What is An Order Member?

Reprinted from Articles Shabda May 2004

Dhammaketu, Gent, Belgium

(Open to all)

Up to Bhante's full retirement the FWBO was a nicely structured, well oiled and well running machine, in which everybody had a well defined place. From a structural point of view, it was a pyramid, with controls very much at the top. The undisputed summit was Bhante, who acted as supreme watchman. Next came the Order, running things and keeping all strings securely in hand. Then came the mitras, non-officially but very really divided over three levels: first those who had asked for ordination, who had a clear program of things to be done to get ordained; then the old mitras who did not make it to ordination, were parked on a side track and eventually dropped out; and third the newer ones, who got attention as long as there were signs they might make it to ask for ordination. And at the bottom were the two classes of regulars: those who might become mitras and got attention, and those who would not, were sidetracked and eventually dropped out also.

All this gave a strong sense of security, and it was working quite well, as the astonishing growth figures testify: from very unpromising beginnings in 37 years to more than 1200 order members today, plus of course a few thousand mitras, a hundred Dharma centres reaching tens of thousands of people - and in India even far more ... . But since Bhante's retirement and especially since Yashomitra's article, this sense of security has gone. At the West-European Order Forum recently, I heard a very senior, highly regarded and deeply committed order member ask – “what it is to be an order member?” He was about the last one I would have expected this question from, but to him it clearly was not a rhetorical one at all. His question shows how deep and far-reaching the questioning goes, so I volunteer some reflections, not just about what it is to be an order member, but also about the order as a whole and its functioning within the movement. To understand both the past successes and the present state of questioning, we have to go back to one of the most weighty of Bhante's numerous fundamental contributions to present day Buddhism, both in the East and in the West: his emphasis on the Going for Refuge of the 'individual' - which happens to be also the foundation of our vision on the spiritual life in general, and on the Order specifically. I think that both what went well and what went wrong is connected to this, and so is the way out to the future.

Maybe we have repeated it so often, and often so unthinkingly, perfunctorily or at times maybe even dishonestly, that it may sound as a platitude, but the very foundation of what we are doing is just this: working at effectively Going for Refuge - and doing so as an individual.

Going for Refuge means somehow integrating the vision of the Buddha our lives. This is possible at various intensities and levels of stability, and as we all know, Bhante distinguished five levels we all know by heart, with only the first four being relevant at present.

At the bottom there is ethnic Going for Refuge: at its best this is living according to whatever of the vision of the Buddha has been integrated into the values and norms of the group one belongs to, and doing this in order to be accepted as a member of that group. Within the FWBO we tend to look down a bit patronizingly on this - unwarrantedly, because it is a very valuable thing. In as far as a group is inspired by the dharma, it will be a very positive one, and living according to its norms and values is highly beneficial. It is problematical only to the extent to which non-dharmic norms and values, or even counter-dharmic ones are mixed up with its dharmic ones.

But to live the spiritual life fully, we have to act as an individual: no longer to comply with group norms, but taking on shikshapadas, training rules, and acting according to them out of our personal growing emotional positivity and mental clarity. We start by trying out, with maybe still a lot of question marks and doubts, but definitely adjusting our lives out of our inner motivation. This phase Bhante has dubbed as 'provisional Going for Refuge'. And when we keep this going seriously and long enough, there comes a point at which the dharma is more and more becoming the centre of our lives and motivation, and we are able to decide this is how we will live on henceforth. And this is of course 'effective Going for Refuge'.

Now, according to traditional FWBO lore, ethnic Going for Refuge is typically found at the regulars level, provisional Going for Refuge with the mitras, and order members are distinguished by their effective Going for Refuge. But I think things are not that simple.

First, these are not three different and clearly demarcated levels, but rather three different mental attitudes, all three are still present in my mind, and I cannot help seeing them operating in others also. Our motives are mixed, we often act just as group members - luckily ours is an exceptionally positive group - , at times we have question marks and doubts, and only at our best moments we act out of inner clarity and positivity. These days [ie, in 2003] in Shabda we find ample evidence of rampant doubts and question marks within the order, and I think it even possible to meditate regularly, to be ethically decent and generally to be a 'good' order member when doing all this mainly in compliance to group norms. The only thing we can do about all this is working at keeping effective Going for Refuge the dominating attitude.

Second, this view about which level represents which attitude in Going for Refuge was formulated by Bhante very early on in the history of the movement, when the level of spiritual maturity was far lower than it is nowadays. When I hear some old stories, I have a feeling that some who become mitras nowadays are going for refuge far more effectively than was required to become an order member thirty years ago. And when I look at the practice of the majority of the mitras in Gent - including also the friends who will become mitras at next Wesak - I can testify the dharma is at the centre of their lives, they have no substantial doubts, and they have clearly decided this is how they will live henceforth - so they go for refuge effectively. Provisional Going for Refuge seems to be the province of some regulars and the people who came along very recently, and so is ethnic Going for Refuge..

I honestly think that effective going for refuge is no longer mainly limited to the order members and mitras approaching ordination. The old clear-cut demarcation lines do no longer obtain, and this has far-reaching consequences for the working of the movement. Bhante has always insisted, and very rightly so, that Buddhist movements should be run by committed people. In the early years the required level of commitment, stability and dharma knowledge was found only in order members, so we became a movement in which controls were kept tightly in the order. For a long time this has been a source of stable growth, but now it is becoming counter-productive. The great mass of effective Going for Refuge outside the order needs outlets to express itself, and it is noticeable that the most vigorous situations in the movement are mostly those in which mitras and committed friends are taking serious responsibilities. And instead of seeing this as threat or an exception to be avoided as much as possible, we should encourage it and create opportunities for it.

