indras net summer 2012
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Journal of Network of Engaged BuddhistsTRANSCRIPT
Indra’s NetJournal of the Network of Engaged Buddhists
Issue 52 - Summer 2012 - ISSN: 1468 1552
Environment
4 Finding ways to kneeland kiss the ground- Brigid Avison reflects on a day retreatexploring onnectionand disconnection
10 The trapped lamb- Kamalamani reflectson Ecodharma
14 There is no ‘f’ inenvironment - VenerableAmaranatho describeshis search for a lifelived in harmony
18 Camus, Santideva,Marx: ‘EngagedBuddhism’ andPolitics- Richard Winternegotiates paradoxthrough parallels
21 What is EngagedBuddhism? by Ken Jones- A review by Zara Rizvi
24 The Unspoken by Ken Jones
25 The 14th SummerWorkshop Retreat ofthe Network ofEngaged Buddhists- 30th Aug to 3rd Sept2012 at Eaglehurst,Chagford, Devon
27 More about NEB
2 Indra’s Net - the Journal of the Network of Engaged Buddhists
About the Network of Engaged Buddhists
UK Network of Engaged BuddhistsEngaged Buddhism
combines the cultivation
of inner peace with
active social compassion
in a mutually supportive
and enriching practice.
The network aims to be:
A discussion forum for the development
of engaged Buddhism, and a contact
point about it.
A support group for anyone who is trying
to combine social engagement with
spiritual practice.
A channel for organising and publicising
appropriate action in line with Dharmic
principles.
NEB membership
NEB annual membership costs £15 or
£10 for people on a low income. Please
send a cheque, along with your name,
postal address and email address, to the
Membership Secretary (address below).
Please make the cheque payable to
‘Network of Engaged Buddhists’.
Treasurer & Membership Secretary:
Melissa Meek
Parkers Flat 2
Market Place
Castle Cary
Somerset
BA7 7AG
Edited by Maitrisara & Brigid Avison
Designed by Stig (www.shtig.net)
Cover Photo (c) Christine Elliott
Published by the
Network of Engaged Buddhists
Printed digitally on 80% recycled paper
by Parchment Press, Oxford.
Indra’s Net
Indra’s Net is a metaphor
for interbeing which is
greater than mere
independence. At each
intersection of the net is a
light reflecting jewel. Each
and all exist only in their mutuality.
The magazine is not just for card
carrying Buddhists - rather it aims to
challenge and encourage all, whatever
faith they belong to, who share the
Network of Engaged Buddhists’ belief that
there needs to be an integration between
spiritual and social concerns.
The articles represent the views of the
authors and not necessarily those of the
Network of Engaged Buddhists.
For more details on the Network of
Engaged Buddhists, including regional
contacts, please see page 23.
Further information, including a
membership application form, can be
found on our website:
www.engagedbuddhists.org.uk
3Issue 52 - Summer 2012 - www.engagedbuddhists.org.uk
Editorial
Alienation is perhaps the
most deep rooted spiritual
obstacle. Alienation from
people, alienation from
other species, alienation
from the natural world. It is
a deeply painful state,
feeling marooned
somewhere inside your own
personal prison of self
reference – too fearful of
what engagement with
“other” might mean. Unable
to take any more bruising,
you can't risk it.
Sometimes suddenly, sometimes slowly
– a wish to re-connect emerges from within
yourself. If you can manage to keep
yourself company from deep within the
sense of alienation, a doorway might be
found. Sometimes, something or someone
touches you. Sometimes a person can – the
open heartedness of communication with a
stranger in a city. Sometimes, the
reaquaintance with the rhythm of the
natural world – cycles of light and dark,
warmth and cold, the vegetation, the
elements, non human life wakes you up to
the possibility that you are not lost, the
possibility of belonging.
This issue of Indra's Net explores the
possibility of how relationship with nature,
with the beyond-human world can bring
us the perspective of connection.
Brigid Avison gives an account of the
motivations for a day retreat called Wild
and Precious held at Charlbury in
Oxfordshire.
Dear readers
Disappointed by the
polarised atmosphere
whipped up at a national
rally on climate change,
Ally and Brigid planned a
day retreat to honour a
more congruent response to
our relationship with nature
and the suffering world.
Describing how the day
unfolded, they introduced
an intriguing listening /
speaking exercise in pairs
where the themes were
‘What is your experience of
disconnection?’ and ‘Tell me about
belonging’.
Kamalamani explores the meaning of
the term EcoDharma and picks up the
theme of how the Dharma might help us
heal our disconnection from “our more
earth-touching nature and our innate
knowledge that we, too, are creatures
made of the same stuff we see mirrored in
the world around us.” And you get to find
out whether the lamb made it!
Amaranatho explores his experience
living a monastic life and the environment
that supports his spiritual practice.
Richard Winter reflects on the
juxtaposition of our acceptance of our
limitations and the striving towards our
ideals – and whether by contextualising
our efforts within a wider social analysis,
the inconsistency between action and
vision is made greater sense of.
Maitrisara, Editor
Photo: (cc) Roswitha Siedelberg
4 Indra’s Net - the Journal of the Network of Engaged Buddhists
Connection and disconnection
Finding ways
to kneel and
kiss the groundBrigid Avison reflects on a day
retreat exploring connection
and disconnection
In early May 2012, Ally Stott and I held a
day retreat in the Cotswold town of
Charlbury titled ‘Wild & Precious:
reconnecting mindfully with our natural
being’, during which we invited people to
explore their relationship with nature, and
their own sense of being, through a mix of
mindfulness and inquiry practices
including a walk of awareness. We took
the title from a poem by Mary Oliver, ‘The
Summer Day’, in which she describes a
day spend strolling through the fields,
observing with a childlike wonder what
she sees.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
The genesis of the dayThe idea for this ‘Wild & Precious’ retreat
grew out of our experience of the
December 2011 Climate Justice march in
London. Before the march, we gathered
outside Tate Modern with other Buddhists
from a range of practice traditions to share
reflections and a meditation led by Kirsten
Kratz (a teacher at Gaia House, and
facilitator with Sanghaseva).
March for Climate Justice Photo: (cc) AdelaNistora / Campaign against Climate Change
There was space for the voicing of
personal intentions for the day, and a real
sense of honouring our own and each
other’s heart responses. We then walked
over the river to join the back of the march.
The atmosphere was peaceful, friendly and
focused.
By contrast, the concluding rally
opposite the Houses of Parliament seemed
more characterised by frustration,
irritability and divisiveness, with several
speakers resorting to pantomime-style
invitations to boo and hiss particular
‘villains’ (individual and corporate), and
cheer ‘heroes’. At one point, there was a
bad-tempered confrontation between the
rally’s main spokesman and a would-be
speaker who had seized the microphone.
