Some past problems with the F/WBO, their legacy and the need for change

Satyaloka

First published in Articles Shabda, August 2003

Those who cannot remember their past are condemned to repeat it.
- George Santayana

History is the essence of innumerable biographies.
- Thomas Carlyle

In a recent Shabda report Advayacitta expressed consternation at the differences in the two accounts given, at different times, by Yashomitra. Do we really think that memory is a mere recalling of pristine facts, rather than an active process of imaginative construction and doesn't our current experience always colour our interpretation of our past? This process is one that I have been struggling with, in reflecting on my twenty-three year history within the FWBO- a process that predated recent events but has certainly been stimulated and intensified by them. What follows does not attempt to be balanced. It speaks more to faults than to that which can be celebrated. There is, of course, much that I value and admire in Sangharakshita and the Order but I wanted to make my points clearly and not risk loosing them by adding too many caveats. The picture is much more complex and nuanced than I have managed to capture. Nor is what follows a tightly argued piece, such as Vipassi's wonderful contribution. It's more a collection of separate threads or thoughts about certain areas, a number of which overlap. I look at:

* The difficulty of getting some objectivity on our situation
* Our relation to the wider culture and other Buddhists
* Power and influence within the FWBO
* The issue of conformity and its relationship to language
* Jungian psychological models
* Reflections arising from the contrast between the UK and US FWBO

It's a particular version of my involvement from 1981 onwards as seen from my current perspective. That involvement has always been a full one, involving Manchester, Padmaloka and Windhorse. From Padmaloka until I left for the US I lived fully within the structures of the FWBO: the so called 'three C's model'. I lived and worked with other Order members. I attended Order weekend and Conventions regularly, as well as study and meditation and Order retreats. I was an energetic and faithful Order member. Because of the way that the Order is structured this account draws on my experience within the men's wing of the Order. I have no real idea how different, if at all, it would look form the 'other side. I could give many different versions of my time in the Order, all of them 'true'; this is one such account. I ask you to be willing to see that I care enough to offer this up as part of the ongoing enquiry.

'Shoes outside the door'

A year or two ago I read the galley proofs of 'shoes outside the door' an account of the rise and fall of Richard Baker at the SF Zen Center and found it fascinating. 'Shoes outside the door' tells a very different story to our own. It ends differently to our own. The cultural context is different, the specifics of the organizational dynamic are different, and yet I think that through the lens it provides, we can see ourselves more clearly. I am not going to attempt to summarize the story. The points of difference and similarity are revealed as one reads and the perspective on our own movement emerges as a kind of gestalt in the midst of this. It's a fascinating read, well written, with elements of real tragedy. Best read in conjunction with 'Crooked Cucumber' the delightful account by David Chadwick of Suzuki Roshi and his founding of the San Francisco Zen center, a story that again parallels Bhante's and our own in many ways and also provides instructive contrasts.

One thing it did was enable me to stand outside the fwbo for a moment and see it more as an objective phenomenon, not an easy thing for someone whom has been so intimately involved with it for so many years. It helped me contextualize the Order as a religio-sociological phenomenon within a broader socio-historical context, having a particular history, 'culture' and trajectory. I think that the Guardian article, even unbalanced as it was, provided such a moment of self-consciousness for many of us all those years ago. Our collective karma ripened and we were granted the wish to see ourselves as others see us and it was a shock, it burst the bubble of our collective delusion. I think that is partly why it occasioned so much psychic pain and why we were so keen to 'put it behind us'. But it turns out we were only stuffing our questions and doubts back down because they made us uncomfortable, afraid. At the time I thought my discomfort was due to having what I loved and revered, Bhante and the FWBO, dragged unfairly through the mud and the extra dimension of embarrassment of my friends and family witness that, but wasn't it also having the unsay able out there and said?

I am saying that at this point it's vital that we find ways to see our situation objectively, to step out side the largely solipsistic world of the Order and the FWBO. I think that those working within the structures of the FWBO for a large a part of their adult lives will naturally have trouble doing so. Perhaps what I am saying is that the movement needs therapy! There needs to be what James Hillman, the archetypal Psychologist, calls a 'therapy of ideas' because some of the ideas that we have been running on are not healthy, they are themselves sick and thus have made us sick. I am not sure how we would go about this beyond saying that we need fresh perspectives, clear critiques. I think that the encouragement for all people within the order to tell their story is an important piece, especially those voices that are not coming from the mainstream, the marginalized voices that carry important information and perspectives that have not been given their place. I think that maybe we need help from outside our own 'club'. We have to drop our defensiveness about the Order, defensiveness against criticism from within and without. I feel that if we fail to do this we will not address deeply enough the situation we have got ourselves into. We will not deal with it adequately and so the healing that is so necessary will be incomplete and we will not learn lessons for the future. The Order and the FWBO will be so much less than it could be. The Gestalt dictum that 'the whole is greater than the sum of the parts' is not true in all situations, often it's less.

