but one of the implications of this peculiar fact has been, and remains, very relevant to the Windhorse set up: too few individuals have too much to do, and those individuals have been poor at delegating. Even if work is delegated, it is not fully delegated, so individuals do not feel empowered. Additionally, those who are deemed to be experienced tend to have so much to do that they don't have time to pass on what jobs they could pass on, with the result that they have to keep doing them. This seems particularly pronounced in the women's teams, and it cannot be coincidence that a number of good women have left in the last couple of years with symptoms of burnout, two of them having left the FWBO altogether. To have to shout louder and louder to get the fact across to people that you can't cope whilst being told that you can must be incredibly frustrating. Again, I'm not speaking from personal experience, but I do have very reliable testimony that this has been the case. Stress-related illness has been commonplace in the women's teams, and I don't believe it is only experienced there. People complaining of not being heard seems to be symptomatic of poor human resources management. This is barely surprising, as none of the individuals involved in management have any formal management training; in addition I believe that the confusion between spiritual and temporal hierarchy has in some cases left us with a situation in which individuals who are not suited to personnel management find themselves in positions of team leadership. Happily, though, we have moved on from the misguided view that being an Order member automatically qualifies one to run a team!

My time with the so-called "Wombles" (they pick up the messes that others leave behind) was a mixed bag. Highlights included working with Karunaghosha - I have fond memories of driving up to the landfill site with him to dispose of old office furniture - occasional stints of secretarial work for Vajraketu, and learning how to edit a magazine. Unhappily though, the work I ended up doing was by and large not the work I had signed up for; I had envisaged working as Vajraketu's PA, but finished up instead with several odd jobs, such as vehicles manager (that poisoned chalice), one-off editor of Kantaka, the Windhorse:Evolution in-house magazine, waste disposal man as above, and warehouse reorganiser. This was okay, but the lack of clarity around my job and my lack of effective communication with Keturaja bothered me. Blame can be laid at both our doors - I thought he was too busy to liaise, and he thought the same of me! - but it does further highlight the poor personnel management mentioned above. Eventually it was Ratnadaka who suggested that I might be a square peg in a round hole, and I realised at that point that I should move on. By then I had received my invitation to Guhyaloka, so March 2001 seemed a fitting juncture for my departure.

Around this time I was fully involved in the Cambridge Buddhist Centre drama group. Visada had provided the main impetus back in '99 or '98 to get us organised to put on some Shakespeare in our lovely new theatre, and we had cut our teeth on Twelfth Night, or, at least, scenes therefrom with a linking narrative by Suvarnagarbha. Doing Shakespeare had been considered out of our reach, but we defied expectations by producing something watchable. We followed it up with a full-length production of Measure for Measure, also directed by Visada, and then, shortly before my ordination retreat, a version of Macbeth directed by myself. I have seldom become as passionately involved in anything, including explicit Dharma practice. At the time I was also involved with the Cambridge Experimental Theatre, a group run by Richard Spaul, whose work centres around improvisation with and without text. His skill opened vistas of possibility that had hitherto seemed unimaginable; I had no idea that I was capable of such emotional range. A lot of the work was quite sensual, even sexual, and I became aware of the power of drama to free up even quite dangerous energies. The same was true of our own work. During Twelfth Night I fell in love and began the relationship mentioned before that endures to this day; during Measure for Measure various people got into, and came out of, relationships, including our director, whose off-stage life was threatening to engulf the whole project. My part in the play was the Lord Angelo, hard-line deputy to the duke of Vienna, who is charged with the task of reversing the moral decline of the city, but who falls in lust with a beautiful nun who comes to him to intercede for her brother, committed for fornication by the same deputy. In one scene I was to assault her sexually (the actress fortunately happened to be my girlfriend); an effective piece of theatre but a very challenging thing to have to do. I needed to access very strong dark emotions to carry it off, and these dark, powerful forces carried over into my normal life; I remember going back to my community room after a performance, seeing my room-mate sleeping peacefully, and feeling that the orderly, angelic Buddhist life was simply insupportable at this point. I wanted to set fire to the house, go and dance with the dark spirits, go and proposition Visada's girlfriend, who I thought might not any longer be his girlfriend. Utpalavajri and I had split up earlier that evening (we split up a lot in those days), so it was obviously alright...no, it wasn't but I was going to do it anyway. I lurked outside the theatre, was spotted by Simone, and asked her out for a coffee (although I doubt if an invitation for coffee could have been more erotically charged than that). She quite rightly said no, pointing out that she was waiting for Visada. She was upset, I was upset, Utpalavajri was upset when I told her what I'd done. It was a mess. But it was a creative mess; at least, it had emerged from a creative event. We collectively introduced an important new element into Cambridge Buddhist life, which enriched it considerably. The main point of this is that the very nature of theatre of this kind requires the injection of a certain degree of chaos - a deviation from the Apollonian norms of Bhante's FWBO as represented by my room-mate's sleeping head caught in a shaft of gentle moonlight. Exploration of emotional depths is a growth experience which is inherently risky. However, alarm bells had been ringing at Windhorse, and we were told that support would be withdrawn from future projects unless a person external to the situation were brought in as cast Kalyana Mitra, so that the events surrounding Measure would not be repeated. This was irrespective of the fact that several of the cast were non-Windhorse Buddhists from the Cambridge mandala, and that the project was a CBC one rather than a Windhorse one: a distinction that was lost. Desperately keen to go ahead with Macbeth, I went along with this to the point of approaching a couple of people but decided after a while that the cast could do its own policing. I therefore simply let the matter drop, and everything was fine - we put on a good play in harmony with each other, and I felt very satisfied to have done so. I went off to Guhyaloka in good spirits and got ordained that summer.