5Issue 52 - Summer 2012 - www.engagedbuddhists.org.uk
Connection and disconnection
The size of the rally was quite small,
Parliament was not sitting, and the
polarisation into ‘us (goodies)’ and ‘them
(baddies)’seemed to me a
desperate attempt to raise the
energy for action to counter a
disheartening sense of being
unheard, marginalised.
I felt torn between
wishing to show support
and gratitude for the speakers
and organisers, as well as other
marchers, for giving so much of
their time and energy to lobbying for
effective responses to global warming and
environmental degradation, while feeling
increasingly uneasy about some of the
means being employed. On the train back
to Oxford, Ally and I shared our concerns;
some weeks later, walking together in the
Chilterns, we began to explore how we
might engage in actions that were more
consistent with our aspirations for a life
based on the Buddha’s teachings of
interconnectedness and compassion.
The natural place to start was with what
we ourselves find meaningful and
liberating, our sources of wellbeing and
joy. In effect, we were following Rumi’s
wise guidance:
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel
and kiss the ground.*
In our case, this was an exciting
opportunity to weave together our shared
love of walking, nature and meditative
practice.
Over the next few weeks we exchanged
ideas and intentions, found a suitable
venue that was accessible by public
transport (the Friends Meeting
House in Charlbury, cared for
by generations of Quakers),
got together an attractive
flyer (thanks to the skills and
generosity of two more
people), worked out the
practicalities of running the
day including how to handle
the finances, until finally, the
evening before the day retreat, we did
the intended walk one more time – only to
find an unexpectedly locked gate.
Fortunately, there was an alternative route,
and it was a good reminder not to take
things for granted!
How did we get here?Could it be that, at the heart of the crisis
faced by our species – and through our
actions by many other species – there is a
profound forgetting or ignorance? Our
existence, let alone our sense of wellbeing,
is completely interdependent, as fragile as
it is miraculous. Yet, as we all know for
ourselves, we so easily take things for
granted, whether it’s our health, the water
that comes out of our kitchen taps, our
present breath, our relationships, or the
many hard-won social and political
freedoms that we enjoy, and often only
appreciate them in retrospect when we’ve
lost them or they are directly threatened.
As Thich Nhat Hanh points out, we’ll
notice how our head feels when we have a
headache, but fail to notice it when we
don’t.
explore how
we might engage
in actions that were
more consistent
with our
aspirations
* From The Essential Rumi, trans.
Coleman Barks
6 Indra’s Net - the Journal of the Network of Engaged Buddhists
Connection and disconnection
Neurological studies have
provided evidence that our
brains are biased to scan for
immediate dangers – we are
the genetic inheritors of
organisms that were
hypervigilant (it was the
jumpy hominid, not the
laid-back one, who avoided
being eaten by that sabre-
toothed tiger). In Rick
Hanson’s phrase, our ‘brain
is like Velcro for negative
experiences and Teflon for
positive ones’ – we pay more
attention to, and remember more easily,
what we feel threatened by. It is much
more difficult to engage with the same
sense of energy and urgency with more
distant (in time or space) or less tangible
dangers. Television in particular has
bridged the geographical gap, and literally
brings home to us the suffering of those
we do not know, so widening the circle for
our natural compassion. But it’s much
harder to see how the way we live day to
day – our conditioned habits of behaviour
and perception – can be creating suffering
for many living beings, particularly those
in the future. Opening to such an
understanding is also opening to what
may well be perceived as a threat – to our
sense-of-self in particular.
As is now widely recognised, the
psychology of behaviour is complex, and
simply drawing people’s attention to the
link between human activity and global
warming, and the likely consequences, has
not produced the necessary shift in
priorities.
Even if we’re convinced of the seriousness
of the situation, we come up against the
habitual limits of self-interest, the skill we
have mastered to justify ourselves to
ourselves – why it’s okay to make that
particular flight, or to buy that particular
product, or to run the heating for a few
more hours.
So, not quite able to let go of the
delusion of what we need for a sense of
wellbeing, we remain unsatisfied, often
anxious, or close to overwhelm. The
chronic stress of our lives too often triggers
a reaction of withdrawal, resentment or
resignation. Consciously or
subconsciously, we act from that sense of
lack which Ken Jones has so eloquently
pointed out in his teachings on emotional
awareness, fixated on getting rid of the
unpleasant sense of ‘not enough’. In this
reaction, the familiar, which we therefore
so easily take for granted, is not
experienced as a resource, and we look
elsewhere for satisfaction.
Photo: (c) Christine Elliott
7Issue 52 - Summer 2012 - www.engagedbuddhists.org.uk
Connection and disconnection
How does mindfulness help with this?One of the fruits of practising mindfulness
is that we become sensitive again to our
experience. We are invited to cultivate
‘beginner’s mind’ by deliberately bringing
our attention back to whatever is
happening with a friendly curiosity.
Instead of ignoring or dismissing the
‘everyday’, we see how it is to let go of the
judgements and beliefs that some – even
most – of our daily experience is trivial,
tedious, a time-consuming means to a
much more important end. We begin to
notice how something as ‘mundane’ as
washing up can be transformed
by the way we go about it –
opening to the direct
sensory experience,
letting go of the habit of
thinking of other things
while we ‘get it over
with’.
So mindfulness
offers us a way of
increasingly appreciating
our life, of re-cognising
what is already available to
us. It also, crucially, helps us to
learn different ways of relating to what
we find difficult to be with. To use Jon
Kabat Zinn’s image, instead of exhausting
ourselves in futile attempts to stop the
waves, we learn how to surf. As we
become more confident that we can ride
the tides of our emotions, we don’t have to
spend so much energy maintaining our
defences – and we dare to notice that ‘out
there’ is not so separate from ‘in here’.
Connecting with natureFor many people, and I include myself,
spending time outside connecting with
what we typically call ‘nature’ is a source
of both joy and perspective. It often feels a
safer way to connect with life, to shift our
gaze from our own concerns, than
connecting with other people. Trees, birds,
streams take us as we are, and we can tune
into an ease of being when we watch a bee
burrowing into a foxglove flower, or a leaf
whirling through the air in a gust of wind.
Life seems to be going on regardless of our
personal difficulties, and offers us lessons
in letting go of the urge to
control, as well as connecting
us to something much
larger than our sense-of-
self.
