Yew Lye Hin: Could you tell me about the Buddhist organization you are from?

Dhammloka: I'm a member of the Western Buddhist Order (hereafter WBO), which forms the nucleus of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (hereafter FWBO). The FWBO is a fairly large Buddhist movement with centres in more than twenty countries. Members of the WBO commit themselves to full-time Buddhist practice even though there may be many different ways of doing it.

Venerable Urgyen Sangharakshita, who was born an Englishman, established FWBO in 1967. At the end of the Second World War, he had been conscripted as a soldier to India and had stayed on there after the war. He was first ordained as a bhikkhu in the Theravada Tradition and later took initiations from Tibetan teachers as well.

During his time in India and even before that Venerable Sangharakshita had developed a wide understanding of Buddhism. He sensed that the time was ripe to overcome the separations and perhaps antagonisms between the various Buddhist schools of thought. He would rather see how the teachings from these various schools of traditional Buddhism could work for people living in contemporary societies.

Having stayed in India for more than twenty years, in the mid 1960s he returned to Britain; initially only for a visit, but then he saw a need for a Buddhist movement or organization there. He thus established FWBO and later ordained the first people into the WBO. He himself stopped being a bhikkhu in the strict sense, but that doesn't mean that he or his disciples are laymen either. It may well be that there are new ways of practicing the Dharma evolving in the West and, in a sense, one might say the WBO is an attempt to give the Going for Refuge primacy over a particular choice of lifestyle. Members of the WBO aim to make their Buddhist practice central in their lives and deepen their work for the Three Jewels in whatever way. Some do it by living a family life, some by being a celibate, even more monastic type of life; others do it in other ways again … so it's very difficult to squeeze them in the rather misleading categories of either lay or monastic.

Venerable Urgyen Sangharakshita certainly is quite a controversial person. Some people might even say he's a fake; others may consider him to be enlightened. He just talks of himself as a ‘translator' and a ‘friend' and I think both these terms describe him very well. He really forms a living bridge between East and West. He has a deep understanding as well as love for certain aspects of Western culture but is at the same time incredibly critical of other of its features. He is quite critical as well in certain aspects of traditional Buddhist culture; very critical of what he experienced of the Theravada tradition during the 1950s. He said if he hadn't met some good Hindus as well as Tibetan and Mahayana teachers, he might have lost hope in Buddhism. Luckily, Theravada Buddhism has changed as well — as one can well see in Malaysia.

In the West, there is an increased awareness in Buddhism, whereas in the east, especially in its birthplace India, Buddhism seems to be stagnant or dying off.

I wouldn't quite say that because, since the 1950s, there has been a resurgence, particularly connected with the mass conversion of some three million Untouchables who, under the leadership of Dr. Ambedkar, left Hinduism and embraced Buddhism. They had to struggle a lot, partly because six weeks after their conversion, Dr. Ambedkar died tragically. Venerable Urgyen Sangharakshita was one of a number of bhikkhus who immediately went in and gave support.

Actually, after Britain, the second largest part of our Order is in India. They are known as Trailokya Bauddha Mahasangha Sahayaka Gana (TBMSG).

What is it that attracted you to Buddhism?

Initially, about 26 years ago, my first living contact with Buddhism was when I attended a meditation weekend organised by FWBO in Holland (I'm from Germany). I immediately recognized that meditation was something I had been looking for. I would never have looked for it in a religious area, though, because at that time I was pretty anti-religious. I was long fed up with Christianity. I had left the Christian Church and somehow believed any religion was superstitious and not relevant any longer. I did not know about Buddhism and just assumed Buddhism was no different.

So there I was introduced to meditation and I found it incredibly practical, not that I found it easy. I initially just thought that this would really, in a psychological level, help me be more at ease, peaceful, more directed, and in a sense, get a better understanding of what life was about. I didn't have a religious perspective. I just wanted to be a happier man.