As the demarcation lines have gone, I think we need to get rid of the aura of exclusivity around being an order member and around the order. We order members are definitely not a special breed of Buddhists, we do not come back from our ordination retreats as new beings - in those of us who did not return as stream entrants the old person has not died at all! Maybe in the isolation of an ordination retreat we can whip ourselves up to believe this, but as soon as we are back in normal circumstances the old person just takes over - with post-ordination blues as a result. I sincerely hope the new ordination (non)-process will start dealing with this, and take down that wall, a bit in analogy with the dismantling of the old mitra system - which had a strongly invigorating effect on most of our centres.

Where does this leave us order members? When we no longer have the monopoly on effective Going for Refuge, are no longer running the show, and are no longer a special breed, where do we stand? Well, I see the order as the growth point of a movement which has set out to live an bring the dharma in forms which fit in with our culture, and we welcome into it those whose effective Going for Refuge is sufficiently intense, stable and mature to allow them to function at that growth point in our collective process of spiritual development. As for those of us who are already in the order, this means we have to keep growing, otherwise we will be overtaken and left behind. A tree has to grow to full maturity, and if we content ourselves with stagnating at the point we have reached, we are turning ourselves into a kind of bonsai order member - very decorative maybe, but rather useless this world needs more from its trees and order members.

In keeping growing we will be able to do what is most needed : instead of concentrating on running things ourselves, it will often be far more effective to concentrate more on being a kalyana mitra to all those who are ready to do their bit of work, and to operate as much as possible as givers of inspiration rather than as managers. To some characters such as mine letting-go of control does not come naturally, but it is a fine exercise in letting go of self-view - and maybe also a bit of a test of how seriously we are working at that. This does not mean we should stop doing things ourselves, there is quite a lot we still may have to take on, the need is to change our attitudes in this respect.

And of course, it is very unlikely we will in this life run out of personal growth opportunities. In our line of business, full maturity is Awakening for the sake of all beings, so we may kept busy for a few more lives or kalpas. But according to our teacher the first decisive step in that process is not that far off: real Going for Refuge, Stream Entry or the Awakening of the Bodhicitta. I still think, as I wrote a year ago, in the long run effective Going for Refuge is sustainable only when our perspectives are not limited to good meditations, good actions and being a good order member generally, but go for the next step in realising the full vision of the Buddha: Awakening, for the sake of all beings. In other words, in order to stay effectively Going for Refuge, we have to set out for that real Going for Refuge, not just by ritually repeating the words, but by acting on it, however inadequate our stumbling steps may seem. And only that, I think, makes us into real order members.

A Note on Revision of Bhante's Teachings

A couple of Shabdas ago Saccanama started a thread on the need of having a fresh look at Bhante's teachings. I intended to send some reflections on this topic also, but this article illustrates how I look at this question, so a short notice at the end of it will do.

Over the 16 years I have been involved in the FWBO, 9 of them as an order member, I have read extensively in Bhante's enormous output of books, talks, etc. In them I have found a lot of very inspiring insights for my life as a committed Buddhist in post-industrial Western Europe at the turn of the 21st century, and very little I did fundamentally disagree with - his interpretation of the Buddhist tradition about women and the spiritual life being the only instance coming to mind now. But especially recently I have noticed there are quite a few bits and pieces which do not fit any more. And when looking closely at them, it turns out they are sometimes just expressions of Bhante's personality or even idiosyncrasies or, more often, they were said in situations which are quite different from the present one.

So I have started to read Bhante with the eye of higher criticism. When I come across something which does not seem to fit, I ask a few questions, such as:

- in how far may this be an expression of the author's personality?
- who were the people to whom he said this?
- what were their needs at that time?
- in how far are these needs still present in our situation now?
- in how far are the means he recommended then still available or appropriate?
(This is just a sample; other similar or more detailed questions may be asked)

This is a powerful instrument for sifting, not the chaff from the corn - I have come across very little chaff in my reading of Bhante - but the universally valid general principles from what is circumstantial and no longer applicable in the present situation. It is not likely we will always all give the same answers to this kind of questions, but I think we have to ask them again and again, if we want to avoid ending up just parroting Bhante, with ironclad rules and immovable institutions cast in reinforced concrete - exactly the opposite of what he wanted us to be.

I have applied this approach in writing the above article, and I hope at least the questions will be useful for the further growth of our movement, even if we do not all agree on my answers.

Of the Shadows of the Past, and the Road That Goes On

Dhammaketu, Gent

Reprinted with permission from Articles Shabda May 2003

Yashomitra's article in February Shabda is the latest of a series of events - mainly the Guardian article and its aftermath, and a series of resignations or considerations to resign of senior OMs feeling out of tune with the movement - which indicate we have not yet fully left behind the growth pains and even traumas of the early years of the Movement.

Now there are basically two unhelpful ways of dealing with traumas, and one helpful one. It is unhelpful to repress, to refuse to see, to cover up what has gone wrong, but it is equally unhelpful to keep them alive by constantly analysing them, finding more and more details, and more and more grounds for feeling unhappy about them. Helpful is to acknowledge them (which may need a fair amount of analysis), accepting they are a shadow on our otherwise impressive Dharma heritage, and then finding ways to let go.

I have not gone personally through all that, I am second generation, ordained in 1995, so for me it is relatively easy to write this. It will evidently be much harder for those of us who have gone through it, especially if there are still old wounds not properly healed. But we all have to deal with the shadow of the past, if not because of personal traumas and pain, at least because Bhante's attitudes to sex permitted some wrong views to develop within the Movement, which influenced our ways of operating in an unhelpful way.

In this article I will first try to clarify my thoughts about these Shadows of the Past, and then reflect a bit on the Road that Goes On - hoping we will walk it all together.

