The Sangha society, best example of affectionate community living

community living: Community life is, I think, an art form which is being much lost these days. It is hard to do if one has been conditioned by individuality. I certainly was. I had my own room.

My brother had his own room. I had my records. He had his records. If he touched my records he’d be finished.

The life of community is something that I have learned by being a Buddhist Monk. As you know, we chant, “Sangam vandeh! I revere the Sangha”. In Buddhism “Sangam vandeh! I revere the Sangha” is seen to be the Sangha of Enlightened Beings.”

When do you find one of those these days? But if you bring Sangha to the ordinance of life, you contemplate community.

To me community implies a sense of affection for one’s place, for the trees, for the water one uses, for the air one breathes, for the food one eats, for governance, for the streets one uses, for one’s neighbour, for the shoemaker, for the greengrocer, and so on.

A Buddhist culture implies the sense of developing community by being responsible for all these very real things.

To live and work in community requires us to give. One of the great virtues of the Buddhist culture is Alms giving. Sometimes there can be a form of spiritual materialism, where giving is linked to a better material status in the next life. We need to think about what Dana, or generosity, actually implies.

And what does metta, the idea of kindness and compassion, imply, other than being nice to my dog or my kids? Like compassion, metta also implies a deep commitment to affection at a very real and pervasive level. Affection for one’s roads, for the air, for New Zealand.

This monastery of course brings that up. When you come to this environment you notice the affection. Affection for architecture, for workmanship, for a path which is laid out with beautiful stones you can walk along.

There is also a sense of responsibility for the overall harmony of the community. So that I see it’s not for you to make me happy but rather for me to try to participate with affection in your life, my own life and in our community life in order to create harmony.

Often the problems of society are pronounced in terms of a global or national problem. But there are no national problems, just individual problems. It’s always individuals disagreeing or individuals fighting.

That can be a national problem if the whole national psyche is geared towards that. But the solutions are always individual. They are about you and I working together with each other.

People often say, “Well, I’m gonna wait for other guy to recycle the plastic and then I’ll start”. But why wait? Why not begin oneself?

So if I have a disagreement with someone or if I hate the polluters and I dwell in continual hatred for even that which is evil - then the Buddha’s teaching says, “No, that’s not my teaching.

You can call yourself a Buddhist, but that’s not what I’m teaching.” Then we can look inwards and ask, “Why can’t I live up to those high standards; what is it about my life that I am unable to do that?”

Participation in the difficulties of the community as a spiritual practice is the great challenge. To use the committee meeting as your monastery or to use your adversary as your teacher is a way of introducing spiritual practice into problem solving. This is very rewarding.

It’s hard work. It’s much easier to slope off and say,” well let them do it, I’m going to watch the ball game tonight.” Sometimes we need to do that, but that kind of participation in community, where we think we’ll let someone else take care of the trees or the water, doesn’t bring many rewards.

Sometimes Buddhism can seem to involve an attitude of,” leave me alone, I’m trying to get enlightened.” Even metta practice can be like that. You can be sitting there, saying,” May all beings be well, May they be free from suffering,” when someone interrupts your meditation and you snap at them.

It’s easier to idealise universal compassion than to actually live it. To be in a relationship with someone who really presses your buttons and to be aware of that is a spiritual practice.

Now that doesn’t mean that we don’t feel alienation, resentments, anger or fear. These are natural conditions of the human heart. But to take alienation or resentment as my refuge or as something that I pursue, of course defeats community. It also defeats my own spiritual practice.

To witness in ourselves that which is unwholesome and unskilful in an affectionate way is the Buddhist (path because we have both in our hearts - that which is divisive and that which is unifying.

We have both because we’re human beings and to have affection for one’s inner worlds means to take responsibility for the whole business. But we don’t have to take refuge in it all.

Sometimes when we do, Metta Bhavana practices of loving kindness, we begin with ourselves and our loved ones, then we radiate that love outwards to more neutral kinds of people and then we try to bring up into consciousness beings we think are our enemies. That can be hard because it’s tied into memory.

