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Thursday 5 May 2016

My Buddhist Inventory - some nasty bits

It's high summer 1987.... 88? Does it matter? By dint of a miracle conferred by some supernatural entity or other, I have been chairman (nowadays chairperson) of the modestly-titled West London Buddhist Centre for some eight years or so. I am generally friendly (-ish) and approachable, and my sense of responsibilty means that the meditation classes start on time. In other respects, however, I am gloriously unsuited to the job. Expansion is the name of the game, with the goal of ever-more people flocking to an increasingly-full weekly programme of beginners meditation, yoga and massage classes, study groups, meditation for experienced people..... you get the picture. This is not a world that I readily fit into. At our summit meetings, other chairmen try to remain patient as the West London Buddhist Centre still shows no sign of getting much bigger. I seem to be pathologically lacking in the crusading spirit. Don't I realise how important spreading the word is?

I have finally had enough, and announce as much to my fellow workers in West London. They are generally supportive: a reluctant leader is a rubbish leader, after all. It remains to communicate with the head of the Buddhist Order and organisation with which I am intimately associated. He is away somewhere or other, but I write a letter. Informing him of our collective intention, I end by saying that, if I hear nothing from him, I will assume his assent. End of story; or so I think.

I soon receive a reply, along with a summons to his residence in deepest Norfolk. This 'I shall go ahead if I hear nothing' approach is not, it appears, good form. I turn up with a day return train ticket in my pocket and a heavy bagload of apprehension. The head of the Order does not consider my idea a good one at all. There are, I am informed, no suitable replacements for me as yet; I should stay on for another couple of years while a successor is found and duly trained up. And that is it. There is, as I recall, no question about how I am feeling personally, why I wish to relinquish this role, what I might like to do with my life instead of running the Buddhist centre, and how any personal difficulties I may be having could be constructively worked with. No. My individual whims and fancies are, it appears, irrelevant. There is a Buddhist movement to be run; that is the main thing. And I am in the service (at the mercy, more like) of the Greater Good.

I was once proud to be a shit-hot ultra-transcendental psychedelic countercultural superhero. In the space of ten years I had managed to evolve and develop to..... this. A piece on the chessboard of Buddhist empire-building. That's not all I was, but a piece all the same. I did not see it clearly at the time, of course. Maybe it was a jolly good empire, with a unique and vital message for the world. Nevertheless, from that moment on, there was one direction, and one direction only, for me to take. And that was 'out'.

To their great credit, some of my fellow Buddhist workers in London were far from happy with my intention to remain for those two years. They were personal friends, and knew that I was frustrated. They stuck to their 'a reluctant leader is a rubbish leader' guns. However, I decided to stay. I had read my Tibetan Buddhism, and knew about the flaming hells that await people who go against the guru. So it was that I signed myself up to the most frustrating two years of my life to date. I mean, what do you do?

This story encapsulates the essence of the messy side to my years as full-on Buddhist. I jumped in with the dream of discovering my own true nature, but ended up giving plenty of it away. It was all, fortunately we might say, soft core in the particular organisation I became affiliated with. I was not easy meat for the more extreme total and totalitarian cults of fervent devotion that were floating around at the time. I was not readily taken in by swamis, gurus, perfect ones, and the rest - my anarchistic, commune past led me to view leaders and authorities, even enlightened ones illuminating the way to the promised land, with circumspection.

The head of the Order I eventually joined would style himself as teacher rather than guru, in an attempt to distance himself from the intelligence-numbing excesses of some of the characters turning up with their roots somewhere in the orient. There was, in many respects, a good deal of leeway in the movement that he set up. The notion of 'becoming a true individual' was held in high esteem, though in an increasingly uneasy dynamic with 'following the Buddhist path within a specific context'. A distinction was made between a 'group' and a 'spiritual community', the latter consisting of a collection of aspiring individuals, rather than a bundle of sheep. Good theory, but life ain't quite as simple as that. And when you've got a movement to run, classes to teach, Buddhist businesses to service ......

As mentioned in my previous article, the high value placed upon friendship was, in my view, one of the good things about this particular Buddhist organisation. There was, however, a dark side to this 'getting to know people' lark. Especially if you were promoted to being one of the people in high places, you would suddenly find yourself in demand. Everybody wanted to spend time with you, be friends with you. Conversely, it became one of your own duties to spend time with people - regardless of whether you liked, wanted to spend time or be friends with this particular person. The business lunch was replaced by the spiritual lunch, and walking-and-talking in the park, or countryside lanes if on retreat, became the order of the day. It was part of our culture, really. People wanted to learn from you, be inspired by you, even if you felt crap, hadn't a clue what you were doing, and the problem being placed in front of your nose was way outside your personal experience.

Most insidious, and something that to this day I feel shame about, was the twist: walking and talking, chomping pasta together, invariably contained a subtext. Getting people more involved. Different levels of involvement existed, based upon the individual's degree of commitment to our particular brand of Buddhist practice. Especially with folk who were 'beginning to get more involved', this hidden - or not so hidden - plot would be there. People would sense this, and it was not to everybody's taste. I still recall a number of very decent interesting people I knew, who 'disappeared' after one subtle 'involvement' lunch too many. I wish here and now to, in the Buddhist lingo, confess my faults, and say sorry to those who may have been put off by this. Why wasn't it good enough to simply experience the pure joy of being with another human being, free of agendas? Why not? Oh, I forgot. What we were doing was so great that any reasonable-minded person would want to jump in. And it was good to have expanding classes, bigger businesses etc.

Then there was the opposite. While those people who didn't want to get more involved were diagnosed as 'having a problem', there were others who wanted to get more involved, but were deemed not as yet ready. Then lunch would involve indigestion, as you tried to explain that they didn't have enough self-confidence, or they had too much, or were just a bloody mess. Sorry, guys, sorry.

It was a funny thing, really. To jump into something that really seemed like a ticket to total freedom, then gradually sense that liberation was no longer taking place, personally (and I speak 'personally' here) at least. That the bus pass came with a bundle of conditions and restrictions, 'valid on these routes only', that seemed conducive to anything but freedom.

So this is a snapshot of some of the 'nasty bits'. There remain for another time the bits that just didn't seem to work.......

Image: Ulmata Mahakala/Bhairab. Destroying delusion in whatever form it may manifest.