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Dates added to the Amida Retreat Programme covering the period January - June 2012 

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Sunday 15th January

14^th January

It is just before six p.m. the light is fading and I am writing this now because the power is off and I am getting to the point of not being able to see to read. This reminds me of being in Assam last year accept then through the wonders of technology I was able to stay on line even with no electricity – and it was far more frequent there - since the mobile dongle was powered by the netbook battery. Here we have a wireless connection dependent on the power supply. So writing is one of activities I can do as the light of the screen illuminates the keyboard enough for me to type. This really is a long way of saying I am doing this because I can, whilst scratching around for ideas of what to write. Of course it’s like this sometimes even if the day has been full – which today hasn’t – that it can just be difficult to know what to reflect on.

Tommy the family dog is laying just behind my chair. In the last few days my friendship with him seems to have blossomed, not that he is a dog habituated to affection or particularly demanding of it, but he seems to be just loving the attention I give when I see him. Of course such moments are common place for most of us in the UK who have owned a pet, particularly of the canine variety. I am talking about the moment of recognition that lights up a dogs face when you greet them with an open heart. Most dogs in Delhi I suspect only see duplicity in a human beings approach. You can read this in the suspiscion that somehow becomes a glaze their eyes. On the other hand building such a relationship of trust takes no time with a dog and soon leads to those special moments when you are surprised whilst doing something else to be nudged by a wet nose or a lick on the hand. Often ever so gently and for no other reason than to say ‘I’m still here and grateful for our friendship’. All of this, I have no doubt many would say, is fanciful nonsense but if it is an illusion then I consider it one worth cultivating. If nothing else it does no harm. It certainly has perked Tommy up no end and whilst I don’t imagine there is a direct causal connection the bare patches that previously took up a good quarter of his back is now all but been covered by a new growth of hair.

 Sunday 15^th January

Yesterday was a busy day. I am up at 7.00 a.m. a little later than usual and discover a message to say that the meeting in Sonia Vihar planned for the morning – to discuss arrangements for children’s classes - has been re-arranged for five this evening. This changes things since I had not considered going to the temple in Ashok Nagar to join the Sunday morning worship this week because of the said arrangement. I notice a reluctance to make a decision but reflecting on the importance of retaining this connection soon sort out what I need to and make the five minute walk, arriving just before eight thirty when service starts. As in previous weeks the congregation is small to begin with but soon there are about twenty people present. Today I hand out a flyer afterwards about the English class starting. There is no Vipassanna meditation this morning since there is a ‘programme’ starting at 10.00 a.m.  (programme is a catch all adjective to describe any sort of organised group activity). Today Buddhist families are attending a march to mark Mayawati’s birthday. Later I notice Mayawati posters on all the lampposts and men on motorbikes on the highway carrying blue BSP flags. Given the upcoming elections in UP no occasion is ruled out as an opportunity for bringing people’s attention to Mayawati’s image.

 

Mid morning I go to see Suvidya and Sunita in Ashok Nagar. When I arrive Suvidya is in bed. He is soon roused by Sunita and in five minutes has shaken off his waking grogginess. I feel somewhat guilty to have disturbed him since, as I soon learn, not only is he back at work after his period of illness but his working day means leaving at 7.30 in the morning and returning home at 10.30 at night. This is his schedule for six days a week. To say I am effected by this is an understatement, in fact as I write and reflect on my opening statement I do wonder at how our cultural perspective determines the experience of aspects of life such as describes a ‘busy day’. Subjectively I had a tiring day but how much more freedom I had to chose my activity. I find myself feeling grateful that my life has afforded me this.

 

Despite Suvidya’s fatigue he is brighter and less troubled than I have seen him these last few weeks. I have no doubt that the weight of worrying about providing for his family has lifted. Added to that he is now symptom free after ten days taking the typhoid medication and thus feels physically much stronger.

 

This morning with Sunita we spend about an hour and a half going through the precepts in preparation for the Gankonin ordination ceremony later in the month. The process is a rich one for me as I really have to enter into the meaning of each precept in order to frame it in a way that Suvidya can understand and so that he can translate it for Sunita. We also need to explore together how these relate to living a committed Buddhist life in a context very different from the one that most people on the ministry track are working in.