1. THE SHADOWS OF THE PAST

The present discussion is limited very much to questions as whether Bhante acted unethically, and whether things where covered up, and who were the culprits in what went wrong. I will not go into the covering-up question, I take the publication of Yashomitra's article and the present possibility of discussing the whole area fully and openly as the uncovering of whatever might have been covered up. And as for seeking culprits - and having them pay for it - I think this is not a helpful attitude; maybe it is just an attitude we carried over from our Christian past, and which I think we’d better leave behind. I prefer a more constructive approach: frankly acknowledging what went wrong, redressing whatever can be redressed, healing whatever can be healed, and getting on with what has to be done, hopefully a bit wiser for the experience.

But the question of what went wrong is much farther-reaching than just the question of unskilful behaviour. There was evidently quite some unskilful behaviour going on in those early days, but to me it is far more important to dig up a few doubtful or downright wrong views, which were connected with the sexual mores of the day, and which influenced and hampered - and partly still do so - the way the movement operated.

1.1 unskilfullness on Bhante's part

Yashomitra's article put into the foreground the question whether or how far Bhante acted skilfully or unskilfully. This question is not unimportant, but I think it is essentially unanswerable, because skilfulness and unskilfullness are based on mental states, and the only judge in this is the person acting. Bhante says he acted out of friendliness, and whether this is true, or a rationalisation, or a mix of both, or whatever, he is the only one to know, and the only one to bear the karmic results, both good and bad. The question whether there was appetite present, whether a little or a lot, is really irrelevant: contrarily to our Christian conditioning, there is nothing wrong with appetite, it becomes unskilful only when indulged at the expense of others.

Vishvapani's moving article in the Threads section of April 2546 (see A Letter to Norman Fischer), which gives us a bit of a clue. It reads like the kind of story Bhante might have written himself, if he had been able to do so. I gather from it his sexual activities were largely the result of his needs for friendship and intimacy in a situation which must have been lonely to the extreme, and it makes understandable the idea that he really had the feeling of acting out of friendliness.

But there is more to it than the question of (un)skilful behaviour. It is quite evident in this situation he developed a blind spot - in stark contrast with his usual clarity - to things that were essentially in contradiction with his vision of the Dharma. In the first place, a blind spot for the projections of probably quite a few of the youngsters involved, and of their inevitable suffering when left behind. It must have been very deep indeed, looking at Yashomitra's article, written more than twenty years after the facts. I felt deeply sorry when I read it, in the first place for his suffering and the suffering of probably many others, but also for Bhante, for the OM who insulted Yashomitra when he left Aryatara, for Padmaraja, for all those wounded in Croydon and elsewhere. We cannot take away the suffering, but we can acknowledge it and respond to it with metta, which takes the aspect of karuna in this context.

And in this way I am sure we can help those who suffer(ed) to leave it behind.

1.2 Wrong Views

However detrimental to the Order in itself, these possibly unethical actions and the suffering they caused are not the last thing, but only the consequence of something even more disruptive: a set of doubtful and sometimes downright wrong views about sex and the spiritual life which developed implicitly - and sometimes explicitly - in the wake of the sexual practices, views to which Bhante developed a blind spot also, or maybe encouraged, tacitly or even explicitly.

As late as 1992 or 1993, on one of my first GFR retreats in Padmaloka, I heard someone affirming gay sex is better for the spiritual life than straight sex. By then I was well aware of Bhante's sexual preferences and former activities, and of the general (F)WBO attitudes to homosexuality, which I shared and still share - although I myself am as straight as they come.

But to me this statement sounded simply absurd, and I thought it was just one man's illusion, until later on I learned it was much more widespread, and at one time and in some places even was the dominant mood. Underneath and behind this opinion I discovered some other views, such as "homosexual sex is liberating" or "homosexual relationships are supportive of spiritual guidance".

Stated that bluntly, it is not hard to see they are simply wrong. Sex, whether hetero or homo or solo, is a hindrance to spiritual development, and a very strong one at that. In my experience, the best thing one can do with it is to keep it within ethical channels, and so avoid gross unskilful mental states - but even then there remain plenty of still quite gross but less evident mental attitudes present, such as mutual exploitation, violence, dependence, possessiveness....

It is only because the sexual experience is so violent that they seem relatively minor, but they are not. And they are in no way any good for furthering spiritual growth.

1.3 doubtful, or wrongly applied views

The above-mentioned views were rationalised by calling in other ones, some of them rather doubtful, and some applied wrongly. For instance, the view that homosexual sex is liberating was linked with the promotion of a doubtful entity called "manhood", and the view that homosexual relationships are supportive of spiritual growth/guidance was linked with a wrong application of an in-itself correct analysis of heterosexual relationships.

When doing the GFR retreat on Spiritual Friendship, I was thrilled with the subject (and still am), but I had no use whatsoever for some of the ideas proposed, such as "leaving the woman's world" and "developing manhood" - and not just because by then I was already 53. I felt then that it did not fit my life experience, but later on I began to see more clearly it is a very un-dharmic way of looking at things. It is making fixed things out of what are very complex mental and physical processes, which are widely different for different human beings. "Manhood" and "the woman's world" are, from a dharmic viewpoint, just as unreal as "soul" or "self", such 'dharmas' are nowhere to be found, and making them up and acting on them can be very misleading - and cannot but lead to suffering.

Such ideas may be or may have been helpful on the level of psychological development, but the development and liberation we strive for is of an altogether different quality. Using them beyond the sphere where they can be useful reduces the dharma to mere therapy, and using them to underpin the idea that homosexual activities are useful or even almost required to develop this "manhood" and thus further "spiritual" growth, is just asking for trouble.

Leading to trouble also were the wrong conclusions taken from Bhante's critique of the illusions our society has about romantic love and the family. I am a family man, and from a 35-year experience I can fully underwrite his misgivings about these two sources of all blessings and full happiness. This is probably the most widespread wrong view of our times, and as such a source of massive suffering. Single sex activities were the standard answer the movement developed to avoid or counter these illusions, and although they had their limitations they were by and large quite successful and spiritually helpful. But the same cannot be said about the illusion that homosexual relationships are, at least to a large extent, free from the faults of heterosexual ones, or even that they can support spiritual development: holding those views is also asking for big trouble.