Cultural critiques and other Buddhists

The FWBO was always most off- track when 'we', largely echoing Bhante's opinions, pontificated about socio-cultural issues, the state of the wider culture. It's understandable, within the language of the 'New Society' and the 'old' that there would be such a critique. But the very isolation from the wider culture, of those most within the FWBO structures who were involved in the dissemination of ideas, the creation of its culture, contributed at best to a rather naive and over generalized critique, at worst to a laughable parody. Anyone who has lived in the UK during the 80's and 90's of the FWBO will know the sort of thing that I am referring to though they may disagree with my interpretation. Such critiques were part of the Order and FWBO culture of the time. They were the stock in trade of a few speakers who were very regular speaker at the 'Men's Events' at Padmaloka which were the main Order mitra events on the men's side. They were pedalled in talks to the Order at Order weekends etc.

Bhante did strike out from the middle class world of British Buddhism; he was a radical and needed the courage of his convictions to stand-alone. But that conviction could be rather overbearing to be around and tended to stifle debate. Our response to that level of conviction was perhaps the source of the triumphalism that we were so rightly accused of by other Buddhists. This isolation from other Buddhists was actively cultivated by Bhante and seen as necessary to the growth of this fledgling WBO plant and perhaps it was. But somewhere along the way, this hardened into a dogma, no 'shopping around' at the mitra level and certainly no other teachers at the Order level. The WBO/FWBO became effectively isolated from other Buddhist groups. We lost the sense that without cross-pollination plants can't reproduce, they loose their ability to adapt and effectively become sterile. Drawing a term from the realm of agriculture and ecological one could say that metaphorically we ended up with a monoculture and they are vulnerable to disease and infestation. The solution is to re introduce diversity.

Let's not close the canon of WBO practices and ideas. Bhante made an excellent synthesis but it shouldn't ossify into a one off thing. Its very common in the US for teachers to draw from the different traditions as Bhante did all those years ago. A teacher like Roshi Joan Halifax for instance will draw mainly on her Zen tradition but also, depending on the retreat, include Tibetan practices like tonglen, vipassana and mindfulness practices. This is the reality of Buddhism in the US and this is the trend in the larger Western Buddhist world. Yes we need depth of practice and integrity of a tradition but also openness to new possibilities. I know that various Order members have explored vipassana or Dzog Chen for themselves but there still seems so much caution around this issue. I have personally found tonglen practice a great adjunct to metta bhavana. Can we please stop repeating Bhante's caveats about vipassana based on his experience of teaching in the UK 40 years ago ! Things have moved on! I have attended vipassana retreats in the IMS tradition, which were excellent. The dharma teaching matched any I have experienced in the FWBO it was very recognizably broad 'basic Buddhism'. The program was intense but balanced and effective. In fact I felt that our retreats could benefit from the more rigorous meditation and silence practices and have introduced this in a sesshin style to the Sanghas approval and pleasure.

In the field of Dharma Bhante was on target. However, here too, challenges to his views were not that welcome. Those in the UK who ventured outside the fold of the FWBO into the fields of Buddhist academia, found themselves isolated and without a meaningful role in the WBO. Through exposure to original materials and differing strands of thought to Sangharakshita's they came to their own views about certain dharmic issues. They were thinking outside the FWBO box. The universities and academia in general, and perversely Buddhist academia in particular, were pariahs.

For many years we were isolated within the Buddhist world, criticizing other groups through the pages of our magazines. Remember we actually had a section in 'Golden Drum' where we pretty regularly took apart other Buddhist groups, criticizing them for this or that failing. I am not saying that there was no validity in any such criticisms but that they were contaminated by our triumphalism. It was interesting that this critical approach was never turned on ourselves. When the idea of a more balanced approach, one that included some acknowledgement of our own faults, was voiced, Bhante very stridently took a different stance. 'There is too much cynicism and negativity in the culture; the fwbo is such a bright star within an otherwise dark world that we need to praise it and rejoice in it'. One result of Bhante's involvement with editorial policy was that the writing in our magazines was programmed and bland, because so much messy real life experience was being edited out. The personal can approach the universal only when it honestly touches the pulse of a life. Golden Drum and its predecessor rarely reached beyond the parochial concerns of the institutions of the fwbo and the writing often had a smug, self-congratulatory flavour.