 

Suvidya and I then walk to Saraswati’s for 2.00 p.m.  to teach the Buddhist class. Today there are about forty children in total. This afternoon I introduce the Shakyamuni mantra, which is new to the children. They seem to enjoy this enormously. We then dance to chanting the name of Dr Ambedkar, Namo Bhimroa Bosat. In the class I tell the story of Siddhartha’s secretive departure from his family home; leaving behind the sleeping Yasodhara and their son Rahula, and thence to starting a journey to seek the ‘truth’ and the way to end all suffering. This week the story closes with his encounter with Sujata as she gives him the rice milk that revives him. This as the legend tells us comes after months pursuing austerities that have brought him almost to the point of death.

The group has been lively today but nonetheless have listened attentively to the story.

 

I leave Saraswati’s at 4.30 walking alone towards the main Loni Road. This week I see some children that I encountered on a visit last week. The children recognise me and start asking questions or direct comments in broken English as they accompany me along the road. This is all good natured even if their questions - fired at me one after the other - taken out of context might seem intrusive to a western ear, ‘where you going’ or ‘what is your fathers name’, and so on. I hop on an auto-rickshaw to Golshakar. The road is quite clear of hold ups today and so the journey takes little more than ten minutes. I nip back to Rajaram to drop off the heavier bag with all the teaching equipment in then head back to where I am due to meet Kushaljyoti. He is there waiting at the junction as I arrive. Squeezed into the front of one of the small buses we head down the highway in the direction of Waziabad getting off at the junction close to Sonia Vihar, our destination. The peddle rickshaw driver that takes us from the junction to the edge of the main street of Sonia Vihar says he can take us no further because of the market that is on today. He doesn’t charge us gesturing to our robes and making anjali.

The market is heaving, the noise deafening and smells overpowering as we wend our way through the narrow streets to the small temple. The last part of the walk is relatively clear however as we move beyond the hotch potch of stalls. This is an obviously poor area dominated by Muslim families and my attention is taken by the amount of meat being sold here as well as the manner in which it is being offered – cut and handled, wrenched apart with hands and piled up on dirty wooden benches as the customer gazes on.

 

The meeting with the local temple committee takes a while to get set up, largely because it has been a day of celebration - as indicated above – to mark Mayawati’s birthday, and some of the men are still caught up in activities related to this. We sit for a while in the family home of Veersingh Gautam, who Kushaljyoti and I visited last time we came, and take some tea, chat a little. The family business is in the rag trade, making garments, household items and so on. The scene in front of me is of Veersingh surrounded by patches of white fabric strewn about the floor, working with amazing speed and alacrity around what appears like just a bundle of gathered cloth on the machine table before him.  

I discover on arrival that Veersingh’s youngest child and only son, Gurpreet, has just this morning fractured his arm. This accounts then for the padded left arm he is holding to his chest and the wince his face makes as he brushes the door frame entering the room. I find myself wondering what sort of treatment he has received and suspect that someone has just strapped on a homemade splint and wrapped the arm in cloth. Gurpreet is a lovely boy, bright and sociable – about six years old I would say – and we spend a good half an hour interacting playfully despite there only being a few words understood between us. Much of this of course can be enacted through gestures once you have made a connection of this sort.

 

We then go to the temple to discover that the electricity isn’t working and so there is no light to illuminate the dark interior of the building. I then witness a collection of men standing around and watching one brave individual untangling wires from the mains supply. The main box is at the top of a post just outside the shop that the man owns. I gaze on with the expectation of disaster as the man reaches from a bamboo ladder pulling out wires and twisting the ends of new ones to attach them to the supply. There is much laughter and joking as this goes on, particularly when a bang leads to the streetlights down one side of the road going out. Amazingly after this and only a blown bulb inside the temple the road is illuminated again and one end of the temple is bathed in light.

There are five committee men present for the gathering none of whom speak any English and one young woman who speaks some and thus offers translation. Luckily I have brought a brief introduction about Amida and the Delhi project written in Hindi which aids communication and thus we are soon able to make an initial arrangement to commence an English class on Friday 27^th January.

On the walk back to the main road through the market Kushaljyoti and I witness a fight going on involving a number of young men. The altercation takes up the whole thoroughfare which means rickshaws, bikes and people either side of the fracas have come to a halt. Amid shouts and shoving the drama moves on even though it is evident that this is not likely to be the end of the aggression. I am told has come about as a result of someone being caught stealing from one of the stalls.