1.4 A new light on the Croydon crisis

Rereading Yashomitra's article, the thought struck me that the FWBO’s Croydon crisis may have been the ultimate consequence of the wrong views we are reviewing here. This crisis, in all likelihood, was not just Padmaraja turning a guru and manipulating the Croydon sangha to this end, as it is usually presented, and as I saw it up to now. Yashomitra's description of the way he was treated (corroborated with what I heard before over the years from first-hand witnesses, mainly my good friend and kalyana mitra Bodhimitra, and my ordination brother Dhammasena and his wife Vijayasri) made me see the basic creed of Padmaraja's Croydon must have been this set of wrong views: homosexual Buddhism as the pinnacle of spiritual development, and developing "manhood" as paramount to developing transcendental Insight. They were present and must have done some harm elsewhere in the Movement also, but in Croydon they were applied undiluted and rigorously.

No wonder they left such deep wounds, even after all those years.

1.5 Men, women and the spiritual life.

It looks very probable that Bhante's sexual preferences have had a bearing on one of the most controversial issues in the Order: the question of the ability of women for the spiritual life. He has regularly pointed out that, according to the unanimous Buddhist tradition, women are at a handicap in leading the spiritual life. The fact is there, of course, but what does it mean?

According to the same unanimous tradition, the Earth is constituted of four continents around Mount Sumeru, which is 80, 000 yojanas high, roughly 400,000 km., and therefore well beyond the orbit of the moon. This example highlights the fact that not all tradition, even if held unanimously, is dharma: it has been clothed in the representations of the world current in the cultures and the times in which it spread, and sifting out dharma from culture has been the main task Bhante took on when he founded the Order and the Movement.

In fulfilling this task he has been hugely efficient, but on this point I am afraid he failed to do so. For in all the said cultures women were held to be second class beings - as, by the way, they were also in our culture up to a century ago. Among the Indian Aryans, they could not be warriors and they were too impure to be priests, in China they could not be Confucian scholars, so they had no part in the groups which made the spiritual discoveries of the Axial Age, and thus appeared as incompetent in such higher matters. All of this is culture, not dharma.

Dharma is the frank statement of the Buddha, made without any reservations or additions whatever, that women can, when they lead the spiritual life fully, reach as well as men the four aryan levels, from Stream-entry all the way up to Arahantship. And we have the Therigatha as a witness to their success. But this went so strongly against the grain of cultural preconceptions that very soon they were put back in their place, and pushed to the fringe of spiritual life, or even pushed out entirely, and so the truth of the cultural preconceptions was established again: everybody could see that women were no good for the spiritual life, that this was a men's business really. (Much of this is just jumping at the eye, as soon as one starts reading the relevant texts through the eye of higher criticism. I intended to do this for this article, but it takes some research I had no time for, because of the threatening deadline. So expect a sequel on this subject soon.)

And it is fairly easy to see why in this question the Buddha was right and the later tradition wrong. Just as there is not such a dharma as (superior) "manhood" there is not such a dharma as (inferior) "womanhood". Both men and women are just very complex bundles of processes, of skandhas, and for both of them the core processes are mental, at the level of the samskaras.

Both men and women have the same work to do: getting out of greed, hatred and delusion, and developing their positive counterparts. And I honestly fail to see any difference between men and women at this level.

There is a difference, though, but only at the material, rupa, level. Rupa is inextricably linked with the mental processes, but does not dominate them at all, at least not when one learns to handle the mental processes, which is what the spiritual life is about. The remaining, and real, difference is that rupa can influence mental processes in different ways, because of differences in hormones and brain functioning, but this is really a difference at the surface, not at the core of the matter, and it becomes more and more negligible the more one is effective in the spiritual life, i.e. the more one learns to handle the mental processes towards giving, love and clarity.

Happily, Bhante must somehow have seen there is no difference at the core, when founding a unified Order. But it looks later on the surface differences were overstressed, and when the single-sex principle was carried through so rigorously it almost developed into "apartheid" between men and women. This may have been a needed skilful means in the formative years of the movement, when the pioneers were learning to handle mental processes, but I hope most of us by now have developed this skill so far we can have a fresh look at it, as I intend to do further on.

2. THE ROAD THAT GOES ON

So having - hopefully - disposed of the shadows of the past, or at least indicated how we could handle them, I turn to the real subject of this article: what to do next? And there is an enormous amount to be done, not least because -

2.1 Our world desperately needs the dharma.

Greed, hatred and delusion are as rampant as they ever have been, but our world has lost its instruments to do something about them. Traditional religion, including traditional Buddhism, have been out-competed by science, technology and consumption, and so have lost their impact on society. The materialist "religions" such as Marxism and consumerism cannot fill the hole, nor does the fundamentalist revivalism in Christianity and Islam, who merely go back to the externals, not to the positive inspiration behind them, and preach hatred instead. And the whole of humanity is heading, in a mad race of greed, into ecological disaster and maybe into its own self-destruction.

To this madness I see only one possible remedy: the realistic and clear vision of the Buddha, with its penetrating insight in the functioning of the mind and its effective instruments to do something about it. This I see as an inestimable surplus value over any other teaching, analysis or way of life I have tried out before in my life (mainly: Christian monasticism, rational philosophy, Marxism, ecological life, and political action), and, having it tried out myself, I am confident it will work with other human beings also. But our world needs the Dharma not dressed up in the garb of pre-industrial oriental cultures - this can appeal only to a fringe minority - it needs to be translated into our (post-) industrial ways of thinking and living. And this exactly is what Bhante has set out to develop.