This is undoubtedly
a precious resource,
and can be very
healing – a number of
mental health projects
now offer contact with
nature, often through
gardening, as an aspect of
therapy. Yet it is also possible,
while appreciating the beauty and
wonders of the natural world, to relate to it
in a self-centred way – I vividly remember
realising once, while on retreat, how I was
noticing and preferring the sights, smells
and sounds that gave me pleasure, judging
and rejecting others, ignoring a lot in
between, and how exploitative this felt.
Again, mindfulness can help us to escape
the tyranny of like and dislike, and open to
a sense of wonder at the ‘suchness’ of each
encounter – a bit of broken twig, a patch of
drying mud, an aphid, a soaring lark.
As we
become more confident
that we can ride the tides
of our emotions, we don’t
have to spend so much energy
maintaining our defences –
and we dare to notice that
‘out there’ is not so
separate from ‘in
here’.
8 Indra’s Net - the Journal of the Network of Engaged Buddhists
Connection and disconnection
On our ‘Wild & Precious’ day we
included two periods of outdoor practice.
The first was borrowed from NEB
Chagford summer retreats, in which pairs
take turns, facilitated and kept safe by
their partner, to explore the sensory
environment with their eyes shut – using
their senses of touch, hearing and smell.
Simply moving from the dominant visual
channel to other channels helps us to move
out of automatic pilot into a more open,
inquisitive, playful way of being.
The other period, which absorbed most
of the afternoon, consisted of a silent walk
down roads, across fields and streams, to a
small area of woodland, followed by time
for each person to be on their own in the
copse before we came together in a circle
to share our experience, before returning
in silence. Simply taking time to meet our
surroundings, with nothing to do but be
aware, the boundaries between self and
other begin to dissolve, and we can touch
the tender joy of being alive, part of this
living world.
And yet… this living world is changing
with a speed and trajectory that has
already seen widespread habitat and
species destruction and is threatening the
lives of millions of people whose
connection with their natural environment
is immediate and intimate. While in
Copenhagen in December 2010 with Rob
Burbea and others, one of the most moving
sessions I attended was to hear the
testimonies of people from land-based
communities as far apart as Kenya, Peru,
the Philippines, Panama and the Canadian
Arctic of the degradation of their lands
and the social and spiritual as well as
economic damage that this was causing.
Connecting with ourselvesIf we have a deepening appreciation of the
natural world as a personal resource, the
threats to it come home to us even more
vividly. We can no longer take anything
for granted. This can bring up powerful
emotions – fear, grief, anger, guilt – and, if
we don’t practise ways of being with these
difficult states, we can become
disconnected with ourselves. Strong
unpleasant emotions all too easily
reinforce our sense-of-self and, with this,
our perception of separateness and
conflict. Action can become distraction, ‘no
time to feel’; we can become judgemental;
or we can feel overwhelmed and sink into
a dark well of despair.
So in order to make the shift in
awareness that is being asked of us,
currently the most powerful species on
earth, it seems that we need to become
more fully aware of both our existing
resources and our sense of lack, and more
skilful at taking care of them. With this in
mind, on our day retreat we included a
period of inquiry, inviting people in pairs
to listen to each other’s responses to the
questions ‘What is your experience of
disconnection?’ and ‘Tell me about
belonging’. As with other elements of the
day, this was offered as an opportunity to
listen deeply, not needing to arrive at ‘an
answer’, let alone ‘the right answer’.
Embarking on such an inquiry involves a
leap into the unknown, an act of courage
and trust.
And, in so many ways, offering this day
retreat was a leap into the unknown,
trusting that our intentions would be our
surest guide.
9Issue 52 - Summer 2012 - www.engagedbuddhists.org.uk
Connection and disconnection
It was also an expression of appreciation
and gratitude: for the wisdom,
encouragement and kindness of our
spiritual teachers and mentors over the
years; for the custodians of the physical
spaces that we used, inside and out; for the
human capacity to push beyond the
known in the search for deeper connection
and understanding.
And we enjoyed ourselves!
Brigid Avison has been teaching
mindfulness-based stress reduction
(MBSR) courses since 2008. For
information about her and Ally Stott's
retreats, see www.Allystott.co.uk
Photo: (c) Christine Elliott
10 Indra’s Net - the Journal of the Network of Engaged Buddhists
Ecodarma
The trapped lamb
Kamalamani reflects on Ecodharma
My thoughts about Ecodharma began on
retreat recently at Tiratanaloka in the
Brecon Beacons. One evening I'm
wandering back to my camper van after an
evening of peaceful yet stirring puja
themed around spiritual surrender. It's a
damp, dreich night and I'm looking
forward to snuggling up with my hot
water bottle.
I hear mournful bleating followed by the
cry of a young lamb. My heart sinks. I
notice fleeting resistance followed by a
sense of urgency to find the lamb. I
eventually find him trapped in the
boundary fence, tightly wedged between
an old five-bar gate and a new, tightly
wired fence, dangerously close to rusty
barbed wire and twisty tangled bramble.
As soon as he sees me the lamb freaks out:
frightened and struggling, head-butting
the fence so his nose bleeds, his near hind
leg jammed awkwardly over a rung of the
gate.
Once we've had a talk, stroke and
snuzzle he softens, calms and drops to his
knees. Several failed rescue attempts
follow. The lamb's too heavy to lift with
one hand whilst lifting the barbed wire
with another, and pulling him from the
other side of the fence won't work. Having
recently witnessed a fox tucking into a
newly killed lamb I can't face leaving this
one to that fate, especially not trapped,
without even a fair chance of running back
to the protection of his bleating mother
and flock.
It's dark, cold, I'm scratched, bleeding,
smelling of sheep poo and the house is in
darkness — my fellow retreatants have
gone to bed. Long story short, I wake up a
friend (in fact, the bodhisattva of lambs —
she used to live at Tiratanaloka and is
well-versed in lamb rescue) and after a bit
of yanking, cajoling and comforting the
lamb is freed and fine.
I lie in bed recollecting the themes of the
night: surrender, fear, vulnerability and
friendship. I call upon the bodhisattva Red
Tara, her ruby red form and her rite of
fascination embodying her desire: desire in
its most exalted form — the desire to
liberate all beings. The desire to liberate all
beings. The next morning in meditation I
feel an upsurging and transformation of
desire through contemplating the form and
actions of Red Tara, as if for the first time.
Photo: (cc) Caroline Brazier
11Issue 52 - Summer 2012 - www.engagedbuddhists.org.uk
Ecodarma
Brainwashed by reality TV and
celebrity culture we continue
to ignore (at our peril) the
pressing need to really
listen and heal wounds
— mine, yours,
wounds between
individuals, in families,
in tribes, between
nation states,
multinationals and
indigenous people — well,
everyone's' wounds. Not to
mention the vast human grief —
conscious and unconscious — in facing
how we've used and abused the planet and
our fellow species for our own ends in our
anthropocentric delusion.