 

I arrive back in Ashok Nagar at about nine, a sense of satisfaction with how the day has unfolded, and glad that I have less of an active schedule tomorrow.

 

 

 

Some images from a visit to west Delhi

This morning I was in Vikaspuri, West Delhi at Pragya vihar with Bhante Dhammalankar where I met Nanda, who is head of the temple and two Burmese monks, one a fellow novice named Nyyana. We ate lunch together and discussed Buddhism in India and England, as well as the northeast regions of Assam, Tripur, Mizoram and bangladesh. The vihar is quite well equiped and the Bhikkhus have a well maintained, good sized communal space for eating and studying. They also have computers and a reliable internet connection. After lunch I showed Nanda the Amida website and talked about the Sangha in the UK, the work we are involved in and so on. In return Nanda played some exerpts from the film Kung fu Panda!

In the afternoon we visit another temple - the Samatha Buddha vihar in Paschimpuri a walk away from Paschim Vihar East Metro station - and the Burmese monk there Venerable Agga.

At Samatha Vihar with an Ambedkarite monk (left), Ven. Agga, Nanda and Dhammalankar

Library and temporary refectory at Samatha Budh vihar

Some items you might find stored at a Buddha vihar in Delhi 

Photo's of the new Amida Delhi Flat 12th January 2012

Rajaram, D-719, Street No. 13, Ashok Nagar Delhi-93, Northeast Delhi

Photo's from December when I arrived and taken this morning.

Brief visit to Sangharam Budh Vihar

This afternoon I take a walk down to the Sangharam Budh Vihar on the main Loni Road, not five minutes walk from LIG flats where Amida has been based for the last few years. I paid a visit a couple of days ago only to find that the Bhikkhu’s were away. Today they are present and I am shown upstairs to their living space. The building is quite run down even by Indian standards, though not quite bad enough to warrant being referred to as squalid.

It is a young woman who shows me upstairs, the same woman I met two days ago. I am struck by her presentation, a mixture of genuine desire to help alongside a manner that appears to me like she is obeying a voice to check herself.

 

What I discover, after becoming conscious that there are quite a few children milling around, and through talking to the two monks I then meet is that these are single mothers. The senior monk, Ashughosh, describes this slightly differently, by saying that the children have no fathers. After being invited into the monks sleeping space - a large high ceiling room with a large double sized bed to one corner - we make an attempt at conversation, but it soon becomes clear that language is a barrier. That said some meaningful words are passed between us and I can establish that the temple is part of the All India Bhikkhu MahaSangha under the spiritual directorship of Ven.Bhadant Mahathera, and that there are usually six monks dwelling there. Ashughosh and his colleague are both warm and friendly as well as in good humour. From what I understand they both originate from Maharastra, but I’m not entirely sure of this. Both seem very comfortable with each other and chat away jovially attempting to offer information to me, I surmise. I have some tea and meet some of the children, one very young boy, about three, playing with my fingers and eventually pulling up a chair and sitting next to me, others bundling in, one with a couple of ‘learn English’ style books another with a lime green plastic cricket bat. All, under the directions of an older disabled boy, make prostrations at my feet as is the custom here.

 I am quite taken by these two Bhikkhu’s their evident humour and lightness which seems incongruent with the dingy, noisy and grimy circumstances in which they live. They obviously have found in each other a companionship that allows them the means to transcend what others might regard as a spare existence. In addition I think the project in itself has much value and I am left with a feeling that probably this vihar is something of a jewel buried in the dust.

Ashughosh and his companion bring to mind the line from a Paul Simon song, ‘old friends, sat on a park bench like bookends’ and I imagine these two growing old together in this mutually caring association. You will notice I am someone who tends to sentiment. 