2.2 Bhante's position as our teacher.

So to me there is no shred of doubt possible about this: in Bhante's teaching there is such a wealth of clear thinking about the essence of the Dharma, such a wealth of insight into the practical applications, and such a supporting setup of institutions, all of it geared to the situation and the mentality of the industrial world. The consequences which were the result of his blind spots and human shortcomings are just a shadow on all this, but in no way diminish its value. They can easily be removed, and in doing so his teaching is not weakened, but strengthened. No other teacher I know of combines the same breadth with the same depth, and I would not be surprised if future generations recognise him as the most important Buddhist teacher of the twentieth century.

With many others, I deplore he has not spoken out explicitly about the shadows of the past, but I take his returning to brahmacarya himself and his renewed urge to us to move in that direction as an implicit distancing of them. And somehow I feel the Croydon debacle may have been a decisive element in this change of attitude, which to me is his real message in this matter.

2.3 A fresh look at our institutions.

Our Movement has largely been shaped by Bhante, so it is not surprising his personal preferences at times may have had a disproportional - but not necessarily negative - influence.

Perhaps it is for this reason that the standard Order Member seems to read literature, to go to art galleries, to have Blake on his bookshelf, to read the more imaginative Mahayana Sutras - and if one reads Greek philosophy instead, has no eye for visual arts, has the Bible and the Quran on one's bookshelf, and prefers the Pali and Prajnaparamita texts one can sometimes get the feeling of being a bit of an oddity as an Order Member. But Bhante himself has urged time and time again we should be individuals, not clones of a teacher, so we may need to have a look at our institutions and habits to see what is just Bhante, and to develop more oddness where it is called for.

The above examples are perfectly innocuous, but this mechanism has played also with respect to Bhante's sexual preferences and the views associated by them. Here I will limit myself to just one area which many of us feel the need of looking into, the "single sex principle".

Building further on my analysis of the fundamental identity of men and women with respect to the core business of the spiritual life but different angles at the surface, I think it remains sensible to provide some single sex activities. But contrarily to the accepted wisdom of our movement, the more we grow spiritually the less - underline, please! - this may be necessary! And the strict and almost mechanically applied apartheid from the mitra level onward needs to be broken down. I have no simple answer to what should be single sex and what not, we probably will need to work it out experimentally. Some activities are more likely to stay single sex, communities for one; but it may surprise you to hear intensive meditation retreats need not be at all - as I experienced to my own surprise on Varamitra's brilliant Dutch winter retreats. Doubtless this is because on them we worked so intensively at the core level at developing positive samskaras, that the surface effects lost most of their hold for the duration of the retreat.

Especially at the Order level something needs to be done. I hear that in bigger Centres Order Members who are not involved in Centre work may live almost their whole Order life without any contact with Order Members of the opposite sex, except for the meagre 4 days every two years at the mixed Convention. The newish Order Forums I experience as helpful in this respect, we could try having a longer mixed Convention (seven days each women - mixed - men?), and we could do with some mixed Order weekends also.

2.4 Taking our institutions further.

As Bhante pointed out frequently enough: because of the samsaric pull, standing still is sliding back. As long as we are not an Order of predominantly Stream-entrants, our task is to move on.

In March Shabda I pointed out this implies we need to go for a higher spiritual goal than just being good Buddhists and healthy human beings (another dharma nowhere to be found), we need to develop Transcendental Insight itself. And this has implications for our institutions.

The first 35 years of the Movement - I will call it the Bhante period - was essentially geared to developing an Order of committed individuals, taking the Dharma as their life guide. And it has been a spectacularly successful period: we have a large Order, an even larger Movement, and most of us are very different from what we would have been without this all, and the difference is unambiguously to the credit side. But our efforts and our successes have largely been limited to the psychological level, to building only the foundation for what the spiritual life really is for: Transcendental Insight, and our institutions are essentially serving this need.

Do not expect me to say now they have become obsolete; they will be needed probably for most of us for a long time to come. But when we mark up our goal, they will not be sufficient any longer as the growth point of the movement.

For this we need a new instrument: vihara-style communities, where people commit themselves to live, not just for an experimental period, but indefinitely - with the resolve of the Buddha who decided he would not leave the foot of the Bodhi Tree until death or until Awakening, whichever came first. (Luckily for us, Awakening came first). What is needed is full commitment, not for a limited period with the perspective of time-off for a sabbatical afterwards - and of course no time-off for boyfriends or girlfriends. As far as I can see, none of the present initiatives really fulfill the bill, not even the very laudable experiments at vihara-style life in Guhyaloka and elsewhere.

Even a few pioneers starting this could have an immense uplifting influence on the Order and the Movement - not just by living the life itself, but also by offering the occasion to share their life, for a weekend, a week, a month... to those of us who - like me - are not yet up to, or not in the possibility of leading this kind of life ourselves. This means the viharas have to be established not too far away from the inhabited world, hereby following the example of our Christian (and the early Buddhist) monastic tradition. The project Varamitra has set out for is of this kind, and I hope many of us will follow his example.

Unfortunately, to the great majority of us this is almost certainly not what we are ready for yet, but there are other ways of working toward Insight. Insight is Wisdom-Compassion fully interlinked, and one can work towards it from both sides. Vihara life is more to the Wisdom side, working among and for beings may be an alternative more from the Compassion side. And here I see two wide-open possibilities.

One is developing TBRL in the direction of vocational activities: old age care, hospice work....

This will have no easy start, as it needs highly trained people, and a commitment over a far longer period of time than what is usual at the moment, comparable to the commitment in the future viharas. I am glad some initiatives are already taken in that direction, and I hope they are the first steps to what in the long run should become the dominating form of TBRL in the Movement.

A second alternative is a consequence of what I wrote earlier about the world desperately needing the Dharma. During the Bhante period of the Movement, our Centres were - and still are - largely inward turned. All energies went into deepening the commitment of those coming to them. One could say, almost without exaggeration, the Centres were essentially the breeding ground for new Order Members. Consequently, almost all who came along and were not ready for that intensity dropped out sooner or later - both Friends, and Mitras who did not go on to ordination. Up to now, this was almost inevitable, because the danger of watering-down was lurking around the corner.