Ecodharma matters because of its areas
of concern and because it draws in beings
from different backgrounds, with a range
of expertise, knowledge and experience:
ecologists, anthropologists, therapists,
community workers, gardeners, political
activists, educators, seasoned Dharma
practitioners who long to know how to
engage with global struggles, and many
others. It goes to a further shore than the
Ecopsychology work of which I am also
glad to be a part. And it 'talks' to those —
some of whom arrive in my therapy room,
with very little or no technical knowledge
of ecology and Dharma — who know that
something just doesn't feel right in the
times we're in, and it isn't just to do with
their pasts. This isn't only about healing
grief, it's about re-connecting with joy,
wonder and curiosity. We find our own
way into Ecodharma and our own
expression of it.
Something gives and shifts into
gear. Had I not met the lamb,
Red Tara and I wouldn't
have met in this way in
morning meditation.
The desire to liberate
all beings is my
gateway into
Ecodharma. That desire
and longing has always
been there, before I had
the words or knew of
Buddhism or Ecodharma or
liberation. Whilst my idealism
might have waned with the years, that
desire has strengthened and seasoned. My
desire to understand — to understand
suffering, my terror of suffering, desire,
the transformation of desire and, through
understanding all of that more clearly,
seeing afresh the human predicament. My
desire to relate to others (versus a desire to
sometimes run a mile, if I'm honest!) and
my desire to figure out whether to
respond, how to respond, when to respond
and the fear and regret of not responding,
of shrinking from the cries of the world
(and my own cries). The polarities of being
and doing, taking action and reflecting,
attracting and repelling, accepting and
protesting — to name but a few.
I'm excited by the movement
encompassed by 'Ecodharma', precisely
because it doesn't fit into a category. I love
that Ecodharma defies neat pigeon-holing
in a mainstream world in which we are
obsessed by regulation, standards,
competencies, tick boxes and having to
know the answer without looking at the
web of mutual causality.
12 Indra’s Net - the Journal of the Network of Engaged Buddhists
Ecodarma
Yet we can only do this in the company of
friends and community, seeking to free
ourselves from greed, hatred and
unawareness so we can liberate ourselves,
all sentient beings and, in so doing, re-
discover our finely tuned relationship with
other life on earth.
Ecodharma matters because in my mind
it doesn't offer the quick fixes so beloved
of our mainstream culture. Instead it offers
the path of ethics, meditation and wisdom,
aided by the tools of the four sublime
abodes of metta, compassion, gladness and
equanimity, flying towards the freedom of
embodying the impermanent, insubstantial
and ever-changing nature of all
phenomena. It takes us beyond our
anthropocentric gaze so we see that as a
species we face very real challenges that
go beyond single causes and affect all that
lives and breathes. These challenges aren't
single issues such as the environment or
poverty or critical loss of biodiversity.
They're about all of these 'big' issues, their
interrelationship and our dawning
recognition of how our historical and
recent ways of life — fast
accelerated by capitalism — have
further alienated us humans,
particularly in the Global
North; how we've collectively
cut ourselves off from our more
earth-touching nature and our
innate knowledge that we, too, are
creatures made of the same stuff we see
mirrored in the world around us — earth,
water, fire, air, space, consciousness —
whilst societally we are still largely priced
and prized according to our wealth, status,
class, caste, appearance, ethnicity,
sexuality, culture and gender.
After years of thinking that sorting out
the world's problems was about being 'out
there' I've realised that it's about starting
from where I am every day, whilst still
looking to the far horizon and taking risks
in engaging with myself, others and causes
that matter. I was privileged to be an
overseas development worker for many
years. I loved and was very stretched by
the work, interpersonally, culturally and
physically (dust-matted hair and rattled
bones from travelling for hours in rickety
trucks on murram roads). Events of my
30s called me to find out 'who's at home'
in my embodied experience. This was
partly prompted by grief — a plummeting
into my depths and digging deeper in
going for refuge, fuelled by doubt and
faith — and partly prompted by training
for ordination into the Triratna Buddhist
Order, being ordained and starting work
as a counsellor and body psychotherapist.
Now I find myself in the midst of a
return journey, picking up the threads so
important to me from sustainable
development and therapy work and
seeing them through the eyes of a
going for refuge being. I was
delighted when an ecologist
friend pointed out that 'eco' in
Late Latin means home or
household. This made a lot of
sense to me in terms of how I
have been drawn to uncover my
hearth-dwelling facets in parallel with my
more outgoing huntress and lover myths
in sustaining my life, work and practice.
Hestia meets Artemis and Aphrodite.
'eco'
in Late Latin
means home or
household
13Issue 52 - Summer 2012 - www.engagedbuddhists.org.uk
Ecodarma
Personally I have become
more rooted, more at
home, through
researching and knowing
more intimately my
ancestral lineage and
physical place on earth. I
have explored and
continue to reflect in
more depth on my
karmic and samskaric
lineage through my
practice, therapy work
and, particularly more
recently, through writing
about embodiment and
meditation.
I have re-kindled a sense
of kinship with other life forms, so familiar
to me as a child (second nature, excusing
the unintended pun), and am now glad to
work with clients outdoors precisely
because of the importance of this wider
reconnection — healing splits — beyond
the sometimes narrow confines of the
therapy room. I feel freer to follow my
creative urges in life, some uncanny or
seemingly nonsensical, rather than the
well-grooved path of conformity and
convention. In this vein I often find myself
thinking about Siddhartha Gautama
leaving home, parting with his wife, child,
family, kinsmen and palace and venturing
into the wilderness. When I picture the
Buddha — Siddhartha, though now 'fully
awake' — I see a deeply wrinkled and
weathered old man in tattered, faded robes
with leathery feet. He has a sublime
presence and kind, courageous eyes. He
beckons me.
Recalling the vulnerability of the trapped
lamb, parted from his flock, I am reminded
of the choice I have, we all have, if I/we
remember, in every moment. As I practise
Ecodharma I constantly flirt with the
potential of the point of freedom through
full engagement with life and all other
beings. Faced with a situation in which life
is being full of itself, as it so often is, do I
choose to head-butt the fence like my lamb
friend, in a panicky, vain attempt to seek
escape and free myself or do I recall the
royal ease of Red Tara, perfectly poised —
one leg in meditation and one leg stepping
down to serve and liberate all sentient
beings?