It’s very interesting how memory works. When you mention someone who has harmed you, your memory pattern goes right to that, doesn’t it? To not pursue or feed that memory pattern is a way of ending the whole sense of alienation and separation.

The monastery I come from has about fifty residents, often another fifty on retreat and maybe another hundred on a busy Sunday. So it’s a pretty big outfit. Sometimes you get a clique of wingers.

They’re usually the “behind the woodshed smoker” types, complaining that the abbot talks too much or that the monks took all the cakes again. They usually walk out of the door and are never seen again. That’s not how you form community.

When we hear that kind of divisive speech, maybe we can listen without buying into it. We can say, “Yeah it sounds like. You’re got a problem”. To disagree is fine, but we want to avoid feeding that continual tendency of the human mind to become negative.

To take responsibility in community for right speech is again one of these mirrors that the Buddha’s teaching is presenting to us.

Right speech is speech which is in concord, brings harmony, is truthful, beautiful and according to Dhamma. Wrong speech is speech which is divisive, untruthful, ugly, cruel, harsh or swearing - and speech which is just foolish.

If we’re really working with Buddhism as a spiritual teaching, then when our speech enters into disharmony and divisiveness well awaken to that because we’re taking this training seriously. We say, “Why do I need to do that? Why do I need to create disharmony”?

Inherent in this is a joyous awakening to the peacefulness of relating, and to intimacy. Intimacy is more than just about a relationship between two people. It’s about non-alienation with and affection for all sentient beings.

It’s not an easy thing to do but that noble aspiration is worth it because it does bring joy. Not the joy of consumerism or the easy way out. It’s a deeper sense of mobility in the human heart.

I’ve lived in community for 25 years and I find that community takes a lot of work. The image Ajahn Sumedho uses is of fifty rough semi-precious stones in one of those polishing machines.

They come out all nice and shiny, and you can buy them in the shop. The process is grinding. It’s like being with someone you find irksome and with whom it’s okay to disagree, but taking responsibility for that or like being with someone you find intimidating and working with that. It is a kind of grinding which requires time, stability and commitment.

We have to ask ourselves why there is so much depression and suicide in our society. For me it seems the problem is that we don’t have community and that we don’t relate in a non-alienating way. We relate in a competitive way.

We cut the trees down in order to use the land. We become alienated from our own bodies and they become bloated, overfed things that we have to carry around. What is a body? It is one of the environments we live in.

What does it feel like? What kind of food does it need? A life of affection for your community of emotional beings, for what you’re putting into your body and into your mind is a more complete way of living your life.

But what is an affectionate relationship to the emotions? Even within spiritual practice we can have a cruel self-hating attitude towards the very real difficulties that we face. We can demand that we be loving, or forgiving.

The spiritual part of community also includes an affectionate participation in one’s own inner being and an understanding of one’s emotions. Within that inner affection or inner awareness one sees all kinds of limitations. One sees that one does resent, get angry and have fears.

This process is a more complete, integrated way of living your life. A life lived for a weekend of golf doesn’t make sense to me.

To push one’s body hard in some way and then have a few hours of pleasure a week seem to me to be disassociation and alienation from life. But a life of immediacy where we’re living moment by moment in this kind of affectionate and caring way makes a lot of sense and has very good results.

This can lend a new quality to one’s existence, because the process of existence is just as important as any other goal we might have. The doing is important because the doing involves affection for all the little things.

If the means are right the ends will be right. If the way I’m living this moment now is not conjoined with affection - then how can I have affection later on? If my spiritual contemplations are bound by self-hatred and self-judgement and put-downs of myself, how can there be affectionate love at the end of the road?

There can’t be. It just doesn’t work. The law of Karma doesn’t work that way. So this life of Buddhism is a life of responsibility, maturity and affection. A life of caring for oneself and for one’s community.

I wish you well in your spiritual journey and I hope this place is helpful for you in developing community in your own spiritual life.

(From: ‘The Stillness of Being’ by Viradhammo Bhikku)

Sent by: Chandrasriya de Silva

Buddhist analysis of space

Dr. Bhikkhu Bodhipala Madurai, Tamil Nadu

ANALYSIS OF SPACE: The Buddha in His several discourses analysed real nature of “space”. According to the Buddha space is not a matter otherwise it does not possess any material quality both chemical as well as physical.