But I think we have come to a stage of development where we safely can start catering for the needs of those we had to leave behind before, and have a kind of "Buddhism-lite" activities suited to what they can handle. This our Beginners Nights and even our Regulars Nights cannot provide: they are far too much embedded in our habitual vision and so are just temporary stepping stones to higher activities. From what I hear, Buddhafield is working along those lines already, but we need much more: not just reaching fringe groups in our society, but offering something which can attract people from far more standard settings. One big warning here: this will work only if we set it up as a gift to the participants, not as a recruiting ground for the Order.

And an even bigger warning: it will work only if we keep our intensity intact - which means going on upgrading our spiritual life.

I hope these reflections will be of some use to you, reader. It was hard work getting them a bit coherently into my word processor, and some of them arose while writing, so they are not all as mature as I would like them to be. I will be glad to hear of any thought or reflection which might improve on them.

My e-mail is: dhammaketu [at] gmail.com

May all beings be happy.

Learning the Harsh Way at the Croydon Buddhist Centre

Last autumn I read in The Guardian's article about the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order a long description of an FWBO centre that went wrong. It was 'a cult', I read, characterised by 'collective neurosis'. There was an account by one person who alleged he had been sexually abused by the centre's chairman, and there were quotes from the diary of another who killed himself some time after living there. Although the article did not specify where this had occurred, it was clearly a description of the Croydon Buddhist Centre (CBC) during the 1980s, where I had been involved for seven years. The alleged abuse victim was someone I consider a friend, and I had worked with the man who killed himself.

How strange and disturbing it was to see events that were an important part of my life presented with such horror and revulsion. How painful to see the difficulties and failures of something I had been deeply involved with paraded so publicly. Yet how oddly reassuring that the doubts and criticisms I had felt at the time were given a public legitimacy. And then the nagging doubt: was The Guardian right to suggest that what had happened at the CBC was somehow symptomatic of broader failings in the FWBO?

Since publication of The Guardian article many people have asked, 'what did happen in Croydon?', so I am pleased to have this opportunity to give my account. But I do so with trepidation. The truth as I perceive it is complex, elusive and the product of indefinable psychological forces. I am not sure whether I wholly understand it, even 10 years later, and what I do understand is painful to recall and difficult to communicate. So this is an account of my experience and reflections, not an 'official' FWBO version. It is subjective and fragmentary, and there could probably be as many accounts of the CBC as there were people there.

I first visited Aryatara, the Buddhist centre in the South London suburb of Croydon, in the summer of 1979, when I was just 14. It was a large house and the reception rooms were packed with people. They were mostly lively and young enough for me not to feel out of place. The building seemed to hum with energy; I was drawn by the Buddhists – by the ease of their body language and the sparkle in their communication. I went home exhilarated and I knew I wanted to be involved.
The values I encountered at Aryatara seemed to articulate and extend my own. There was the idea of 'growth and development', and meditation as a means of achieving this. Initially I struggled with meditation, but on my first weekend retreat I was overwhelmed by physical bliss, and a sense that my consciousness had become enlarged. I thought I had uncovered the secret of the Buddhists' quiet happiness.

I was also struck by their confidence that the FWBO possessed an answer to the world's problems. Buddhism, it seemed, was the way out of the West's cultural wasteland. The FWBO possessed a key to this transformation, and here in Purley were people who were able to put that into effect. Beside the notion of personal growth was the idea of social transformation. Over in West Croydon they ran a co-operative, including a wholefood shop and a vegetarian café. This seemed both the fulfilment of my socialist upbringing, and a challenge. Changing the world, these Buddhists said, meant changing people, and here were idealists determined to do both.

Aryatara had become a residential Buddhist community in 1969, and for several years it was a quiet FWBO backwater. But in 1976 a group of dynamic, experienced Order members moved there to wake things up. Led by the new chairman, Nagabodhi, they ran classes that attracted more and more people – especially the disaffected suburban youth, who were drawn to their idealism and vitality. Nagabodhi also set up the businesses. He left in 1978 and was succeeded as chairman by Padmaraja.
The first time I spoke with Padmaraja I felt he was looking deep inside me. His manner was sensitive, gentle, steady, almost androgynous. He dressed in bright colours and his face radiated warmth. He seemed to possess a secret magic, and being with him I felt small. Padmaraja seemed aware of me in my wholeness: aware of my fears and anxieties, and of something else, something very precious and buried deep within me, of which I was barely aware myself. Many who encountered Padmaraja were similarly entranced by his aptitude for a certain kind of communication. It inspired gratitude, love, even devotion.

Over the following years activities developed apace. In 1981 the businesses were relocated to a large building in central Croydon that also housed the new Croydon Buddhist Centre. The café transmuted into a high-class vegetarian restaurant called Hockneys, and soon 30 to 40 people were working in the complex. The businesses made handsome profits, which allowed further growth. Rivendell Retreat Centre was opened in the Sussex countryside, and an arts centre (which became Independent Arts) was opened in 1984. It aimed to make links between Buddhist values and the arts through films and lectures. There was no comparable London venue for talks by writers and intellectuals, and Independent Arts programmes soon claimed proudly - and not wholly implausibly - that it was 'one of the five best literary venues in the world'.

This aspect of the centre's work attracted me greatly. In my late teens I read voraciously - literature, philosophy and Eastern religions - and Independent Arts fed this interest. I found spiritual nourishment on meditation retreats, and the Buddhist perspective on life gave me a sense of what I could potentially be, if I applied myself to practising it.

But my experience was different in Dharma study groups. When I first read the writings of Sangharakshita, founder of the FWBO, I found them hugely stimulating. I loved his rigour, intelligence and ability to make bold connections between Buddhism and western ideas. But if I raised questions about his teachings, or Buddhism in general, to Croydon Order members, I was met with perplexity or disapproval. I was expected quietly to take in what I was being taught and faithfully apply it.