Like many others I questioned out loud the value and wisdom of such an approach. I remember the subject as dinner table conversation at Padmaloka with Bhante presiding. The rationale for this approach was that by acting in this way we would certainly put some people off but we would attract more people than we put off or at least would attract those who were robust, which was whom we wanted to attract. One should not waste time helping the weak. Nowadays it's the strong who need help (Peace is a Fire). If one was uncomfortable with this approach then it said something about one's discomfort with speaking out for what one believed in, one's unwillingness to stand up for the movement and its beliefs.

When Order members did start to venture out into the wider Buddhist world, those who had to do the connecting and befriending, some of whom had been exponents of this position, began to change their tune as they saw how unproductive it was to dialogue and exploration. Vocal and sustained criticism is not a good basis for beginning a friendship! Looking back there was a very powerful need for the FWBO and behind that really, for Bhante to be 'right'. We had the answers and it was only a matter of time before other Buddhists would see the light and learn the real approach to the Dharma from us. It's perhaps easy to recognize and understand this phenomenon from the realm of personal life-the overly shrill assertion that attempts to mask one's own uncertainty about oneself or ones capability in a given situation. We were the fledgling tradition trying to establish itself, the 'new Buddhists on the block'. We acted as if we hadn't been socialized very well and didn't know how to find our place in the wider community, how to both stand our own ground yet also recognize the autonomy of others and the possibility that we might have something to learn from them.

I am speaking historically, as with most of this article, and I recognize the good work that Vishvapani has done with making Dharma Life more accessible and relevant to a wider Buddhist audience. I also note that through the work of the communications office and the likes of Kulananda and now Dhammarati who are active on the wider Buddhist circuit that we are taking our place in the western Buddhist community.

Its not about sex, its about Power

I agree with others that the issue we face is not about the sexual exploits of our founder but about the issues of power, authority and authenticity within the WBO. I am not even referring to the power element inherent in Bhante's (teacher-pupil) and other Order member's (order member- mitra) sexual activity. The issue is more why was Bhante not challenged about his behaviour more? Why, when he was challenged and was unwilling to explain himself, was he able to get away with this? The answer is that he was a person with a lot of personal power. It's very hard to stand up against Bhante. But apart from that huge measure of certainty and self- confidence he also held a particular power by virtue of his position as founder, teacher, older male etc

The founder's personality and style inevitably effects what he creates and Bhante himself is cognizant of this in 'My relation to the Order'. We inherited Bhante's radical iconoclastic stance but also some elements of his personality that could be called controlling and autocratic. Both strands played themselves out within the order and movement. The paternalistic and prescriptive culture of the WBO and FWBO are the real problems, not that people messed up in the field of sexual ethics. The way influence worked within the WBO is a very complex and nuanced issue. We had the teaching of spiritual hierarchy and we had Bhante as the exponent. The teaching of spiritual hierarchy is a very tricky; one of those dharmic ideas that when grasped wrongly will turn and bite you. Hierarchy inevitably got mixed up with organizational position and indeed a case was made for their identification along the lines of organizational 'responsibility as a path of development'. Those in organizational positions of responsibility must be there because of their greater level of development. Really it was kind of difficult to see who was spiritually more mature than anyone else in the 80's within the WBO so this fluid concept got rather fixed. As an order member at least you knew you were effectively going for refuge and therefore more along the path than someone who wasn't ordained yet, right? I think that the order member to mitra/ friend relationship in this fixed form became rather unhealthy at times. I am sorry to admit that I have been a party to that style of relating and the consequent inappropriate and unhelpful behaviour on many occasions in my Order career. I have also witnessed both innocuous and downright unpleasant instances of such behaviour as I am sure have you. Order members wielding their little portion of power. Of course there were exceptions, people who naturally refused to operate in that way and good for them. I was not one of them.

For too many years the movement was virtually a closed system, impervious to criticism from within and without. Bizarre views could be maintained within the subculture of the WBO and FWBO because of the lack of genuine exchange of ideas with the wider culture, Buddhist and beyond. Indeed the very setting up of us versus or at least vis-à-vis others Buddhist, non-Buddhist, spiritual, non-spiritual, ' real Buddhists', 'confused Buddhists' played into this. This is the way cults function and I think that one could argue that within our 'movement' there existed some of the elements that constitute a cult. The normalization of bizarre views is one such component, and certain homogeneity or conformity of views is another.

