(upbeat music) This podcast is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for Your Life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. Thank you and happy listening. - Okay, so first of all, I'd really like to welcome everybody, although you've been welcomed before, you were welcomed yesterday by Ratna Darnie last night in the shrine room and then this morning at the seven o'clock meditation, and again at the 10.30 pudja. But if you've arrived since then, welcome. And even if you've been welcomed before, welcome again. So it's very exciting to have so many Dharma Charonies here. It's the first Dharma Chariny event of this scale that we've had here, we've had a regional order we can't hear. For women from the Northern region, but it's the first time we've had a national now called area order we can. And it's fantastic, I saw Banti yesterday actually at lunchtime and he said, oh well, you've got big weekend coming up and I said yes, and he said, "How many ladies will there be?" I said, "Very few actually." (audience laughing) But there'll be a lot of women. And he said, "How many?" And I said, "Well, I think there's about 145, 146." He said, "Oh, much more than the men." (audience laughing) I'm just saying. (audience laughing) Anyway, he was genuinely very, very pleased to hear that so many women were coming along in this weekend and he wished us well for the weekend. He was very pleased to hear that we were doing, the theme that we were doing, Avadi Stana. And he said, "I believe the men did that in November." So there you go. You gain some, you lose some. (audience laughing) It's true, actually. I think the men's national order weekend had the same theme. Which is good actually because it's the first year of us functioning here and it seems a good theme really. So it seemed like a good theme to have. So you might have seen, you probably haven't actually, but some of you might have seen that this talk is called business as usual. Avadi Stana and the Bodhi Chitta. So there's been a couple of reasons why it was called that. One was that people kept saying to me, "Oh, I suppose you'll be talking about the Bodhi Chitta." (audience laughing) Business as usual. But also because in a way, it is business as usual. This is a new project, it's a new place. But it's not really new in another sense. It's the continuation of years and years and years of building things up. And to be here for a women's event like this, a Damachani event, well, it's new because it's the first time that we've taken this place, taken this space for this event. But it's certainly not new in terms of being a first women's order event. Because we've had hundreds of them over the years. So we've had women's order weekend since the early 1980s. When I was first redeemed, our order weekends were always mixed. And I can't remember exactly at what point that changed. But it was some time in the early '80s, maybe '82, something like that. And what that meant in some ways, when we started to have their single sex order weekends, was that the women's order weekend was about 15 people. There were about 15 of us with sitting in the room, usually at the LBC. And we all knew each other incredibly well. We'd all lived together, or we'd worked together, or we'd just known each other for quite a long time. But nevertheless, for me anyway, it was slightly strange to be just with those people, in the sense that for me, the order weekends that we'd had before had felt really special, being quite big. I either were about 150 or 200 people or something. And at first, it felt like for the women's wing to try and build up that kind of intensity, it was going to take a long time. It did take a while. But hey, look, you know, we've got 145, 150 Dharma Chinese. And that's only the Dharma Chinese from the UK and Ireland. We're one or two that have slipped in from Europe. And very welcome they are. So in a sense, it strikes me that we have-- what we have here is continuity, as well as innovation, and that there's something very satisfying about that. So it's business as usual in the sense of women coming together, women practicing together. It's built on years and years and years of us doing that in different places, at different times. So it does feel, in a sense, not at all new. It feels quite normal just to be standing here, talking to looking at these faces. Many of them I've seen many, many times. And yet it does also feel historic to be here in this place. So I think both of those things are true. So continuity and change. So what I'm going to do is just share some reflections and thoughts on the nature of Adistana. And for those of you who came to the dedication weekend, you recognize quite a bit of the talk, because I'm going to say quite a few of the same things. But you probably don't remember them anyway, because it was months ago. And many of you weren't able to come to that. So Adistana, you might have seen on the web page, has a definition. It's a particular definition which was chosen by Banti. So the name Adistana was chosen by Banti for this place and for this project. So not just the geographical location, but the project that we're trying to build and give birth to here. And he chose it from Snellgrove's critical study on the Hevajra Tantra. That's where he found the particular translation of Adistana that he liked. So it says, from its literal meaning of a sight, residence, or position, the word Adistana is then applied to the power pertaining to such a position. It can therefore mean the power which belongs to divine form. And in this sense, comes near to the conception of grace. It can also refer to the power experienced in meditation or through recitation of mantra. In that, it may be transmitted by a spiritual teacher to his disciples or head disciples. It may also be translated as blessing. So I think blessing is the term that most of us have taken from that as the meaning, the kind of core meaning of Adistana. People talk about it as a place of blessings. And I think it's a really apt, appropriate name. In fact, the more time goes on and the more we explore