When I was particularly troublesome, the leading Order members, including Padmaraja, would criticise me. I was 'arrogant' and 'emotionally blocked'. Sometimes the criticism extended from telling me what I was like to telling me why I was like that. I was psychologically bound to my mother and needed to break free; this meant entering into robust contact with men (which was to say with them, and on their terms).

There may, of course, have been something in those criticisms, but that is not the point. I respected these people - they were experienced Buddhists, with personalities far stronger than mine. The confidence with which they made their criticisms suggested a special insight that perhaps, I wondered, came from their meditation practices. I argued my case but I felt shaken, sometimes devastated.

The approval and encouragement I had first encountered at the centre now seemed to be highly conditional, and sometimes seemed like outright disapproval. I might be accepted if I was docile and obedient, otherwise - well, I was quite free to go off and 'disappear up my bum', as it was charmingly put. In particular, Padmaraja's affection, which could be so overwhelming, could also be suddenly withdrawn and replaced by withering sarcasm.

Even in 1982/3, aged 17, I was aware that something was very wrong at the CBC. How could Order members talk like this while claiming to follow the ethical precept on abstaining from harsh speech and practising kindly speech? I found that when people came to work around the CBC they grew less interesting, and more like the others. The centre seemed a self-enclosed world governed by group dynamics, and I considered breaking off contact. But I was also bound to it emotionally and I could not leave Buddhism without betraying something deeply important to me. So when I finished school, at the start of 1984, I let myself be talked into moving into Aryatara, and working in Hockneys restaurant.

I stayed there for almost two years before going to university. The work was physically hard and I was busy most nights of the week, supporting Buddhist classes or helping at the Arts Centre. I enjoyed this intensity, and the camaraderie it generated. I learnt to be disciplined and to apply myself. But my experience was also cramped. I found the routine of restaurant work numbingly tedious (though this doubtless says as much about me as the work). There was little time for rest and relaxation; at Aryatara I shared a room with three, sometimes four, others, and no one had much space to themselves.
The intensity of life in the businesses came at a price. Padmaraja was in control. He would quietly dominate meetings with effortless charisma. People hung on his words: 'Is he a Stream Entrant?' I heard them ask. 'A Bodhisattva?' But his authority was not simply the consequence of his spiritual stature. The psychological double-bind that left me wanting approval and fearing rejection was reflected throughout the community.

Before starting work at Hockneys, I had felt an outsider, now I discovered there were spheres within spheres. An inner circle clustered around Padmaraja, and then there was a pecking order, in which the more senior parties ensured the conformity of the junior. This was enforced through teasing, sarcasm and undignified nicknames ('Roy the boy', 'Baz', 'Plonker' - it really was like school) as well as appeals to loyalty and idealism. We were, after all, 'building the New Society' - what undertaking could be more worthy? The sometimes vicious bullying was masked for perpetrators and victims alike by the idea that criticism or 'fierce friendship' was a form of spiritual practice.

This power structure was based on the subtleties of personal relationships and group dynamics, and so is hard to describe. For me, the most painful aspect was that one was assigned a role, and ridiculed if one stepped outside it. And to the extent one accepted this view of oneself, one's ability to think for oneself was effectively curtailed. This is the kind of process described in The Guardian by Matthew, the man who later killed himself (though I should add that I have no idea why he did so, and to what extent it was the result of his time at the CBC).

One friend of mine (now a writer) was told his problem was that he lived in a fantasy world in which he was a poet. This delusion was a sign that he was out of touch with reality and, unless he overcame it, he would go mad. What he needed to do was, well, to put himself into working in the restaurant. Conveniently, this was a cure for almost everyone's ills.

The tendency for Order members to give advice and point out people's psychological limitations was a most effective way of maintaining control. One of the FWBO's strengths is the emphasis on friendship, and sharing one's spiritual life; and it is surely true that some people have greater experience and insight than others. Certain Croydon Order members concluded that they were in a position to tell people what to do, and even what their experience was. Yet they were only in their twenties and early thirties. They forced their views on others, and lacked the humility to see their perceptions might exclude important aspects of life, or that their advice was a way of exerting power.

I do not think people were consciously manipulative, but they were blind to the ways their perceptions were compromised by self-interest. Independent Arts, Padmaraja's personal project, was overtly an attempt to make connections between Buddhism and western culture, but there was also personal ambition. Desire for prestige meant that Independent Arts was inexorably tainted by the commercially driven values of the arts world. Moreover arts activities were the pinnacle of a mini 'empire', including the businesses and Buddhist activities, which marked a huge increase in the professionalism and financial resources of the FWBO. Yet this could be sustained only with many people's help. The temptation to coerce people into remaining loyal must have been huge.

Then there was sex. In The Guardian, Tim claims he was coerced into sex with the centre's chairman, and this kind of predatory homosexuality was depicted as a key characteristic of life at the centre. I know there was homosexual activity in the single-sex communities, but the curious thing is that I never once heard a discussion of it. It is hard to know how significant sex was in the psychology underpinning the CBC, though for Tim it was clearly traumatic. But I believe the secrecy surrounding it established a pattern of duplicity and confusion that corroded people's integrity.

In 1985 I took up a place at Cambridge University. I continued to meditate, and on one retreat I contemplated what was holding me back. I realised the effect of my time in Croydon was that I felt I had little potential to progress in the spiritual life. I saw how absurd and tragic this was. Whatever their intentions, the CBC Order members had surely gone terribly wrong if this basic human faith had been undermined.

I recalled one Order member responding to a criticism of mine by asking: 'Is it likely that you are right and everyone else is wrong?' And I realised they had been wrong, however unlikely it may have seemed. I recalled Padmaraja listening patiently to other criticisms and then, looking straight into me, asking: 'But what is really going on, mate?' I now realised my doubts had just been dismissed, and how manipulative this had been. The spell was broken.