As many have pointed out there was a particular dynamic inherent in Bhante founding the movement as a mature and very capable middle aged man surrounded by un- tried and un- tested young men and women. Don't those very early films of the Order show Bhante the Guru? And while he rejected the term, wasn't his influence profound and far reaching? This degree of influence was both for the good, but also it was very unhelpful. This played itself out in so many ways; the innocent and misplaced aping of Bhante's personal aesthetics- lists that emerged on the first Tuscany Ordination retreats about what works of literature were really worth reading through Bhante's idiosyncratic views on modern art and music. Remember those many books that came to prominence within the Order, and I do not mean the likes of Reginald Ray's 'Buddhist Saints' which I remember Bhante also commended to the Order. Bhante would come across something through his extensive reading and then put the word out about a certain book and we would find a book like 'Ball breaking' getting serious attention, finding its way into our bookshops. Center bookstore buyers were usually compliant to these suggestions. Books were taken up from the wider culture that echoed Bhante's positions and their very marginalisation within the wider culture was almost seen as a kind of proof of their radical vision and veracity. The crude, pugnacious 'Ball breaking' made strange bed- fellows with the leaden prose of 'the closing of the American mind'; what linked them was that they were offered as correctives to various aspects of the all powerful and insidious 'pseudo- liberalism'. I readily confess that I ran with the pack and stocked my bookshelves with these offerings.

I am not 'blaming' individuals for the above, but I am saying that all of us, as a collection of individuals, are responsible. We created the culture of the WBO or actively or tacitly supported it. I am also saying that we need to be on guard for the abuses of language and power, both within ourselves, and the organizations that we create. Individuality is one of the most powerful checks to this. People knowing who they are and standing their ground, speaking their truth. We need fundamental changes in the culture and perhaps the structures of the WBO. The sense I have of the Preceptors College, admittedly from a distance, is of a body of people only gradually coming to the realization that what they were doing wasn't working and wasn't going to work and needed to change. I have the sense that, while realizing there was a real issue as to how the Order would accept them in place of Bhante, they tried to fill a Bhante shaped hole and carry on in much the same way. I get the sense that it is Subhuti who has been the creative force recognizing that this would not work and that change was necessary. The College can't lead the movement. The regionalization idea is a move in the right direction but there probably needs to be a much more radical 'devolution' than that of the structures of the F/WBO. However it's notoriously difficult to bring about cultural change alongside structural change within institutions and organizations. People within them resist change. This is a truism of the business world where such change is at a premium and is actively promoted, implemented and chronicled. I think that we are no different, simply because we are Buddhist and therefore supposedly ok with the idea of impermanence and change. We need to examine our assumptions and patterns of behaviour and think about making some big changes in how we conceive of the Order and WBO. I think that this is the real challenge of the WBO and I don't think it's a forgone conclusion that we will do it. In fact I think it's more likely that we won't!

Language and conformity

I am not sure that I have the language tools to say what I want to say in this section, but I will give it a try.

The use of language within a group is an interesting phenomenon. If you visit any group you notice immediately the style of language, the topics, ways of talking and jargon that defines that group's outlook. The WBO and FWBO is no exception. Buddhism, of course, through its history has had a very subtle awareness of the limits of language, its uses and abuses and Bhante has that kind of awareness of language. It's interesting to me that we had the language of 'the individual and the group' so well articulated for us with its distinction of 'spiritual community' versus 'the group' and the categories of 'individualist' and 'conformist as enemies of 'true individuality' etc. The usefulness of such categories is that they enable you to make distinctions. This is surely one of Bhante's strengths in articulating the Dharma. Yet somehow we didn't apply the terms to discriminate accurately. They were often bandied about pejoratively and the emphasis was placed largely on the dangers of individualism and individualists. The term 'individualist' was used as a cudgel to dismiss an argument or a person. I don't remember much being said within the Order about the ever-present dangers of conformity, except when it was criticism directed at external institutions or an historical analysis of Asian Buddhist culture.