This was one thing that drew me to explore Buddhism and this particular FWBO group. The other was I was in keeping with people of my age. I had finished my university studies a few years earlier, and I was pretty disillusioned in particular with the more theoretical, merely intellectual understanding of life which didn't seem to lead anywhere. I found this useful in some ways but it didn't answer my main questions. I had been involved in politics, that is student politics, and I had noticed that I didn't really feel a genuine deep empathy with the people I was supposedly working for. It was just very much in the head. I felt a need to change. But I didn't know how and where. The people I met at FWBO were of roughly my age and seemed to have similar background experience. Other than my old friends and colleagues from university, they seemed to have kept alive these questions about the meaning of life, and they didn't pretend to have all the answers. Yet they seemed very confident they had found a method to find the answers. So I wanted to find out more about that. I wanted to understand that better. I started to explore them and through exploring them, I learnt more about Buddhism. Whatever I heard on this seemed just to make so much sense. Even now — or rather, now ever more so — I find that Buddhism does really address the most important issues and does so in a down to earth way, which I found increasingly attractive. I became involved with growing interest, so after one and a half years or so, I asked to become a member of the Order and was quickly ordained into the WBO.

I find through encountering the Dharma and starting to practise the Dharma, I have gained a much greater understanding of life and what it is about. I have found some very practical ways of improving myself so as to be able to help others. I believe I have become somewhat more understanding. And I have certainly seen that our society needs the Dharma. I just want to work for that, to support that in whatever way I can. Obviously for that to happen, it's very important that I continue to work on myself. It is very easy to get lost in good work. If good work is not supported by wisdom or at least by a seed of wisdom, the good work may quickly stop to be good work.

What type of meditation did you do in the FWBO?

As newcomers, we were taught two main practices, namely Metta Bhavana (loving kindness meditation) and Mindfulness of Breathing, which still are what beginners, are being introduced to at our centres. These practices can balance each other particularly well.

People in the West, as you probably know, often tend to be rather wilful and ambitious. Very often when they take up mindfulness of breathing or another meditation, the aim of which is to obtain one-pointed focus, they are very hard in their efforts, perhaps producing a lot of headache and strain, but not necessary getting any where. So they can get into quite an alienated kind of state where they don't really experience the breathing but rather watch it, so to speak, from without like a policeman. Whenever they get distracted, they so to speak slap themselves on the face and say, “Oh, I'm so bad, I shouldn't be doing that.” At least for a few people there is a certain danger that they might get it wrong. It's very important to develop a much more positive attitude both to ourselves as well as to other people and in this way learn to care for others. Metta Bhavana helps to soften oneself and in the learning of becoming genuinely kind with oneself and others.

We teach both these meditation methods and encourage people to practise them. I was introduced to them myself. Initially I didn't like Metta Bhavana. Basically, I found it difficult, so I didn't like it. In due course, I learnt to value it much, much more. It is still one of my main practices. I sometimes include the other Bhrama-viharas of compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. I find these are incredibly rich and good practices. Over the years, I have taken up contemplation of conditionality as a central practice.

Could you say something about yourself?

I first started out as a musician. I was a cellist. I had a bad car accident towards the end of my studies. I did complete my studies at the music college, but with a badly injured shoulder it became clear that I didn't have the physical stamina for the profession of a cellist any longer. In line with my leftist thinking at the time, I took up sociology and psychology and got a Masters degree in Social Science. I worked for a while as a teacher in a college. In the late 1970s, I started to work freelance. I started my own work in Management Training, mainly in the realm of communication skills, self and stress management, team work, etc. — i.e. soft skills rather than economics.

Coping, with work demands and the stress arising there, is one of the areas, which I have found to be particularly important for contemporary Buddhists. It seems to me, from my certainly limited experience so far in Malaysia and Singapore that people over here (compared with Westerners) are working even more crazily. They have longer work hours, so in some ways I get the impression, even though a few of them try to learn meditation, it seems to be just too demanding for them. They sit down and their mind is all over the place. They have no way of how they could recollect themselves. So I think there is a great demand for bringing Buddhism directly into the work situation. After all, most of us are spending the greater part of our waking life in work. Just think of the effect that is likely to have in our minds. So, I have made it an important part of my work to try help people in this area. In fact, with my teacher Urgyen Sangharakshita, I believe that nowadays work has pretty much the function of a ‘tantric guru.' But, that would probably be a topic for another conversation.

Thank you.