So what was going on here? I think a mix of things. One level there was of course a concern for our well-being, there being hardly any areas of creativity with such potential for suffering as theatre. The fallout was plain, and people were concerned. On another level I think another Windhorse tendency was being manifested here: the fear of allowing responsible adults to make mistakes. We were a group of adults, some Windhorse, some not, who wanted to create something new in the mandala. It was not a Windhorse project. It had its dangers, and some of us were burnt by the experience. But our lives were greatly enriched by close and prolonged contact with Shakespeare's genius. The nature of life is that you make mistakes and, hopefully, learn by them, which we did, but it seems to me now that we were not trusted to make those mistakes. Perhaps there was a fear that we would somehow rock the boat. I feel that this reluctance to allow people to screw up has manifest itself in other areas too: that people have until recently not had any choice about how they live while at Windhorse strikes me as having had something of this flavour to it, and the infamous "no sex in the mandala" rule of course. Perhaps the thinking is that people are not mature enough to be left to their own devices. At any rate, it felt like control, and I regret having gone along with it to the extent that I did. I don't know what would have happened if I had simply refused; I hope we would have gone ahead anyway as a free collection of individuals. It has more recently occurred to me that the management team at Windhorse are orderly and Apollonian types, so it is not surprising that order should be valued (of course there are things about their lives I do not know - I hope they will forgive me for giving voice to an impression!) and chaos mistrusted; also, of course, for a business to be successful there needs to be order. But I feel strongly that the long arm of Windhorse overreached itself on this occasion, and that a more appropriate vehicle for "guarding the mandala" (such being the motivation subsequently explained to me by one of the directors) would surely have been the council of the Cambridge Buddhist Centre.

I shall finish the narrative at this point, as I feel this article to be quite long enough. I do however want to acknowledge the far-reaching changes in style and substance that have more recently been set in train, although there is still much to do. Management has become more inclusive and more transparent as the realisation has dawned that Windhorse:evolution is not the small circle of friends it used to be. Fora have now been created for everybody concerned to voice their feelings and concerns. The lifestyle question has been addressed and a relaxation of control has resulted. I now live by myself - indeed was given encouragement to do so - and work part-time, and I hope that my contribution is valued. The committed continue to give their lives to this important on-going project, and I hope they will accept my criticisms in the spirit in which they are meant, challenging them where appropriate. I continue to work for Windhorse because I love and respect those who have given their lives to it - special mention of Vajraketu here, who is a shining example of a practitioner of the Four Right Efforts! - because I value our institutions all the more dearly as more and more people in the Order and community (thanks Danavira) turn their backs on them, and because Windhorse, for all its faults, is a manifestation of good in the world