As such it can be perceived or understood with the help of two corporeal entities fixing them as boundaries. They may be two atoms or two galaxies. In Pali language perceiving the quality or quantity of “space” is technically called “pannati”.

But modern science has divided the space into two categories, the first one is ether space which is absolutely a material phenomena. The space defined by metaphysics has two divisions. The first one is called material akash and the next one is called sentient space.

The Buddha has His own way explaining the qualities of space. Experiencing “space” is nothing but entering into infinite conscious. Experiencing infinite conscious is nothing but surmounting on “jhanas” which ultimately leads one to attain “Nibbana”.

There is a general insinuation from the West that stages of four “jhanas” are not well explained and interpreted by the Theravada scholars. The stages of Jhanas should be experienced through sincere and severe practice but most of us are trying to understand just on reading the characteristics of Jhanas without personal effort.

It is really a difficult task because to indicate or to define a material substance in etymological point of view there are words to employ. On the other hand certain words are to be experienced e.g space, mind and nibbana.

Helium or Hydrogen etc. such elements can be defined by the words and can be perceived not only in literary form but also in a laboratory. But the science of etymology is so fragile to through the clear ideas of certain words like “space” “jhanas” and “jhanas”.

It would be fit to say that the “concept” of space is not yet palpably defined because space is an imperceptible entity as it cannot be perceived by the senses except by the mind like nibbana.

Shortly speaking space is not a tangible thing could not be perceived any one of our sensual organs. That is why Buddhism does not recognise space is as one of the basic elements.

Buddhist analysis of space is clearer than the definition of modern physical science. Dhammasangani has several explanations about space. According to Dhammasangani wherever if there is no obstruction that is called “space”.

In Hinduism space is divided into two categories, the first one is called “etheric space” and the other is defined as “akasic space”. It is further defined that etheric space is an “insentient entity” and the akasic one is a sentient entity.

The Buddha explains “The physical space” in a detailed manner (MAJ: 28.26) “when a space is enclosed by timber and creepers, grass and clay it comes to be termed “house”. So too when a space is enclosed by bones and sinews, flesh and skin it comes to be termed “material form” the Buddha here means the egoless nature of the body.

He shows that the so-called material body is nothing but mere aggregation of four elements obviously having intervening gap or space right from top to toe starting from mouth to anus.

The Buddha asks Ven.Rahula what Rahula is the space ? Whatever internally ... spatial and clung to that is holes of the ears, the nostrils the door of the mouth etc.

Acharya Nagasena has a long definition suited to modern physical science. According to him space cannot be grasped (sabbaso apayho) no limitations (sarvagata) thus it is infinite (ananto) etc.,etc.,. Hence it is neither matter nor non-material (sankhata nor asankhata). Now a usual question arises “What is the purpose of Understanding space?”.

The Buddha says “Ananda I often abide by voidness”. The Buddha further explains Ven. Ananda “Bhikkhu should steady his mind internally, quiet it, bring it to “singleness” and at the same time boundlessness is the main characteristics of space.

The space should be conceived spherically making your inner core being of “I am” “Me” “Myness” further it should be neither cylindrical nor circuitous. But we generally try to conceive the space either cylindrically or circuitously.

In the words of the Buddha “This state has an entirely wholesome basis and superabundance.

Only in correct conception of material base one can understand the boundless consciousness pervading into the “singleness” without limitation and eternal existence with bliss and at the same time devoid of “I AM”.

When the thought of “I am being” does exist boundless space could not be experienced. So “I am being” should pervade into entire space spherically that is into limitless singleness than state of infinite- consciousness arises.

Buddhaghosa says in Visuddhi Magga ...”the space of boundless space that he (one) had already attained in due course and applies this mind to the consciousness that has as its object the sign of space, his mind enters into without difficulty”.

As already explained “space” is a non-material entity, but at the same time in order to develop “jhanas” space should be conceived mentally and spherically standing on one point obviously from our “I”ness or “Me”ness or “My”ness.

