Living well in the face of death

posted 24 Oct 2012, 11:49 by Akasharaja Bruton   [ updated 12 hours ago ]

On my desk at home I have a picture postcard from the Hermitage gallery in St. Petersburg. On the back in my mother’s slightly spidery handwriting there is the usual brief and breezy holiday greeting from the cruise she and dad were on. The postcard was posted on August 26 in Tallinn, Estonia. During the cruise it seemed that mum had pulled a muscle and she was in quite a lot of pain, which continued when she got home. About a week later she was admitted to hospital for tests. A week after that, on September 15, she was dead, overcome by the tumour which had been growing on her liver.

 Fortunately, I and most of the rest of the family were able to see her the evening before she died. I’m so glad that I was able to tell her how grateful I was for everything she’d done and assure her that her children and grandchildren had turned out well, something she could be very satisfied with. I was also glad, even though it was a bit strange for me as an ordained Buddhist, to stand up a couple of weeks later in the church in which I had been baptised to tell the packed congregation about my mum as I knew her. I have to say it was comforting to see a lot of familiar faces from my childhood, even though I have since taken another path. I was moved to see the obvious expressions of love for my mum and dad. I’m still moved now.

 Mum didn’t want to go. The weekend before she had told me that there was so much she still wanted to be part of and experience before her death. She had agreed to a course of chemotherapy and wanted to fight her corner against the cancer. But there simply wasn’t time; it was all so fast.


My point is this: we can never know when our time is up, so we should live our lives as fully as possible. Every day could be the last day we have. When I spoke about mum in the church and heard other friends and family members talk about her, I realised just how full her life had been. Most importantly, perhaps, it was defined by the love and care she felt for many, not just those close to her. She wasn’t very demonstrative – as I put it, she measured out her feelings carefully, but I knew that they came from an inexhaustible reservoir, and I finished my little talk with an undertaking to love as fully as she did.

 There is a very pertinent line in the Buddhist scriptures which is this: “The days and nights are relentlessly passing: how well are you using your time?” This something we all need to consider – as the scripture has it, “again and again”. How much time do we waste with ill-will, falling out with each other, grumbling and being suspicious of others? Nor is it enough just to fill our time with busyness: what really matters is how we do what we do. If we love well and give of ourselves, then we will make the most of every opportunity our life offers us.

 So I would invite you to think about your life, about its uncertainties, and to look at whether you are making the most of it. Every day brings an opportunity for kindness, concern for others, generosity and compassion. So why not take full advantage of it while you can?

Look after the body, look after the mind

posted 5 Aug 2012, 18:12 by Akasharaja Bruton   [ updated 12 hours ago ]

It may have come to your attention that there's an awful lot of sport about at the moment, particularly focused on a part of east London. What's more, whenever I come panting off the treadmill at the gym, there always seems to be quite a number of fit- and, on occasion, less fit- looking people exercising with expressions of grim determination on their faces. And of course on certain nights of the week the streets of Shrewsbury fill up with high-visibility runners pounding the pavements. Add to that yoga classes, zumba, Pilates and all manner of keep-fit opportunities, and you have to conclude that sport and exercise play a significant role in British life, even though health experts wring their hands at the rise in obesity and increasingly sedentary nature of modern life. I think it's a fair bet that even the most hardened couch potato wouldn't deny that certain things are good for you: exercising and eating well being two of them.

 But, if it’s generally accepted that it makes sense to look after the body, there doesn't seem to be any such consensus that it's also good to look after the mind. Buddhism tells us that the mind and what it gets up to play a key role in determining whether or not we suffer. As it says in the Dhammapada, an early Buddhist text:

 "The mind is frivolous and difficult to control, alighting on whatever it pleases. It is good to tame the mind. A tamed mind brings happiness".

 If you’ve tried to meditate – you may know all about this. You try to settle the mind - say on your breathing - but it just keeps wandering off, losing itself in random thoughts, memories, future plans and preoccupations. After 20 years on the cushion, this still happens to me! This is because we fill our minds with input and we’re not always very discriminating about it! Just as a diet of junk food is bad for the body, junk input – like too much reality TV, or too much time spent on the computer, or dare I say, too much preoccupation with work - is bad for the mind and can result in agitation, stress and an inability to focus. As I’ve said, I am no stranger to this myself: part of my work involves maintaining a website, and I’ve spent long periods of time in meditation obsessing about how to create a nice navigation rather than actually meditating! What I need to do is to make sure that I take breaks and actually turn the computer off sometimes rather than compulsively going back to have another go. This is a classic case of input overload for me, but I imagine you have your own versions!

 Anyway, the point is just as you need to watch what you eat, it's a good idea to watch what you let into your minds. Sometimes it's a good idea just to be quiet or to be out in nature, or to go to a gallery or read a well-written book.