This is very understandable. In the desire to create institutions and engage in collective endeavour co -operation is highly valued. Many people, in their exploration of the early fwbo culture and gender split, have pointed to Bhante's ability to channel the energy of the movement's young men into building, both literally and metaphorically, the institutions of the movement. I located myself very much within this main strand of fwbo praxis. It's obvious to me now that I have conformist tendencies. I like and function well within an ordered and structured situation that has a clear hierarchy. I felt very at home within the FWBO with its systems and structures. I was dismissive of those who struggled with the forms, what's the problem, why the whining? I felt very certain about what I was doing, what 'we' were doing and those who were uncomfortable with that were in the wrong rather than perhaps having a different perspective to offer. I feel that there was a lot of marginalisation that went on within the fwbo culture and language played a powerful role in that. By the very creation and use of a well-defined set of terms, certain discourse was possible and certain other approaches could not be heard because they fell outside the style of discourse. Much of the FWBO discourse was polemical. Certain points of view were not valued and appreciated, certain views were. This is of course inevitable in a group, its how a group maintains itself, but weren't we the spiritual community? We acknowledged that we fell short of that ideal at times but I don't think that we paid enough attention to the power of conformity, the need to belong. Didn't we confuse the fact that we could talk about these issues with the application of them? If you have lived within the fwbo since your twenties its quite a difficult thing to contemplate stepping outside its comfortable structures and be out in the cold world on your own. I think the fear of not belonging has played and still plays a conscious or unconscious role at times in peoples unwillingness to seek change in the structures and culture of the FWBO and thus a willingness to go along with the status quo.

I am using the world 'culture' rather loosely. I acknowledge that the FWBO was a complex phenomenon but I reject as naive the notion that there was no specific culture with 'in' and 'out' 'main stream' and 'marginalized' within it. One could also usefully talk in terms of 'sub- cultures' within the broader fwbo culture. I heard second hand that Danavira had used the term 'canteen culture' to try and talk about the way that a sub culture was a reality within the wider fwbo culture. I think it's taken from the world of the police force where the institutional racism that exists within the force, while not being openly acknowledged in official communiqués, finds open expression within the informal world of the canteen. I think that a number of such sub cultures existed within the Order with regard to misogynist views about women and the spiritual efficacy of homosexuality for instance. These views had a whole language system that supported them and I think here Bhante's use of language was rather heavily polemical and value laden. Of course there were different tables within the canteen and no doubt different types of conversations were happening at different tables.

Of wounding and the shadow: maybe it is about sex after all!

One strand of the shadow idea is that the bigger (psychically) the person is, the bigger the shadow. A big personality, who stands in the light of the sun, can see with and display the clarity of that Apollonian light/quality. But since they stand in the light they inevitably cast a shadow and that falls on those close around. In Jungian terms the shadow is that element of themselves that they are unaware of, that they do not wish to acknowledge. One might usefully ask what is that for Bhante?

Well one element of that seems to lie in the area of sex. A man who has a natural appetite for sex with the same gender is commonly considered a gay man (the sophistication of Jnanavira's level of analysis of sexual orientation and identity aside). Bhante has never acknowledged that he is gay to my knowledge. Certainly never publicly nor in any order contexts of which I have heard. Rather, I have heard many weird rationales that are supposed to explain how he isn't really gay, quoting Plato etc. The simple fact is that Bhante was in the closet and he was and is a closet gay and that, as we surely know has particular consequences the secretiveness, denial and silence that go with the territory. Yes it was an 'open secret' but isn't that such a revealing term? Wasn't it strange to have everyone else on an ordination retreat practicing celibacy and one's teacher talking of the benefits of celibacy when one knew he shared his bed with his young companion, as on the Tuscany Ordination retreats. So if this is shadow for him and those around aren't really seeing it and acknowledging it doesn't it become a 'collective shadow' of the Order? I am perhaps going beyond the bounds of the way this term is usually employed in Jungian circles in invoking a collective shadow.

Of course having Bhante's shadow revealed is very challenging, not just to those who thought him to be without one. When extreme emotions like rage and blame come up, as they have in the pages of Shabda, we have to ask what is going on? Could it be that looking at someone else's shadow begins to turn us in the direction of our own? A move against doing so is to stay with the emotions of anger, betrayal and then find a scapegoat in the effort to keep that mucky stuff at a safe distance from association with us. Another defensive move is good old denial, to say, well there isn't really a shadow there at all and the more insidious version of that, well of course he isn't perfect, I never thought so and anybody who did was just being naive etc . I have noticed this move in some reports and I think its an attempt to block further examination and get back to 'business as usual' with no need for self-examination.