Kamalamani is a Dharma-farer and body
psychotherapist living and working in
Bristol. Her first book 'Meditating with
Character' has recently been published by
Mantra Books (see www.mantra-books.net
/books/meditating-with-character)
www.kamalamani.co.uk
Photo: (cc) Max Pfandl
14 Indra’s Net - the Journal of the Network of Engaged Buddhists
Living in harmony
There is no ‘f’ in environmentVenerable Amaranatho
describes his search for
a life lived in harmony
A lot of people say there is no F in
environment, meaning that there is no
future for planet Earth: we are reaching a
place of no return, where whatever we do
will not be enough to save it. For me there
is an F in environment and that F is silent –
it's one of freedom. Freedom gives choice.
The etymology of environ is to encircle,
surround. What is it you want to surround
yourself with?
I arrived at Amaravati Buddhist
monastery on my bike with all my worldly
possessions, having cycled three days from
the border of Wales where I was living in a
meditation centre. I chose to become a
monk because I wanted to live an ethical
life. I wanted to be surrounded by people
who keep at least the five precepts and
being a monk felt like the most ethical type
of work. I remember watching the then
abbot, Ajahn Sumedho, go about his daily
duties with remarkable ease; he seemed to
be happy, relaxed even though he had a
such a busy schedule. His relentless
teaching of awareness, attention, staying in
the present moment, trusting yourself,
listening and being open, and that you did
not have to be an exceptional person to
understand the Buddha’s teaching, started
to impact on me.
I began to apply what he was saying,
kept reflecting, listening, and opening. It
was pretty hair-raising. I got ill, I got well,
I got ill, I understood everything, I knew
nothing. Living in the monastery was a
cleansing experience I had not bargained
for. With hindsight I did not even know
what was happening to me because I was
too numb. Some sort of plan was
unfolding in front of me and my job
seemed to be to follow it. If I didn't do that
I suffered and I no longer wanted to suffer.
I knew that from when I was a teenager ?
no more suffering, lots more happiness.
A year into being a monk, I took over
running the family camp events, which I
led for the next ten years. I thought I was
doing this so that I could offer something
to the families, at least that's how it
seemed. Well, it went from that to
learning from them, to use learning
together. I can say with hand on heart I
have never received so much love from
any group of people. I also received fear,
hate, and confusion. As I opened up and
embraced more of life, I started to feel
alive and abundant. I learnt how to deal
with the shadow side, to understand
archetypical forces, Ken Wilber's integral
approach, spiral dynamics, pre- and peri-
natal psychology and the four noble truths.
Photo: (cc) Carl Jones
15Issue 52 - Summer 2012 - www.engagedbuddhists.org.uk
Living in harmony
I also started to notice that the circle of
the family camp and the circle of the
monastery did not overlap for me: what I
had learnt in the camp was not welcomed
within the monastery. I was the only monk
at Amaravati to work with a nun on an
equal basis in terms of shared leadership,
processing and developing openness in the
camp where the campers could offer
feedback (and where they also received
feedback from me).
One Christmas I wanted to go to London
to help the homeless and got turned down
by the community — we are not social
workers here, I was told. I wanted to cycle
rather than walk (because I wrecked my
back from carrying a heavy rucksack for too
many years and too much rigid meditation)
from Lands End to John O' Groats — but
no, Theravadin monks don't do that. The
Monastery did support me, though, in
working with the AFAN project (All Faiths
and None) to bring the big questions in life
from a faith and belief perspective to young
people. I also understand that living in in
the same community requires commitment
and work just to keep the place going.
I have had some of the best experiences in
my life at Amaravati, with such profound
stillness in the temple at 5 am — and some
of the worst arguments.
I guess it’s not surprising
I left after ten and half
years, still a novice monk. I
left the monastery with six
boxes of books, a laptop,
mobile phone and a begging
bowl and became a
wandering monk. What
does that mean? It means
no financial support from the
monastery, no place to live, and
everything to work out for oneself.
When I left the monastery, I was lucky
enough to be offered a chance to live on
an organic farm. I thought this would be
great. I moved back up north to a rural
setting, and started to plant and dig
(novice Theravadin monks can do this).
Wow, what a lot of hard work to get a
few carrots out of the ground, but they
did taste great. As I weeded — you do a
lot of that — I started to watch the mind:
what is the difference between a weed
and a vegetable? And I applied this to my
life: what do I like and don’t like and
why? I started to run meditation and
gardening retreats and because of my
Jewish background ran a weekend retreat
called the Monk, the Rabbi and the
Garden. I led the Jewish bit and the Rabbi
led the Buddhist bit, and we worked in
the garden on the Sunday, no work on
the Sabbath.
I learnt a lot living on the farm — you
have to be physically fit, disciplined and
there are so many factors to think about:
rain, soil, market, prices, ideals. We can
have visions of going back in history to
the good ol' days, and I think most of us
would just not be ready for that type of
life.
Photo: (cc) Julien Manteau
16 Indra’s Net - the Journal of the Network of Engaged Buddhists
Living in harmony
I also noticed how far removed society has
come from nature and how things grow.
The same can be applied to what we want
to grow and nurture within ourselves, the
inner environment — how much we have
lost contact with what is important in our
lives, what we feed ourselves both
physically and mentally.
Our original environment was in
Mother, in a human body, where we were
a fish for nine months, living underwater,
before being born through a woman's most
intimate part of her body. The work of
Alice Miller, neuroscience, psychohistory,
epigenetics, now show unequivocally how
parenting, our birth processes, our
educational approaches, and the way we
treat mothers, shape ourselves and society.
Just as we need more organic farms so that
we can have the right nutrition, we need
more places where people can come
together to explore, share and understand
the conditioning process (this is something
I would like to develop).
When we start to become aware of our
conditioning — our environment in the
sense of `the condition in which a person
lives' — this allows us to notice our deep
sense of interconnectedness, the unity that
embraces the diversity, power with rather
than power over. It requires a very simple
act of paying attention to what Ajahn
Sumedho calls the `way it is'. Surrendering
so deeply that it breaks open every cell in
our body, allowing a reorganisation that
shines light on our unshakeability which
feels every movement. As we learn to
trust and recognise the voice of wisdom
rather than the ego, we learn to flow with
life, to know when it feels right to express
our joys or concerns.
While learning to recognise the
difference between the ego and wisdom
you can make plenty of mistakes. This is
the time to use the F again, to forgive
yourself and, if needed, forgive the other
person. The way that I have learnt to do
this is by staying in the body, learning to
make friends with it and not running away
from the feelings. When I cling to a fixed
outcome, or want it to be my way, then
there is no F in environment and it
becomes painful and lifeless. As I've
watched life unfold I've noticed that
everything changes, in both subtle and
gross ways, from a pain in the back to the
most refined of emotions; life becomes a
wave to surf. As we let things be the way
they are and trust in both wisdom and
knowledge, we start to notice we are not
who we think we might be. Then we can
respond to the situation through harmony
and recognise that silent F — Freedom.