 And as well as attending to your mental diet, there's also the question of exercise for your mind.

 This is where meditation comes in. Meditation is about training the mind, calming it and making it clear, supple and positive, so you can apply your attention to things that really matter. It's a bit like taking the mind to the gym.

 Sadly, though, exercising the mind often gets only a fraction of the attention exercising the body does. But the good news is that meditation has gained a higher profile in recent years and these days there are classes and group that can help you get started.

 If you’re not interested in meditation, that's fine. But it's always worth looking at the kind of input you subject your mind to - and the effect it has when you try to be quiet and focus on a single object for any length of time.

 I know from my own experience that some of the most deeply satisfying moments come - for me - when I'm completely aware of - and alive to the moment I'm in, the beauty of the world around me.

 So why not try it - sit quietly for five minutes – watch the chatter in your mind and see if it subsides. Do this a few times and you may be surprised how much better it’ll make you feel.

Are you a "respectable" Buddhist?

posted 19 Jul 2012, 10:25 by Akasharaja Bruton

Natural morality vs conventional morality (quotes from The Essential Sangharakshita pgs 591 – 601)

“Natural morality refers to behaviour that is directly related to mental states, while conventional moral behaviour is a matter of custom and tradition, and has no basis in psychology, not being related to a specific mental state.”

“It is quite important to be sure within oneself whether one is really leading a moral life or just respecting the prejudices of the group within which one happens to be. Moral life is essentially a matter of skilful mental states expressed in skilful behaviour and skilful speech.”

“Of course, if you want to communicate the Dharma to a lot of people, you cannot afford to alienate them by causing offence, especially by breaking their taboos. At the same time, you need to be careful not to lose sight of what you are trying to communicate. It is easy to forget that the Buddhist message is a subversive one, that its values run counter to mundane or wordly norms, and that your commitment to its ethical principles may lead you on occasion to offend conventional notions of morality.”

“A true individual is someone who has developed self-awareness, through one discipline or another, and on that basis has a confidence and self-respect that does not depend on convention or fashion. “



1.     Have you ever been in a situation where you have offended conventional notions of morality for ethical or other reasons? What effect did it have on you and others in the situation?

2.     Are there any areas in your life where you feel you hold back with your ethical practice through fear of challenging the group norm?

3.     Sangharakshita says “Sometimes virtue and respectability coincide, but often they don’t. One may be both virtuous and respectable, but it is also possible to be very respectable and not at all virtuous, or highly virtuous and not at all respectable.”  Do you think it is possible to be a true individual and be virtuous and respectable at the same time? 

15 do's and don'ts in the Dharma life

posted 8 Jul 2012, 23:26 by Akasharaja Bruton

These were presented at Dharma Day on Saturday 7 July 2012 and occasioned some lively discussion. As these  notes were just that - notes - they are rather terse, feel free to contact me if you would like further clarification! Akasharaja

1.       If you can choose the skilful option, do: if you are aware of having a choice but don’t choose the skilful, at least dwell in the discomfort of knowing you’re being unskilful. This discomfort shows that your ethical sensibility – your shraddha, or confidence-trust in the Dharma – is alive and well.

2.       Don’t let yourself off the hook. Don’t rationalise or seek to justify unskilful behaviour.

3.       Be prepared to fail gracefully – try to fail better next time!

4.       Be careful what you say! Speech is a very immediate expression of mental states and one that can be fairly easily controlled with a little effort. Sticking to skilful speech has a strong, positively conditioning effect on the mind.

5.       Watch your ethical habits (samskaras). We all tend to respond in predictable ways to certain situations because we have become conditioned to do so. Once you are aware of your habits you can start to work on them. This will be easier if you can do what comes in the next point

6.       Open yourself up to your spiritual friends. Once you have built up confidence and trust in your Dharma friendships, open up your ethical life to scrutiny. Your friends may be better placed to see your samskaras than you are. Once you have reached a certain level of commitment, there shouldn’t be any off-limits corners in your ethical life!

7.       Don’t take your mental states too seriously. All things pass!

8.       Don’t compartmentalise your life. Don’t make Buddhism one of the things you do along with a whole load of other things or just at certain times. The Dharma should underpin everything else you do. You can never be an off-duty Buddhist!

9.       Don’t try to bargain with Samsara – that is, to assume that, if you arrange your life in a certain way, you can make conditioned existence work for you. As Yama, the lord of impermanence, holds the wheel of life in his grip, impermanence, insubstantiality and unsatisfactoriness will this side of insight one day have their way with you!