 

Some thoughts about a quiet week and the 'pratimoksha'

11^th Jan 2012

It’s been just over a week since I have posted anything on this blog. This is not by way of saying that I have been too busy to write; in fact there has been ample time. Rather it seems as though my world for the moment has become somewhat routine and I have lacked inspiration to put anything into words. In actual fact what tends to visit me during such times is a spirit of critical self questioning. This seems to constellate around the bigger questions: ‘what is it that I am doing here’ as much as it does the smaller everyday ones that face me: ‘shall I visit this person, and how will that help what Amida is doing here’. Of course both ends are connected and influenced by my thinking about what constitutes living a Buddhist life. Encountering a culture that for the large part doesn’t understand me linguistically, culturally or spiritually – by which I mean where I fit into the religious jigsaw puzzle – is a daily challenge. If I can get a handle on at least one of these three dimensions then it immediately provides the satisfaction that comes from the sense of being engaged. Yet I find that such moments are just that, fragments that nourish me for sure but not in a way that stops me from, first feeling hungry and then, sometimes empty.

 

Today the carpenter is here doing the window frames both those on the outside north facing walls to the front of the property, and the ones that sit above the internal doors. Prakash – this being his one day off from work this week - is just to my right engrossed in what he is doing on the computer, chatting to people around the world, from what I can make out.

Yesterday I was in Shanti Nagar, visiting Sunita and Suvidya, although as it turned out the latter left before I arrived. Suvidya has been off sick from work for over a month due to a re-emergence of typhoid symptoms, as I have mentioned elsewhere during the course of this blog. The purpose for my visit was to begin to go through the Order Rule or precepts for ordination with them both. The trouble is that Sunita has very little English so this is impossible without Suvidya present. Nonetheless I end up spending about an hour and a half there, pleased that we are able to manage some conversation and make a connection that we haven’t been able to do until now. I also cement my friendship with Jacky, the family dog.

 

This is unusual in India where contact between the genders in these sorts of circumstances is rare. Siddharth, Sunita’s son is present but outside when we are in the one room house and inside when we sit out in the sun. Of course I wouldn’t think twice about such things in England with someone I know but in India this is quite different and runs counter to what is culturally acceptable.

Interestingly what is in my mind is the host of injunctions contained in the pratimoksha the traditional Buddhist rules for monastic life still followed by Theravadin monks. Whilst the pratimoksha is a code of moral discipline a loose translation of the term can be rendered in English as ‘personal liberation’. I have been looking at these recently out of an interest piqued by contact with the Bhikkhu’s here and in particular a discussion we had which related to engagement with the community of Buddhist families living in the Delhi area. Notable is the difference we identify between us which centres on my need to be doing, and actively reaching out, in contradistinction to a principle they follow to essentially remain separate from the community unless expressly invited, usually to perform fairly proscribed ceremonial functions.

It was clear to me in the discussion I had with two young monks, Mangaljyoti and Dhammalankar, one evening last week that there was a considerable disjuncture dividing our frames of reference that could not easily be bridged. We were simply just coming from a completely different position.

Outwardly this manifested in a range of quizzical facial expressions when I suggested amongst other things various ways in which we might work together to offer Dharma teaching to the children of Ambedkarite Buddhist families locally.

So as I sat there with Sunita I was thinking how, in light of the pratimoksha rules, the Bhikkhu’s, at least theoretically, would most certainly be restricted from entertaining being in such a situation as this. As I reflect now I also begin to question then how this can be thought of as ‘liberating’.

Of course one does need to see this within the context of how Buddhism is unique as a religion. One key aspect of this is that, as Ambedkar points out (to cite one commentator), that Buddhism is founded on morality. This is not to say that other religions are not moral or don’t have moral rules, but rather that whatever morality there is it is a separate force sustained by social necessity and not by the injunctions of the religion. Buddhism approaches the question of morality the other way around, and thus the religion of Shakyamuni is morality. Ambedkar might say morality is Dharma.

 

Furthermore as Sangharakshita says in his book about Ambedkar and Buddhism (1986) ‘God is subordinated to morality, not morality to God. It means that actions are to be performed or not performed, not according to whether they are, or are not, commanded by God, but according to whether they are, or are not, right or wrong or, in Buddhist terms, skilful or unskilful’.

So whilst the written rules of the pratimoksha may seem archaic and largely irrelevant to our times, with the above in mind one can see how in the context of the era, and perhaps particularly the renunciant ideals of the Bhikkhu’s and Bhikkhuni’s, the rules become an expression of living a morally wholesome spiritual life. The problem is that the spirit in which the Buddha approached morality has sometimes been lost in reaction to the details contained in such texts that have come down to us. This is perhaps why we are left with the sense that ‘the rules’ applying to monks and nuns is restrictive rather than liberating. However this is important I think to recognise, as my teacher Dharmavidya points out, namely that morality in Buddhism is an expression of living a life in the spirit of the Dharma not a framework to follow on the basis that it will lead us to a spiritually realised life. However there is also a sense in which we have lost touch with the value of living within the influence of ethics – summarised as the codification of morals that describe the collective responsibility that we take for the benefit of others – overshadowed by the drive for personal achievement and individual liberation.