To find out more about Amaranatho:
www.playfulmonk.net and
www.parentingwarriors.com
17Issue 52 - Summer 2012 - www.engagedbuddhists.org.uk
But the enduring
appeal of his vision suggests
a more longstanding and widespread
culture of despair concerning the
possibility of real progress in human
affairs. Buddhism, in contrast, offers hope.
A jug of water is filled by a sequence of
single drops; we can make genuine
progress, albeit through a series of small
steps — Sisyphus’s boulder does roll back,
but not quite to its previous position.
And yet, in Buddhism, the question of
progress is more complex than this. Yes,
we need patience as we note how slowly
we accumulate wisdom and skilfulness,
but there is also a fundamental ambiguity
in the spiritual process itself.
18 Indra’s Net - the Journal of the Network of Engaged Buddhists
Engaged Buddhism and Politics
Camus, Santideva, Marx:
‘Engaged Buddhism’ and Politics
Richard Winter negotiates paradox through parallels
In our discussion group at the Cambridge
Triratna Buddhist Community recently, we
were discussing our experience of the five
‘hindrances’ that impede our spiritual and
ethical progress. One person said, with
more than a hint of sadness, that we never
seem to be able to finally banish them: the
next time we sit down to meditate there
they are again — craving, ill-will, torpor,
anxiety and doubt — and it seems as
though we have to start all over again.
This made me think of the myth
of Sysiphus, condemned by
the gods to spend his life
rolling a boulder up a
hill, only to have it roll
down again to the
bottom just at the
point when he
seemed to have achieved his goal. Albert
Camus saw this as a symbol of the
‘absurdity’ of the human condition in
general: lacking any divine sanction, our
efforts have no externally validated
meaning; our only source of happiness,
therefore, is that we can understand ‘the
whole extent of [our] wretched condition’.
Camus’s account of the Sysiphus myth was
written during what he calls ‘the European
disaster’ of 1940, when civilization seemed
about to be overwhelmed by an
unstoppable regime of systematic
brutality. Illustration by Mike Donahue
19Issue 52 - Summer 2012 - www.engagedbuddhists.org.uk
Engaged Buddhism and Politics
On the one hand there is the challenge of
trying to accept our repeated failures, as
we note the disquieting gap between our
spiritual and ethical ideal and our various
‘efforts’ — our thoughts, speech, actions,
livelihood, mindfulness and concentration
as we try to pursue the ‘Eightfold Path’.
This is the challenge of
maintaining metta —
avoiding irritation, anger
and disabling self-doubt.
On the other hand there
is the challenge of
sustaining our
confidence and trust
(shraddha) that this
‘acceptance’ is actually
part of an increased
understanding of our
experience and indeed
part of a forward
momentum: the
transformation of our
responses that constitutes our
spiritual and ethical development.
And indeed, the paradox of this
double emphasis seems not
entirely remote from Camus’s
suggestion that we attain happiness
through insight into the reality of our
suffering.
These complex strains implicit in the
Buddhist experience are dramatically
expressed in Santideva’s classic account of
the ‘Bodhisattva Way of Life’
(Bodhicaryavatara). Santideva begins by
celebrating the ‘Spirit of Awakening’: ‘the
striving for the complete happiness of all
sentient beings… the seed of the world’s
joy and…the remedy for the world’s
sufferings’ (I, 26, 27).
But then, despite being one of the very
icons of such awakening, he confesses his
own inadequacy: ‘Devoid of merit and
destitute … an ignorant fool, terrified of
suffering… due to delusion, attachment
and hatred, I have sinned in many ways’
(II, 7; 63; 64; 38). This agonizing
contrast between aspiration and
achievement is continued in
the next two chapters: on
the one hand, he aspires to
be ‘the medicine and the
physician for the sick…
a lamp for those who
seek light, a bed for
those who seek rest’
(III, 7; 18); on the other
hand, he remains
‘enslaved’ by the
‘mental afflictions’ of
‘craving, and hatred’ (IV,
28; 32). Can he, coherently,
‘liberate’ all beings when he
has not even liberated himself
(IV, 41)?
But the problem lies even
deeper: The theme of Chapter VIII
is the need for self-sacrifice,
compassion and generosity, the
transcendence of the self arising from
the recognition that one’s own being
cannot be separated from that of others.
But the difficulty of this aspiration is
compounded by the ‘unreality’ of all
beings, all suffering, all phenomena, and
all perceptions. Neither ‘atoms’ nor
‘feelings’ really exist, so ‘If no sentient
being exists, for whom is there
compassion’ (IX, 33; 86; 101; 75)?
Cartoon of Albert Camus
by John Spooner
20 Indra’s Net - the Journal of the Network of Engaged Buddhists
Engaged Buddhism and Politics
Thus, the project of ‘engaged
Buddhism’ seems to be
threatened by a disabling
instability, because our hopes
for (and understanding of)
spiritual and ethical progress
are enmeshed in the
conundrums of all perception
and cognition: if all beings and
all engagements are ‘unreal’,
what can it mean to ‘engage’
our own being in seeking the
well-being of other ‘beings’?
So I am led to suggest that
the Buddhist understanding of
spiritual effort might helpfully
be supplemented by a Marxist
analysis of the processes that
create delusion, egotism,
craving and hatred at the level
of social, cultural and political
interactions and institutions. If we could
see the distinction between egotistical
delusion and compassionate
enlightenment as having parallels with the
distinction between egotistical oppression
and compassionate justice, we would have
a social focus for our efforts as well as an
internal and a ‘transcendental’ focus. In
other words, if our model of the reality we
share with others included more precisely
the reality of culture and politics, we
would have a more comprehensive (and
less paradoxical) framework for our
attempts to grapple with Santideva’s issues
of spiritual and ethical ‘progress’.
This overlap between the spiritual and
the political may be seen as exemplifying
one meaning of Indra’s Net: each
particular situation and experience
evoking the totality of the Dharma.
It might enable us to see more clearly how
mindfulness and compassion can give us
courage, patience and discernment in
combating the reality of egotism, delusion
and oppression in the world as well as
escapism and despair in ourselves. And
this might give us greater confidence that
the efforts of an engaged Buddhist
inspired by the Bodhisattva ideal can
achieve moments of unambiguous
practical significance, even though any
apparent successes will of course always
be provisional, conditioned and
impermanent.
Richard Winter is the author of Power,
Freedom, Compassion: Transformations
for a Better World (ISBN 978-1-4477-8706-
8). For more information, see
www.richardwinter.net.