10.   Related to this is the importance of not just aiming at a nice life. Beware of complacency!

11.   Recall your own mortality. Think about your own inevitable death.

12.   Aim high. Stream entry is possible in this life.

13.   Cultivate pleasure in the Dharma. Joy is the key to spiritual progress.

14.   Cultivate a Dharmic view. Life is full of lessons for us as long as we correctly understand what happens to us.

15.      Transfer your merits. Remember that the Dharma life is not led just for your own sake!

Completing your cycles

posted 15 Apr 2012, 17:39 by Akasharaja Bruton

Today I had something of a breakthrough: instead of leaving clean washing with unironed shirts hanging around to be dealt with later, I decided instead to do the ironing and putting away as soon as the clothes were dry. This may be second nature to many of you, but to a "Perceiving" type (to use Myers-Briggs typology) like me - someone who tends to be spontaneous and do what interests him on a spur-of-the-moment basis - it represented quite a significant step forward.

In his book "Life with Full Attention", Maitreyabandhu talks about the significance of completing your cycles: finishing what you start. This has both practical and ethical-aesthetic effects: practical in that, in my case, the house isn't ongoingly festooned with clean washing whilst, at the same time, there is a complete lack of clean underwear in the place where it should be; and ethical-aesthetic inasmuch as making sure you finish what you have started contributes to the generation of positive mental states and is a reflection of what Bhante Sangharakshita calls the "mindfulness of things" - awareness of the objects in the world around you, coupled with heightened regard and care for them. There is something unaesthetic about slovenliness in one's dealing with things: after all, a space full of uncared-for objects is not an attractive space. Furthermore, an uncared-for external space is very often a reflection of an uncared-for mental space, and vice-versa: slovenliness of mind is likely to be reflected in one's surrounding space, and an untidy and unkempt external space will have a negative effect on the mind that is forced to inhabit it!

As I said, this may be obvious to many of you. But spare a thought for me as I dwell well-satisfied in the knowledge of a cycle completed and a slightly more perfumed mind.

And, in my defence, at least I can say that the washing in question is usually clean!

Criticism and the self

posted 8 Apr 2012, 23:16 by Akasharaja Bruton   [ updated 8 Apr 2012, 23:20 ]

I recently had to deal with some disturbing news: one of the translation agencies I work for gave me some negative feedback about my work and announced a scaling-back, for the time being at least, of the type and amount of work I can do for them. The e-mail came on a Friday afternoon, which rather put a damper on my weekend!
This wasn’t very nice, as anyone who has been criticised will know! But, as I reflected on the implications of the news, I came to realise that, oddly enough, my discomfort wasn’t so much about the possible loss of livelihood. No, what caused me pain was much more the challenge this presented to my self-view. Bear with me, and I’ll explain.
Buddhism tells us that all unenlightened people are subject to suffering in various forms. This isn’t of course to say that we suffer all the time – life for most of us is a mix of pleasurable and painful experience - but what it does mean is that a thread of suffering is woven right through the tapestry of individual lives: bodily pain, the loss of a relationship, fear of future unhappiness and a basic sense of lack are all forms of suffering that we will all encounter at some time or other. The tradition goes on to say that all emotional and mental suffering is due to our inability to see that everything is subject to change and nothing mundane can be relied on to make us happy. This goes in particular for our own individual self, which is no more than an ever-changing flux of passing physical, emotional and mental events which arise and pass away. But we believe that this self is somehow fixed and unchanging, fundamentally separate from the world around it – and the only way to bridge the gap - to be happy - is through things like material possessions, relationships, membership of groups of one kind or another - and status. And when they let us down - which they inevitably do - we suffer.
Which brings us back to my uncomfortable experience. As I discovered so painfully, my sense of identity revolves, among other things, around status: around the fact that I am a capable, professional translator, good with words, with a shrewd understanding of how language works. But to be told out of the blue that I might not be as capable and professional as I thought delivered a stiff challenge to this sense of self, and I was able to observe how my ego started thrashing about like a landed fish trying to hold on to certainty – they must be wrong, I must defend myself, how dare they…? This was very painful. Yet, objectively speaking, the facts were simple: if they were wrong, and I was as good as I thought I was, then there was no problem. If I wasn’t, I could learn from the experience and improve – again, no problem. Being criticised didn’t suddenly make me a bad or worthless person. But because this sense of self is so strong – and we invest so much in defending it – it was very difficult to be rational.
What I tried to do was observe the suffering brought about by the gyrations of my mind and see that the cause of my own suffering was – and is - my fixed sense of self. Not easy, but it kept things in perspective. Freedom from suffering isn’t to be found in blaming others for our unhappiness. The only way to be free is to see your habit patterns, acknowledge their hold on you, and work, time and again, on letting go of them.
So, the next time someone criticises you, consider this: either they have a point, which will provide an opportunity for you to grow and develop, or they don’t, so why get upset about it?