This denial of the fact that there is something wrong and that people are saying so rather loudly reminded me of our 'non-elected' President Bush's statements about the biggest co-coordinated anti-war demonstrations that world has ever seen. In one speech he argued that the fact that people are able to protest proves that the American system of democracy works. In the next sentence he said, of course I don't listen to those people . This was said without irony. I think that we have some work to do looking at our individual and collective shadow and I think that this is really serious work that we have to do or we will continue to display signs of disintegration as a collective, continue to be unconscious of important aspects of our collective life. The psychological language of 'wounding' is another way to get at some of the same territory though I know it will make some people cringe. This language of wounding that is present in some strands of modern Psychology has its roots in the archetypes of the old religions, such as Greek mythology. Chiron is the wounded healer in the Greek tradition and Asklepios his pupil is the source of the alternative healing tradition to Hippocratic medicine.

The basic idea is that we all have psychological wounds that we receive in our early life. This wounding mars us but it can also become a place from which our talent in the world emerges, our capacity for healing of others. If the nature of the wound goes unrecognized and steps aren't taken to heal its at this very same point that the parent will wound his children. This is one way of explaining patterns of alcoholism etc. that get passed down generations within families. If we say speculatively that an aspect of Bhante's wounding has been in his sexuality if it has not been healed we could look for a wounding in that same area in his offspring. Biologically we are not Bhante's children but psycho-spiritually speaking perhaps we are. In various talks on anniversaries marking the founding of the Order he spoke of the Order coming into its majority etc- metaphor of course but with a certain psychological truth to it. That wounding is surely clear in the history of sex and gender relations within the Order and its current legacy.

The way that relationships, sexual or otherwise, between genders were treated in the fwbo was pretty screwed up. There wasn't an acknowledgement of the real possibility of a sexual relationship as a healthy, positive thing. The notion that any meaningful friendship (read spiritual friendship) was possible between the sexes was held up to ridicule. Maybe, if you were a very senior and responsible Order member who had lived in single sex situations for many years, you might just be in a position to work along side like - minded member of the other gender, provided you didn't have too much contact or some scenario like that! Heterosexual relationships were continually critiqued yet most of us were in them! 'That's why they needed critiquing' the die-hards will no doubt say but it led to bizarre situations; meetings with ones lover often had to be conducted in rather sordid circumstances borrowing a place in order to be together, since both parties were living in closed single sex communities; Shabda reports that alluded tangentially to the presence of another person on a recent holiday. One had to know the code. In the arena of same sex relationships there was little acknowledgement that there was a comparable degree of emotional attachment involved. Since most of us were in sexual relationships of one sort or another why instead didn't we have teachings on how to be in them in a healthy way, if neurosis was the fear: Teachings like 'Your relationship should be at the edge of your Mandala' and 'Spend as little time as possible with your partner' etc. weren't all that helpful.

I think that we are going to have to make a radical shift in our attitude to gender in the FWBO and bring the genders more back into a dance together again. We have to clean out so many of the old entrenched ideas about the other gender within our order that I wonder if people are going to be up for a change to a more flexible, humane approach. Such a change has to come from both those at 'the top' but also from the main body of the Order. It involves risk but also opportunity. Perhaps from this wounding could emerge a powerful healing?

I am offering this psychological view as I have so far seen surprisingly little analysis of our situation in these terms. I acknowledge that I am not very learned in this area and I hope someone with professional experience in the Jungian psychological approach will write in this vein. We need different models and tools of analysis, different styles of discourse in order to try and objectify to ourselves what happened and what we need to do now to move forwards So in this vein of psychological musing I wonder likewise whether the championing of the Apollonian (and Bhante is surely Apollonian in his approach) and the distrust of the language of 'depth' 'shadow' 'wounding' and the depth psychological perspective in general was not an unconscious defense against our own shadow side, the repressed aspect of the fwbo. This is obviously speculative but is suggestive of our current situation. We are definitely experiencing the 'return of the repressed'.

I know the argument goes that this type of discourse is not the authentic language of the Dharma but this doesn't really hold water as neither is a lot of the language which is part of the fwbo accepted canon. The pronounced anti psychology stance of the FWBO will lead to our marginalisation in communicating the dharma. Psychology is one of the dominant strands of modern thought and shaking a stick at it isn't going to make it go away. I would like to encourage all those who have felt their voice to be marginalized within the discourse of the fwbo to speak their minds over the coming months. I would especially like to hear from Order members who have been involved for many years and have raised families as a couple.