Cartoon of Marx (cc) Raul Curbelo
21Issue 52 - Summer 2012 - www.engagedbuddhists.org.uk
Review
What is Engaged
Buddhism?
by Ken Jones
A review by Zara Rizvi
What is Engaged Buddhism? is an
introductory booklet written for the
Network of Engaged Buddhists by its
founder, Ken Jones. It takes the reader on
a journey, from ancient Buddhist
reflections on human suffering to the
modern day social and economic
structures founded on this struggle, the
rise of social activism and ‘alternative’
movements to counteract these - and
finally, full circle back to contemplative
inner work, and the “radical culture for
awakening” that can flower from it. It is a
practical and invaluable introduction to
engaged Buddhism and a reminder of the
need for a commitment to social change
which is firmly grounded in individual
practice.
The urgency for social engagement is
strikingly clear from the outset. Jones
addresses the unequal distribution of
resources across the world, the violent
struggles, the pressing challenge of
environmental sustainability, as well as the
incessant pursuit of wealth and its effects
on individual wellbeing.
“Today the developed world is an
emotionally hungry place, insatiable in its
wants and recklessly exploiting both the
rest of the world and the planet itself.”
The booklet proposes that the greed and
fear of individuals has mushroomed into
widespread social structures and
institutions, which both legitimise and
appear separate from the human
characteristics which underpin them.
Through it’s direct exploration of the
human condition, Buddhism is introduced
as a tool for examining delusive
projections and a way of beginning to
engage more responsibly with the root of
social ills.
“Evidently we need to look deeper,
beyond our attempts to change the
objective conditions of life itself.
Could it be that our root problem lies
there, and that an ancient (and yet
surprisingly ‘modern’) religion like
Buddhism can point the way forward?”
22 Indra’s Net - the Journal of the Network of Engaged Buddhists
Review
Jones draws upon Buddhism’s teaching
of the ‘second arrow’ which identifies the
distinction between direct, tangible
affliction and our emotional and
psychological response to it. He comments
on the tendency of modern societies to
fabricate “quick fix solutions” to suffering,
and how in doing so they run the risk of
glossing over the deeper experiential
dimension. We are reminded that for
Buddhists such awareness is essential,
nurturing a more meaningful heart
response to the needs of this world and the
people within it.
For Jones, personal and social change
are inseparable.
Neither one is more important and each
informs the other. When both the “mystic”
and the “militant” come together, they
form a whole being, whose work is both
inner and outer.
The deepening of emotional awareness
through reflective practice is fundamental
to effective social action. It is all too easy
for our intentions to become clouded by
fanaticism, power or
righteousness. For Jones,
Buddhist practice anchors us
- from these dizzy heights
of ‘selfing’, a more flexible
and compassionate
response is possible.
Where appropriate, we can
become involved with other
organisations who share our
concerns without being drawn
into brutality or bias. He notes the
risks of one-size-fits-all literalism and the
place for “situationist” social action, which
is kindly aware and adaptive to individual
context.
His depiction of an engaged Buddhist
movement is a far cry from the heady
hippy utopia one may fall prey to
fantasising about. It is one which remains
intimate with reality, in touch with the
way things are. I felt my heart slightly sink
at his reference to the “disastrous”
culmination of communism. Such
reflection shakes the ‘fixer’ within me that
longs for a perfect solution, a solid
ideology for peace and equality which I
can grasp and aspire to.
Jones repeatedly reminds us that
Buddhist practice involves challenging
our ideological belief systems and
closely inspecting our inner
motivations. That is not to
say we neglect social
change – quite the
opposite. This deep “inner
work” has the potential to
unearth an authentic clarity
and inspiration which lies
beneath our exhausting self
need to defend one fixed view or
another.
“Here is a sense of liberative joy, of
gratitude, freed of the constant strain of
trying to shape our condition the way we
vainly desire it to be.”
When both
the “mystic” and
the “militant” come
together, they form a
whole being, whose
work is both inner
and outer.
Photo: (cc) sjoe
23Issue 52 - Summer 2012 - www.engagedbuddhists.org.uk
Social problems can no longer be seen as
something ‘out there’. This
booklet is a practical
examination of how we
can begin to transcend
our limiting self views
and respond to the
needs of our world.
As a new member
of the NEB, I found
What is Engaged
Buddhism? an
accessible and
practical introduction
to their work. It contains
comprehensive information
about existing Buddhist social
projects, movements and activities and is a
thorough and inspiring overview. I would
highly recommend it to members new and
old. Furthermore, it is available to all for
free as a PDF at
www.engagedbuddhists.org.uk
Jones makes our situation clear, society
simply cannot continue based on
its current value systems. The
constant pursuit for
material wealth and
production is
exhausting planetary
resources and
destabilising eco-
systems. Change is
needed and fast. Just
as the culmination of
human thought
created the social
structures of today, so too
can they create the future.
“What is needed is roadmap
on the way to start building the future
now. And the foundation for that
profoundly different future lies in radically
changing the way in which we experience
our daily world, shoulder our
responsibilities and act out our lives.”
society
simply cannot
continue based on its
current value systems. The
constant pursuit for material
wealth and production is
exhausting planetary resources
and destabilising
eco-systems. Change is
needed and
fast.
Photo: (cc) Vornaskotti
24 Indra’s Net - the Journal of the Network of Engaged Buddhists
Poetry
When the self advances
the thousand things retire;
When the self retires,
the thousand things advance.
-- Zen Master Dogen
Hunched on the mountain wall, a buzzard,
that most meditative of birds of prey, eyes
me balefully. As I make my way
downwards through the gate some
compelling presence begins to grow upon
me.
Ancient oaks
they stand and wait
so much to say
It is unusual in such a high and lonely
place to find so many fine trees,
enlivening, too, a bright green pasture. It is
cropped by a herd of gwartheg duon, the
ancient Welsh Blacks. I recall there is a
Gaelic word for the sheen of sunlight upon
the flanks of black beasts. And so it is in
this morning of the world.
Neat coppices now grow wild. Paths and
tracks are hard to find.
Bright with May blossoms
where once the barley waved
the past finds voice
Here and there are the scant remains of
tumbled poverty. In an almost vanished
chimney nook a blackened kettle filled
with water.
Skeleton bed
lost in the bracken
the wreckage of a dream
Some homes have died so long ago that
their names live on only on the map.
“Farch-Ynys” . “Stallion’s Isle”? A mythic
beast ? An island far from any lake or sea ?
In the midst of a tanglewood I chance
upon an abandoned hippy squat. A broken
caravan filled with chaotic domesticity. On
the floor a scatter of children’s crayons.