 

What am I saying then? Perhaps that the pratimoksha and other rules governing the spiritual life should be open to challenge – after all this is how the Buddha approached the challenges of making moral decisions throughout the forty or so years of his ministry – but not to the extent that the spirit that they express, the spirit of the liberating potential they hold is lost, since this after all is the very ground upon which Buddhism rests. 

References

Sangharakshita, Y 'Ambedkar and Buddhism Windhorse' 1986

 

4th January 2012

Some pictures from a visit to Sonia Vihar, Mongal Bizar with Kushal Jyoti.

Veersingh Gautam with his son Gurpreet. Veersingh looks after the Buddhist temple and is one of the committee members. Sonia Vihar does not have a resident monk at the moment.

With Archna Gautam and Kushal Jyoti

Gurpreet, Chinki and Kushal Jyoti

 

Tuesday 3rd January 2012

Sunday 1^st Jan 2012

Ashok Nagar has an atmosphere of celebration and the ease of a non-work day. That is not to say that people aren’t working, probably a good fifty percent or more of the population are still occupied in some such activity or form of employment. You have no choice when living close to subsistence level or you are one step above that and thus avoiding the fear of dropping down to where you might be living just above some you see around you. Indeed the carpenter is at the flat today, adjusting the doors and adding beading around the panels. I have an arrangement to go to the Vihar in Ashok Nagar this morning so I don’t know he is coming today until I arrive back around 11.30 a.m.

I have been invited to join the morning worship at 8.30 a.m. and speak to the committee members who oversee the temple afterwards. Suvidya had also planned to come along with me but yesterday started to feel increasingly unwell - a return of typhoid symptoms he suspects. Consequently we decided yesterday that he would not join me. I am a little anxious that without Suvidya present to interpret I will not be able to have any sort of meaningful dialogue when one of my reasons for going is to talk about the possibility of hosting classes there. Still I don’t have any question in my mind that even if this is the case it is nonetheless important that I go and that I am present with the local Buddhist families who attend.

 As I enter the temple building and then the shrine space  itself – a large room, I’d say enough to fit a hundred people, carpeted with a concrete platform at the far end  – I can see three men sitting facing the fairly large Buddha rupa that sits upon the raised shrine. They are chatting as the temple monk, Gyamjyoti, in his ochre coloured robe is lighting candles and setting out sticks of incense. As I approach Gyamjyoti turns towards me and we bow to each other. The three other men then notice I am there as I sit down just to one side. I greet them with a nod and a smile, hands in anjali. A few words are exchanged and they establish I am from England staying in Ashok Nagar and here until February. There isn’t time for me to ask them anything myself, besides which given this is a shrine room I am conscious of my custom – though I am aware this may not be theirs, indeed they were chatting when I entered – of minimising communication in the moments preceding formal worship. Gyamjyoti eventually begins the service, but not until he has first left the room and returning with a square of cloth. This he gets one of the three men to put next to a similar size mat on the shrine platform where I notice he has placed his yellow bag. Arranging the piece of cloth he bids me in silence to join him on the raised shrine. I do so and now face a congregation that in addition to the early arrivals now have started to come in, all making their obeisances in the direction of the Buddha.

This choice to sit next to Gyamjyoti is awash with meaning in the context of our work here and the communities we support. I am not unaware of this as the moments pass and the liturgy is recited in call and response between the congregation and Gyamjyoti. This is all in Pali so I only pick up a word or two, until that is the refuges and precepts are recited which I am familiar with as theyform part of the Amida morning service.