International retreat by Annette Clarke

I was looking forward to going on this International Retreat weekend at Taraloka near Whitchurch Shropshire, having enjoyed the first one I attended on the same site in 2010. I had planned ahead this time, and negotiated the long weekend off during my busiest marking period with both students and employer. Due to demanding work commitments in preceding months, I had been unable to much spend time with Buddhist friends, and I very much wanted to connect again with both local and international Sangha members. I was not disappointed on any level.
From the warm welcome at the reception tent Friday evening ( complete with loan of  midge repellent) to the final puja held on Monday evening, ( with the exuberant ‘distribute your riches’ Buddhist fable aptly  staged by the children on  Jubilee Monday) I felt more connected than I had done for a long time, and my spirits soared . The shrine tent was filled with flapping colourful flags and a tastefully decorated, beautiful 4 sided Buddha shrine (thanks respectively to Shrewsbury Sangha and Kalyacitta). The food provided by Buddhafield was nourishing, healthy and extremely tasty – the system of feeding 400+ Buddhists was admirable in such a short space of time. It was a delight to sit next to  people  from  Europe and India at  each meal sitting, and to learn about  their lives – I heard all about the Lowlands (the  new Buddhist Retreat centre on the border of Belgium and Holland) from Patrick and Kathleen ( Ghent Songhai) and stories of ‘the Death walk’ Patrick  completed twice each August to raise funds for it, and these meal times also  gave me the opportunity  to catch up with old friends and to  make new ones. Washing up tea mugs during the daily work periods enabled me to chat to Buddhists from Suffolk and Berlin. Thanks to Karunabandhu for the prompt delivery of mugs each day for washing up, and for the kind invite to attend the opening of the New Berlin Buddhist Centre on 1^st and 2^nd Sept – we are coming!
The cold blustery weather made everyone even more determined to enjoy the weekend, so the campfire remained almost permanently lit and the endless stream of steaming hot drinks from the tea tent distracted the mind/Vedana from wet socks and shoes and soggy tents.   
The topic of Ratnaguna's Saturday morning talk was intriguing – he tried to imagine the voice of the Buddha in a most entertaining way. Kamalashila talked about "the mandala of the historical Buddha" on Sunday morning –he linked some of the imagery and symbolism of the five-Buddha mandala back to the historical Buddha and the practices he taught, and Dhammadina talked about Shakyamuni as the "richly endowed" – discussing the generous, abundant, golden, noble, aspect of the Buddha on Monday morning.
11 different 2 hour afternoon workshops were on offer over the weekend , all equally tempting ( A ground hog day replay would have been useful to attend more  ) and it  proved a tough  choice; I settled for Sona and Vidyamala’s charming  double act, continuing the theme from  Kamalashila’s talk  which they called ‘Entering the Mandala  of radiance’ This workshop provided a systematic, entertaining , highly interactive over view of the 5 stages of practice including integration, positive emotion, spiritual death, rebirth and spiritual receptivity. One role play involved Sona  reading out  the Buddha’s lines  from his I Pad and the audience acting as his responsive disciples- this led  to Sona being addressed jokingly as ‘my lord’    for the remainder of the workshops. He took it in good  part. Who wouldn’t?
A wonderful optional afternoon meditation was led in the Big Red tent each day. The 7 posture body scan enabled us to relax into our meditation in a profound way. Blankets, hats, gloves and hot water bottles kept us cosy.
Throughout the weekend, sounds of Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and Beatles songs wafted intermittently over the camp site from the music tent. Opening up the evening puja, the backing band supported the children enacting the Buddhist fables and they belted out tunes for the sangha to sing along to (Oh no they didn’t! Oh yes they did! Etc) Olivia Moore played her violin beautifully and Mahasuka’s workshop choir sang mantras in 4 part harmonies to set the scene for the evening ritual. Some hardy souls even rose at 3.45am on Monday morning to celebrate the full moon puja (I didn’t)
Vajragupta’s increasingly optimistic morning weather reports (his face painted in gold leaf to represent the sun’s golden rays) amused the sangha greatly; and his kindly assurances were greeted with affectionate boos and cheers.
The opportunity to circumambulate the shrine each evening in the ritual puja, along with friends from Europe and India, was both touching and meaningful. It was especially moving to hear the tribute to Sitnah added at the final puja. 
 A heartfelt thank you to all the team who worked so hard at constructing the camp, and who ensured it ran so smoothly during the weekend, and thanks to everyone who stayed on until Tuesday to help with the dismantling jobs – I hope to be able to join you for longer at the next international retreat. My thanks also go to Jackie as my intrepid fellow traveller and driver.
The weekend proved a very significant turning point for me spiritually in deciding my priorities over the coming year and I am very grateful for this gift.
I loved the sociability, the kindness, the stimulation, the fun, the warmth and the friendliness of the weekend. The compost loo was good too!  I would highly recommend this mix of experiences to everyone –I would suggest booking early next time, as it sold out before hand this year. 

With metta,

Annette