Nearby is a large upturned boat, grass
through its stoved in timbers. And here a
van without wheels, scrawled with
Thatcher-era graffiti: “No Poll Tax !” All
abandoned in fearful or angry haste.
Beside their overgrown path, soon to
disappear and take their story with it,
three streams meet. A rare conjunction
this. And traditionally a magic place.
There good and evil are said to hang in
balance.
The flow of solitude
a stony stream
wanders on
Photo: (cc) Nigel Jones
The UnspokenKen Jones June 2012
25Issue 52 - Summer 2012 - www.engagedbuddhists.org.uk
Summer Workshop Retreat
The 14th Summer Workshop Retreat
of the Network of Engaged Buddhists
Thurs 30th Aug to Mon 3rd Sept 2012 at Eaglehurst, Chagford, Devon
How to do Engaged BuddhismThis year we shall address two questions
of the utmost importance. First, through
what specific activities can we best engage
with the needs of our world?. Secondly,
we shall have a go at the trainings required
to undertake those activities.
We shall use talks, small group
discussion, and experience specific
trainings together – and always with a care
for where each of us is at. As usual there
will be meditation, conviviality, and
everything else which makes “Chagford”
such a unique and valued experience. And
in a splendid mansion overlooking
Dartmoor.A warm welcome to old and
new friends from Ken, Joyce, Maitrisara,
Martin, Modgala and the rest of the team.
Cost per personRooms £150 (£110 concessions)
Cabin/camping £110 (£90 concessions)
Full details and directions will be
circulated by email about two weeks
before the start of the event.
Any immediate enquiries should be
directed to Martin Pitt by email:
Further details &
booking form overleaf >
26 Indra’s Net - the Journal of the Network of Engaged Buddhists
Summary InformationArrival/ departure : start will be 7pm on
Thurs 30 August (arrival from 4pm) and
finish on Mon 3 Sept at 10am.
FoodCatering will be vegan, although other
dietary needs can be accommodated,
please explain when booking if you have
any special requirements. You are also
invited to bring favourite teas, biscuits and
the like.
Accommodation...will be in shared bedrooms (up to 3
sharing) in Eaglehurst - a spacious
Victorian house overlooking Dartmoor, 40
minutes drive from Exeter. A limited
number of outdoor cabins are available
and camping is also possible.
Travel Shared car and train use is encouraged and
participant emails will be circulated in
advance (where permission is given) to
facilitate transport arrangements.
To book, complete the booking slip below
and return together with cheque payment
to– Martin Pitt, Eaglehurst, Mill St,
Chagford, NEWTON ABBOT, Devon TQ13
8AR.
Bookings will be on receipt of £50
deposit only and confirmed by email. £40
refunds will be given for cancellations
made
at least fourteen days before the event
(after this no refunds will be offered).
Permission will also be requested to
share your email amongst participants so
that shared transport arrangements can be
made.
Please contact Martin Pitt (above) if any
further financial assistance is required.
Summer Workshop Retreat
Booking form:Please reserve ____ place(s) for me at the
14th Summer workshop of the Network of
Engaged Buddhists (30 Aug - 3 Sept 2012)
I enclose a deposit cheque for £50 per place
made payable to ‘M.A.Pitt’
Name(s): ________________________________
_______________________________________
Date: ___________________________________
Address: ________________________________
_______________________________________
_______________________________________
_______________________________________
Tel: _____________________________________
Email: __________________________________
Please specify preferred accommodation:
Residential Cabin Camping
Any special dietary needs: ________________
_______________________________________
Send form and payment to:
Martin Pitt, NEB Retreat, Eaglehurst, Mill St,
Chagford, NEWTON ABBOT, Devon TQ13 8AR.
27Issue 52 - Summer 2012 - www.engagedbuddhists.org.uk
The Network of Engaged Buddhists
Contacts
President: Ken Jones
Chair: Joyce Edmond-Smith,
32 Bentham Road, Brighton, BN2 2XD.
Membership Secretary: Melissa Meek,
Parkers Flat 2, Market Place, Castle Cary,
Somerset, BA7 7AG. T: 01963 359418
Secretary and Editor of Indra’s Net:
Maitrisara, 18 Bhandari Close, Oxford,
OX4 3DT. T: 01865 777297
Regional Contacts:
Devon: Martin Pitt, Eaglehurst, Mill St,
Chagford, TQ13 8AR. T: 01647 432202
Dorset/Somerset: Melissa Meek, Parkers
Flat 2, Market Place, Castle Cary, Somerset,
BA7 7AG. T: 01963 359418
East Sussex: Joyce Edmond-Smith,
32 Bentham Road, Brighton, BN2 2XD.
T: 01273 680705
Wales: Ken Jones, Troed Rhiw Sebon,
Cwmrheidol, Aberystwyth, SY23 3NB.
T: 01970 880603
West Midlands: John Newson, 32 Alder
Road, Birmingham, B12 8BS.
T: 0121 4493977
East Midlands: David Brazier,
Amida Trust, The Buddhist House,
12 Coventry Road, Narborough,
Leicestershire, LE19 2GR.
T: 0116 286 7476
Scotland: Larry Butler, 14 Garroich Drive,
Glasgow, G20 8RS. T: 01419 468096
What does NEB do?
Produce a magazine Indra’s Net to keep
us connected with each other and let
people in different Sanghas know
what it going on.
Run workshops at events such as the
Buddhafield festival, organise
weekend and day retreats and
workshops in different localities
around the country.
Organise protests, actions and joint
projects on issues of current concern
e.g.: anti-war demonstrations, arms
trade protest.
Represent the concerns of Engaged
Buddhism at national fora such as the
Network of Buddhist Organisations
and the Interfaith Network.
Host an active email based forum
nebsangha (see website) for
discussion of ideas, posting requests
for help and publicising events and
activities.
Joining NEB as a member
Please think about joining us and getting
three Indra’s Net per year posted to you.
Subscription details are on page 2.
There is an apppliction form on our
website.
Website
www.engagedbuddhists.org.uk
More about NEB
This edition of Indra's Net was inspired by
an interfaith initiative called A Year of
Service. NEB worked with the Network of
Buddhist Organisations (NBO) to focus
events within the month of July and on the
theme of the Environment. Other faith
groups chose other months and other
themes. Called Earthkind, the full moon
day was designated Buddhist Action Day
(BAD).
The initiative aimed to inspire different
Buddhist groups to organise events on the
theme and most of the events organised
are detailed here:
http://ayearofservice.org.uk/past-events.
Our hope is that Buddhist Action Day
(maybe on a different theme each year)
becomes an annual ecumenical and
interfaith event reflecting engaged
Buddhist approaches and actively
making a contribution within local
communities to address social
justice and environmental issues.