Integral to the Theravadin tradition reaching back we might conjecture to the time of Shakyamuni Buddha is the separation between the lay and monastic communities. This outwardly hierarchical dynamic can’t be entirely divorced in an Indian context from the caste system and the history of oppression and inequality that persists to this day. Thus the monks here maintain a separation that in its most simplest terms manifests as an attitude that expresses the expectation of servitude and devotion from the lay community members. This is one layer and though I have not visited other Buddhist countries where the Theravadin tradition is the dominant one I am aware from third hand information that a similar relationship to exists. The extra dimension is that this plays into the pre-existing servitude that the vast majority of Buddhists here have been subject to. This is because the majority come from the scheduled castes or Dalit communities who converted in their hundreds of thousands after Dr Ambedkars historic move in the 1950’s. There is also a strong sense - and Suvidya provides evidence for this when he talks about his path into Buddhism – that the monks here view ‘converts’ as second class Buddhists compared to those born in areas where the religion is indigenous. Tai and Chakma Buddhists from the northeast, from Arunachal Pradesh, from Mizoram and Chittagong and so on are examples of those who might refer to themselves as ethnically Buddhist.

So these divisions persist in a context that is at best accepted in the light of its irony, which is to say that it is Ambedkar groups – local Buddhists – form the committees for the temples (vihars), which financially support the monks and pay deference to them in matters pertaining to all matters to do with religious belief. Well at least this is the impression I have formed after perhaps a relatively minimal contact with both on each side of the coin (excuse the pun).

If this is a true reflection of the state of things – and I expect to discover layers of subtlety the more I find out – then in the first instance this runs counter to what Dr Ambedkar strove to achieve in the movement which started with his own conversion to Buddhism. Indeed his inspiration came from an interpretation of the nature of the Buddha’s mission which was to quash any divisions based on artificial demarcations between humans such as can be applied relative to the caste system. Now one could of course argue that this was Dr Ambedkars bias and this was not the Buddha’s position. However even if that is so from the perspective of a contemprary Buddhist there is little to condemn in this translation of the material that we have about the early Buddhist movement. Something else I cannot remain uninfluenced by is the inspiration that Ambedkar found in Buddhism. And lets not forget that he was a significantly qualified academic – he had to be to transcend the discrimination that would have stopped him progressing the cause of his people - and plunged more fully into the scriptures and commentaries that many of us ever will or have the capacity to do. That he tapped a spirit that supported his claims is perhaps a testament to the openness of the Dharma as much as it is to Ambedkars intellectual and political perspicacity.   

 On the other side we might also challenge a system that one could question strays from what the Buddha intended. As indicated above this was at the heart of what drew Ambedkar to choose Buddhism as a religion best suited to the emancipation of his people.

Of course in the canon we do see the different functions that emerged in the Buddhist movement deriving from Shakyamuni’s vision - and thereafter advancing following on from his parinirvana. I am not going to go into detail about this but the schema seemed to be one which had devoted, committed lay people and so on - those that continued to live the household life - as responsible for erecting stupas, monuments and creating places where worship could take place. In the Mahayana tradition it was out of such communities of people that figures synonymous with the ideals of the Bodhisattva came from. In addition the lay people would maintain the environs inhabited by the monastic disciples, the community of Bhikkhus and Bhikkhunis, and the arahats devoted to the path of awakening.

Thus there is some concordance here with what pertains to the current situation I am talking about. My argument may seem weak if I simply say, well I don’t think that this reflects the spirit of the relationship that the Buddha would have wanted for the two communities, yet in some ways this does define – albeit in a very generalised sense – the differences of interpretation dividing the Theravadin and Mahayana traditions respectively. Another way of looking at this is to look at the Buddha’s attitude to caste, a system as we know that predated Buddhism by many centuries in India.

What I have discovered, having previously unquestioningly assumed the view that part of the Buddha’s separation from the religions of his day was in his mission to abolish caste, is that this was actually not the really the case. Certainly there are a number of narratives in the sutra’s that are critical – if not openly disparaging - of the attitudes and beliefs of the Brahmins. However as Edward J.Thomas (1993)  points out these seem to have been made mainly on ethical grounds rather than political ones. There is also evidence to suggest that this was the key difference in approach that the movement was modelling. Alongside this was the Sakyan’s tendency to pride in their Kshatriya lineage which suggests that at least in the Buddhas culture of birth there existed the view that people could be divided into classes such as noble and lowly.