In 1988 Manjunatha became men's 'Mitra Convenor' (responsible for the spiritual welfare of men at a novitiate level) at the CBC. In meetings with Mitra Convenors from other centres, who included some senior Order members, he encountered strong criticisms of the CBC. Many people had been concerned by the way the CBC was run and had tried to influence it. But FWBO centres are legally and organisationally autonomous, and the FWBO has no authoritarian structure in which a central body exerts power. It had proved impossible to influence the CBC from outside until Manjunatha, encouraged by the Mitra Convenors, started to voice his own criticisms. He demanded answers and urged others in Croydon to express their doubts. There was now movement from within for change.

This was the turning point. After great pressure, Padmaraja resigned as chairman, but his supporters were still refusing to acknowledge the criticisms. At this point Sangharakshita – who had refrained from comment, intending to let the Order sort out its problems for itself – threatened to close the CBC unless matters changed dramatically.

In the end commitment to Buddhism and the FWBO proved stronger than loyalty to one individual. Padmaraja resigned from the Order, and two people left with him. The great majority continued their involvement in the FWBO, and most have had to work through deep feelings of confusion, guilt and betrayal. Some are still doing so. For many of those Order members there has been much open discussion, soul-searching and shame. Often these reflections have dominated their spiritual lives.
Some people left the FWBO feeling understandably disillusioned. I've personally found it helpful to address the issues raised by my time in Croydon with others in the FWBO, and I am concerned that some people lack a context in which to address such emotions. For a long time after Padmaraja's departure the centre and businesses were in disarray, and have never fully regained their financial strength. But for many years activities have been on a sound ethical footing.

For the FWBO as a whole this was a crucial learning experience. We lost some of our innocence. But did problems at the CBC reflect broader failings? Firstly, the CBC is part of the FWBO, and its failings are therefore part of the FWBO's record. Beyond this, I see the CBC's flaws as an exaggeration of trends within the wider movement. The FWBO was born out of the social and spiritual idealism of the 1960s and '70s, and developed an assertive sense of the value of its own approach to Buddhist practice.

But idealism is dangerous. It can bring pride and narrowness, and leads people to reject ideas, emotions, and even relationships that do not fit in. This is precisely what happened at the CBC, where simple ethical considerations were ignored because activities were defined in terms of the ideals they were seeking to live up to. The ends being so desirable, we were oblivious to the manipulation and exploitation in the means.

The idea that we were building a New Society blinded some of us to the ways our spiritual values were being sacrificed. A chief problem at the CBC was that to achieve financial and institutional success we were all working far, far too hard; and cruel behaviour was often the product of pressure and fatigue. In part the pressure to succeed came from the FWBO's imperative to show that its ideas of alternative lifestyles and new economic forms could be translated from theory into practice.

The CBC was very insular - the outside world, including other FWBO centres - was looked down on, and this made people blind to internal failings. It was as if the FWBO's philosophy was complete and there was no need to learn from others. Criticism was dismissed by maligning the critic's motives; people even denied themselves the possibility of thinking critically. This was an insidious form of totalitarianism and, when people could no longer contain their criticisms, they had to leave - often suddenly, sometimes in the middle of the night.

This was a distortion of Sangharakshita's ideas; it was the product of the naivety and literalism of young men and women who rigidly applied their limited understanding in translating Buddhist ideals into practice. Yet it seems that those ideas are open to such an interpretation. The only remedy is maturity. I stayed involved in the FWBO because I could see it becoming steadily more mature, individually and collectively. I saw a growing awareness of the sometimes painful gulf between our aspirations of what the FWBO might be and the reality – as well as a growing ability to work with these issues with patience, humanity and humility.

For example, activities in the FWBO are mostly on a single-sex basis. When this approach was introduced in the 1970s, it caused some friction between the sexes. At the CBC it was applied with astonishing rigidity: men and women working just a few feet apart would avoid eye-contact, and sometimes go for months barely exchanging a word. Over the years, in my experience, understanding of single-sex practice has become humanised, emphasising the opportunities it offers for developing friendships, rather than aversion to the opposite sex.

The FWBO has since instituted safeguards against a centre becoming so isolated. Every centre now has a president, a senior Order member from outside the situation, who has the respect of all involved and can intervene if necessary. Could it happen again? Of course it could, because a spiritual movement is only as good as its practitioners, and people are flawed. But at least there is now an awareness of the dangers, and a determination to prevent a recurrence.

Hindsight shows the extent of the CBC's flaws, but I don't regret my time there. I had the opportunity to practise Buddhism, however veiled it may have been. And I've learnt a great deal through reflecting on that experience. Indeed it has been the decisive experience in shaping my approach to Buddhism and the FWBO.

In particular I have often wondered about Padmaraja's psychology. It is wrong to blame one individual for what happened, though individuals must take responsibility. Many people acted unskilfully at the CBC. But when I think of Padmaraja's deep gaze, his gentleness and sensitivity, it seems that he exemplified the danger of believing too much in one's own intuition. I think he was convinced he was acting for the best, putting his ideals and Sangharakshita's teachings into practice; but he had no idea of how mixed were his motivations.

At university I often pondered my time at the CBC. Sometimes I felt angry; sometimes I wanted to give up Buddhism; sometimes I thought I was over-reacting. I wanted to understand what had gone wrong, but I came to believe the greatest danger lay in a simplistic interpretation. I found myself drawn to the sceptical thinkers of the 18th century who were so alive to the dangers of credulity. As Edward Gibbon observed:

'As a wise man may deceive himself and a good man may deceive others, so the conscience may slumber in a mixed and middle state between self-illusion and voluntary fraud.'

Things at the CBC had been very good; they had also been very bad. People had been well-intentioned, yet they were unethical. Only by pondering such paradoxes can the lessons of maturity be learnt.

Vishvapani

First published in Dharma Life 7, Spring 1998