A growing sense of freedom

The WBO &FWBO is obviously experienced as a strongly conditioning environment. At times this is experienced as oppressive especially it seems at certain periods of growth and transition hence the regular phenomenon of order members who were experiencing some crisis of involvement/ meaning/ leaving the situation they were in and heading off to other parts of the movement that were seen as more liberal or had pockets within them that were like that. At varying times Bristol, Brighton and the perennial hinterland of E London have served this function for people. I now understand the phenomenon as I have taken the same steps, at first only vaguely consciously. I know that I feel so much freer out here in the US to explore and experiment how we do this Buddhism stuff and certainly at the moment can't see myself being able to live in the UK and participate in the UK FWBO. I know that the constraints are within myself, but that's not the whole story is it? Considering as a Buddhist movement we are all about personal change it seems that at times we don't really understand the process of personal growth that well. Within the WBO and FWBO we need to cultivate a much more open attitude to what spiritual life is, what it looks like and how we communicate its vital essence. Great spiritual movements, innovations within an old tradition are said to take a generation or two before they decline into formalism and dogma. We have managed to do it even within the life of our founder! My own experience of moving and living in the US has been incredibly instructive for me and has to some extent provided a painful liberation from my enmeshment within the fwbo. I want to share a little of that personal experience in the hope that it touches on wider themes that those personal to me.

When I moved to San Francisco USA in 1998 I was shocked by what I perceived as the degree of alienation from the UK fwbo that I experienced in the Order members there both British and American. I found the expression of this in the critical stance that was expressed about many aspects of the Order and fwbo disturbing, painful and undermining. The alienation felt by US Order members in SF was no doubt a complex phenomenon but stemmed in some large part from their feelings about 'WM&A' and how their concerns about this were brushed aside. It does require quite an act of imagination to identify with the order as a whole and the US OM's knew relatively few of those reporting in shabda or the concrete specific world they described of communities and Right Livelihoods and Order weekends. Shabda is very UK-centric, not surprisingly, but rather unconsciously so. As to the UK OM's and their alienation from the fwbo as well, that was rather long-standing and no doubt exacerbated by the distance and the phenomena I am attempting to describe.

After living and breathing the diversity of SF I began to see the fwbo from a different perspective. Its self-inflation was cut down to size by being surrounded by other Buddhist groups that had a much higher profile within the culture. I found the natural iconoclasm of Paramananda both maddening and fascinating at the same time. The same was true of the fiery and funny Suvannaprabha (Lisa at the time) who had the sometimes-thankless task of 'de-conditioning' me as 'fwbo cult member'. The American Order members such as Viradhamma were eloquent in their disagreement with certain FWBO doctrines whilst being very inspired about teaching people the dharma. I found this very confusing.

I remember championing the showing of the newsreels. They used to come to the center and languish upstairs in the guys flat. I felt that we needed to start introducing these at Sangha nights to let people know that they were part of something bigger, to counter the isolationism and parochialism of the SF Sangha. However after a while watching newsreel upon newsreel filled with images of buildings being converted to house new centers and interviews with earnest OM's who had founded this new center etc. I began to find them vaguely disturbing. The fwbo in the UK began to resemble the white picket fence world of David Lynch's 'Blue Velvet'. You were left with the sense that this was such a bland, happy presentation that something else was lurking in the background, a vague smell that wouldn't go away, a muffled cry in the distance, but no, surely not? There was the white picket fence after all-This is an American cultural reference- goes with 'home made apple pie' etc

My time in SF was very painful psychologically. I experienced intense isolation, and a disorienting loss of faith and direction. The fwbo to which I had committed myself so whole-heartedly now didn't fit and even felt limiting and constricting. Who was I, if wasn't a 'full on' Order member? What was my vision for my life? The issue of autonomy and authenticity became paramount. Vipassi mentions the psychological phenomenon of 'engulfment', which sounds a little like what I am trying to get at. In the end I didn't feel that I had the resources in SF to deal with this breakdown of meaning. I didn't have the level of friendship to sustain me despite the presence of a very loving Lisa in my life at that time. Although it was painful I knew that I didn't want to return to the UK. At a gut level I knew that this process required the protection of psychological distance that was provided by the physical distance involved. I knew that I was only part way cooked and I had better not get out of the oven prematurely.

So I went to check out Missoula. When I got there I knew that Missoula was the right move pretty much straight away. I loved the natural environment and the scale and friendliness of the Missoula community. I felt very vulnerable and battered when I arrived and was warmly welcomed which meant a lot to me. I moved into the men's community and started to work at Tipu's. This felt very comfortable at on one level. I was back in recognizable fwbo territory but I also felt a level of disquiet. Hadn't I moved to the US in part for a different experience of myself within the FWBO and wasn't I now re creating the same conditions that I had left behind at WT. Still it was great to belong again and feel useful and for a little while I did and was.