As Thomas says: ‘There is nothing to show that Buddha tried to abolish caste as a social institution. There is no reason why he should do so in so far as his teaching could be enforced that the true brahmin was the virtuous Brahmin. But within the order caste did disappear, and there are many instances of low caste persons being admitted as monks’. (128)

 The picture that is painted, at least in terms of the Sangha itself, is one of Buddha's followers being open to all people, the view being that once someone was in the company of disciples and exposed to the teachings of the Buddha all would soon lose their 'former name' and be known as ‘son’s of the Sakyan’ (108).  There is also scriptural evidence to suggest that caste was disregarded within the context of lay life with examples of the Buddha giving his blessing to marriages between people across the extant castes divides.

So we are back in the territory of asking what is the  spirit of Buddhism in relation to these questions. My view in this cultural context is that there is a place for the Bhikkhu who having devoted his life to serving his religious calling receives the respect - to the extent of being fully supported financially and otherwise - of those in the community that benefit from his full immersion into the spiritual life. However sadly this is not quite the picture we have here and this is where the Amida movement would perhaps seek to demonstrate an alternative. The focus of this would likely be to look at what ‘serving his religious calling’ means. This might seem more straightforward to us perhaps because we carry in mind a model of the full time religious practitioner being someone who is actively serving the communities in which they live,unquestioningly undertaking social welfare work and so on as part of their role. Also to bring this closer to home Amida is an engaged Buddhist Sangha and has developed in a culture familiar with the model of church minister, and much less so with the monastic.

An additional layer to this is the attitudes of Indians to religious figures: sadhu’s, Bhikkhu’s, sages and so on. Within this we must recognise that part of the system I am addressing here in the need amongst people to have such an unquestioning and ‘one-way’ devotion to such figures, and for them to be viewed as figures synonymous with the spiritually realised if not the divine. As such they don’t want their connection to be sullied by this person engaging in such worldly activities that are the stuff of their everyday lives. To the extent that they do their status can be seen to diminish.

Acknowledging this – to go back to the beginning of my account – I can see myself trying to keep one foot in both of the possible positions I have presented here. On the one hand I want for the Bhikkhu’s in the Delhi area (and elsewhere in India) to be more actively involved in teaching Dharma and providing all manner of other support that could foster strength in the local community. On the other hand I recognise the value that people find in their support of the full time devotee. What I would challenge however and might go so far as to say on the grounds of it being dishonest to the point of being iniquitous and damaging – is that any such devotion has been in little evidence to me. What is fairly clear is that many take this path as a way out of poverty and a means to getting an education, opportunities that wouldn’t be afforded them were they to remain in their own indigenous communities. Its hard to blame them in the light of the choices that they are confronted with in a developing country like India.

 So I sit in the position of Bhikkhu considering the fellowship this communicates to be important and then when the short service finishes watch Gyamjyoti get up and leave. A duty done, he lacks even a hint of lightness or joy I think. I too get down from the platform and sit with the congregation – mostly adults, but also two or three children – and I am asked by Dr Suman, Chair of the Ashok Nagar Vihar committee, to say something to the people gathered. I talk for about fifteen minutes about the Amida community here, of Sahishnu’s work and how with the support of volunteers and committed local people like Suvdya and Prakash we have aided in a process of development to help children who receive poor English teaching to advance in their understanding of the language. I am received warmly and asked to remain for the meditation that some of them do each week. The group are following a Vipassanna meditation course using a Goenka recording on tape. About twelve or so stay on. Of course I don’t understand a word, but the recording that is played turns out to be unobtrusive – far less than the Hindi music, the shouts and general noise from the street outside in fact – and so I follow my own meditation for the hour that we sit.

During this period of reflection I have a thought about how in Buddhism rebirth can be described as being akin to the  continuation of consciousness - like the ongoing flow of a river. One might also say as Ambedkar did in one of his books that this not unlike a force of energy in that it is something that doesn’t die but rather is subject to transformation. This then give a a slightly different sense of what might be reborn and continue. And I think how we are all in the presence of some such flow from the Buddha - not to say that we have Buddha Nature (I see arguments for and against this idea that originated much later in China) or a soul. Nor do I think that it is helpful either to enter in to questioning whether this is inside of us or something external. This would seem unnecessary. But it has until now been born again and again and stays alive in gatherings of people just like this.

Afterwards I visit Dr. Sunam’s home and meet his family. I am pleased with this contact and heartened by the commitment of this man to furthering the understanding of Buddhism amongst people both here and beyond this community.