As far as all sentient beings are concerned the centre point of this universe (space) is their “I”ness. In the beginning of jhanic practice the boundless space spreading from your “beingness” should be conceived.

When the conception space pervades from the point of your “beingness” then only the boundless consciousness can be experienced. When boundless consciousness is experienced the nothingness is understood.

When nothingness is understood the inner core of beingness is removed and ultimately “neither perception nor non-perception” is experienced leading to “Full Enlightenment.”

Nibbanam Paramam Sukham.

Ven. Sooriyagoda Siridhamma Thera accorded title of Nayaka Thera

NAYAKA THERA: Ven. Sooriyagoda Siridhamma Thera, a brilliant student of the late most Ven. Kevitiayagala Dhammasidhdhi Thera, who was Nagenahira Pasthun Korale Pradhana Sangha Nayaka and chief incumbent of Sri Rathnaramaya, Ratmalana was born in the village of Sooriyagoda situated in the Agalawatta electorate of the Kalutara District.

The youngest child born into a family of one brother and four sisters, he entered the Sasana under the tutelage of Ven. Kevitiyagala Dhammasidhdhi Nayaka Thera.

After he was ordained, he received his Piriven education before entering University to obtain his B.Ed, M.Ed and MA qualifications. Currently Siridhamma Thera is the chief incumbent of Sri Rathnaramaya. He also serves as the Deputy Principal of Thurstan College, Colombo.

Sri Rathnaramaya, which was started by Most Ven. Olaboduwe Rathanapala Nayaka Thera in 1958, was transformed through the years into a complete and picturesque place under the guidance of Siridhamma Thera, which has resulted in making the temple a unique place of reverence as well as a hub for social service, earning the respect of all who come across it.

Special mention should be made of the Sri Rathanapala Sunday School which, with its history of over 28 years has been the centre of Siridhamma Thera’s islandwide social service efforts. Currently the Sunday School boasts a student population of over 500 students.

In 1984 the Sunday School won the All Island Bhakthi Gee contest and also the All Island Best Speaker Contest in the same year. In 1985 they were able to win the All Island Vesak Bhakthi Gee contest organised by Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd for schools and Sunday Schools.

In the same year won the third place in the island at the Dharmacharya Exam. The Pinnacle of their achievements was when the Sunday School was selected as the Best Sunday School in the island for the year 2004, which was an appropriate reward for the brilliance of Siridhamma Thera’s managerial and organisational skills.

One of the prominent aspects of the social services conducted by Siridhamma Thera is the awarding of educational scholarships to underprivileged children from rural areas such as Ampara, Monaragala, Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Hambantota.

This scheme which began in 1990 with the awarding of four scholarships has broadened into 75 scholarships in 2007, with ample support given by philanthropists who have been impressed with the services of Siridhamma Thera.

Siridhamma Thera also continues his social service by visiting rural areas such as Thanamalvila, Walagedara, Valivitiyawa and Ambagahaweva and donating books, stationery and other educational material to deprived children living in these areas.

Siridhamma Thera is also renowned as a brilliant and charismatic speaker who has been featured in many radio and TV programmes. The brilliance of his sermons have been proven through the letters of commendation sent to the prelate by listeners islandwide.

Siridhamma Thera began penning books with his first creation “Asirimath Cheevara Pooja” on Katina Cheevara Pooja. He has since then written more books which have been distributed free of charge among Buddhist devotees.

Siridhamma Thera has continued enthusiastically and actively taking part in religious activities of the area while shouldering many responsibilities.

As a result of the social services and the highly disciplined and simple life style of the prelate, Sooriyagoda Siridhamma Thera has been rewarded by Most Ven. Shrimath Thibbatuwawe Sri Siddhartha Sumangalabhidhana Maha Nayaka Thera and the Karaka maha Sangha Sabha with the honorary title of “Sadharma Keerthi Sri Dhamma Siddhyabidhana” while being appointed as the “Praddhana Adhikarana Sangha Nayaka” of Western Province including Nawa Thotamune area.

Undoubtedly this will facilitate to broaden the religious and social services provided by Siridhamma Thera. We wish him longevity and good health to continue with his efforts.

Wathsala Wijewickrama