The UK problem

I have come to think that the fwbo in the US has a problem and that is the UK fwbo! Well to be more fair it's the lack of reflective self-consciousness of the UK fwbo. This is not new. I remember hearing in the 80's that some people at Aryaloka felt that the institutional expression of the single sex principle might not work in the US. This was scoffed at and seen as a product of the immaturity of the Sangha here. Those from the UK knew best. Well the news is they (and I include myself) don't! They haven't a clue as to how the culture here works and how the fwbo, if it is to survive here, will re- create itself. I have found that in moving here I have had to engage in a double process of acculturation, one to the broader US culture and the other to the US fwbo culture. The latter has presented the biggest challenges and so the greatest benefits. The spiritual experience that those from the UK have by virtue of practicing longer only translates in any useful way to the degree that it can be separated from the specific conditions in which it arose. The ability to drop ones agenda and assumptions and look at the situation that faces you afresh is a real test of what is real spiritual discernment and what is habit, dogma and assumption.

I find that those coming from the UK with the 'spiritual experience' seem to live in such a solipsistic fwbo world that they sometimes can't make the leap into the actual experience of the new situation with which they are faced. The reference point of such visitors is always the FWBO institutions in the UK and to what degree the US situation is successful in re- creating them or not. One example that I am familiar with first hand is the extremely unhelpful expectations that rode on Tipu's as the great hope of Right Livelihood in the US. The situation was not seen clearly in its own US context. It was constantly being 'propped up' by visiting OM's as it lurched from crisis to crisis. The expectations on this business helped in part, because of the added pressures that accompanied them, to bring about its very failure as a Buddhist business. It was set up to fail.

This all leaves me in a bizarre position with regard to the ordination process here. I am happily teaching at the center and encouraging people to get involved with the FWBO but I feel ambivalent about the Ordination level of things. I was heartened at the last US Order convention last year by the new tone that was communicated by Sona and others from Madhyamaloka about deepening and broadening the order. It made me feel that I could find my place within the order once again rather than consider resigning I think this and the discussions of regionalism is a move in the right direction. The US Order needs to step up to the plate and the Public preceptors need to let them get on with it. The development of the WBO in the US cannot be led from the Preceptors College in the UK. At present we have the untenable system of UK order members coming out and trying to get to know postulants here well enough to become their personal preceptors: Untenable because it's way too clumsy and slow. The US needs US private and public preceptors and I think that there are American Order members who are up to being private preceptors and no doubt one or two ready to be public preceptors. Lets not wait too long again; you know how that went last time! As I write this fireworks celebrating the 4th of July are going off in the night sky.

I have a lot of hope for the situation here in N America. Last year's Order Convention confirmed for me that the Order in N. America has its own distinctive 'personality' and a maturity. It knows, or will discover for itself, how best to spread the dharma in the US. Of course it would be wise to seek support in that process from whatever quarter, be that the UK Order or elsewhere but not from sources that are ideologically rigid. We need openness as to how the Order and FWBO will evolve here, not prescription or comparison. There are many challenges within the culture to spreading the dharma, but it's in the interaction with that culture, on the deep level that those who live within it have access to that the opportunities will arise.

Well that's more than a few cents worth! I don't take what I say as 'The Truth'. It's a perspective and even as I send it off I am aware how partial and one sided it is. Even so, as something to stimulate discussion, it seemed worthwhile to send it. I am very aware that I make many more criticisms than I do suggestions for how to improve things. This is partly because I needed a focus and this article is more that long enough already and also cos its kind of as far as I have got in my thinking. Perhaps it's worth stating that I have not lived within the FWBO UK since 1998 and have visited less and less frequently over the years mainly for visa reasons and also as a natural process of settling here in the US. I read shabda, speak to friends and meet visiting order members when they are over, but it amounts to increasingly less contact with the lived experience of the WBO in the UK. So this account may strike those living there as being too extreme. I acknowledge that from the UK perspective it is probably a view from the edge, but as I have argued above, perhaps there is value in listening to voices from the edge. In another sense I don't feel at the edge, I am living my life, which for now, is also part of the unfolding of the WBO in America so I am at 'the center' not the edge. My life is rich with the ups and downs of a life fully lived. The process that we, as an Order, are going through makes me feel more connected to, rather than alienated from, the Order, however weird that may seem to some of you after reading this. People speaking their truth is what we have been asked for and debate and re assessment are is what is needed.