this, the more amazed I'm actually just how incredibly apt it is as a name. I mean, I liked it anyway, but we had a public preceptors' college meeting here quite recently. And in that, we talked a bit about Adistana. And the more we explored it and kind of talked about what Adistana means and is, I don't know, it just felt like the penny was dropping more and more from more others just how particularly apt a name is. And part of that is that it's a sight or a residence. So of course, first and foremost, it's Bantee's residence. So you probably know Bantee resides just across there in the argian annex, as it's called. And when we go here, that was a complete ruin, that little building. In fact, the first time we looked around Ratnadani thought, this is probably a good place for Bantee's home. And others of us weren't so sure. And then we had a kind of rethink and we thought of somewhere else. And then Bantee came and had a look and he said that was what he wanted. So that was where he went. But because it really was almost the most ruined part of the site, it took quite a lot of work to get him there. And Bantee decided even to move as soon as possible, which also meant that we could sell Majima Loka a bit sooner, which was good. But it really put an incredible strain on the team here and the workers here to try and get the place ready. Somehow, miraculously, they managed it. And Bantee moved in in February, as probably most of you know. So in fact, he moved in on the weekend of the International Order Convention in Bulgaria, which felt kind of auspicious. That quite a lot of us from all around the world were gathered together in Bulgaria, which is its own Adistana. In a sense is the Adistana from which any other Adistana will, girl will come, will flow. And we were all sitting there and we got the message that through wonderful modern technology that Bantee had moved in. So that was pretty fantastic. He hadn't yet named it, I think, at that point. I think it was after he moved. It was announced at the convention as well. So while we were there in Bulgaria, Bantee moved in here and we were told that the name was going to be Adistana. So for me, they're very connected events. In my mind, the kind of growth of this place is very connected with Bodgaya and having been there with the Indian Order and people from all around the world. There was something very special about that and kind of thinking back to this building site in Hereford seemed kind of a bit of a juxtaposition and yet marvelously apt. So Bantee moved in in February and he struggled a bit having moved in. It had quite an effect on his health, which I think most of you know. He already wasn't very well before he moved. He hadn't been sleeping. And it's taken him quite a while. When I saw him yesterday, I was struck by how much better he's looking at the moment actually. And you catch a little glimpse of him at having a walk sometimes and you can see that he's gained in strength over the last couple of months. 'Cause there was a point not long after I moved here in April where I thought my goodness, you know, I don't know if we're going to have Bantee with us for an awful lot longer. But he seems to have rallied and he's been seeing lots of people over the last few weeks, so which is wonderful. And I think many people have come to the site while it's been for an event, for the opening weekend, or just come into visit. We've had quite a few visitors, people just come into either sea Bantee or have a look at the place. They do seem to be very moved by the fact that Bantee's present there. It's almost like his presence is kind of strange actually, but he's kind of seen around less. And yet I have this sense that his presence has become in bigger or something. Maybe that's what happens. Maybe somebody is the adolescent, physically present for many people. He's taking on almost more of a kind of, I don't know if it's archetypal or if it's mythic or, I don't know really, I don't mean to pin it towards. But I do get that sense that many people are feeling that and actually feeling quite strongly affected by being so close. So in a way we're here by Bantee's grace and Bantee's here by the Buddha's grace. So we have that sense of transmission, of lineage, as it were from Bantee, from the Buddha through Bantee to us. And that is what the blessings come from that sense of grace, that sense of a flow of energy. And personally I feel very blessed to be living here. Now who thought I would have ever said that? I feel blessed to be living in rural here, for sure. My goodness, anybody can change. So, I mean, seriously, I feel very blessed at having found the Dharma and having found this particular community to practice within. So I feel very blessed to have a place that can be, can offer something to that community. So a few other meanings from the Sanskrit dictionary, the Monet of the Williams, of Adi Sana that I quite like. There's a whole, there's pages, quite a lot of meanings. But I chose a few that I like particularly. Standing by, being at hand, resting upon a basis, and the standing place of the warrior. That seemed to be the one that most people remembered from this talk before. There are a number of people said to me to remember that. There's something about being at hand that I really like for this place as well, because hopefully this is a place that people can use as a resource. So I like in that sense of being at hand, being available, responding to a need. But I like the idea of the standing place of the warrior. I like the idea of Bante as warrior. I like the idea of us as warriors, warriors of course, for peace and love in a world that so much needs those values. So I'm not gonna say much about how we ended up being here because it's been talked about, it's been another talk, and also I think, and Sunday, Ranadani might say a bit more about the practical aspect of here. But just very briefly you'll recall that Bante went to the library. He's got this, end of. I won't say any more than that. Well yeah, we'll say actually that it strikes me here as well that we have almost business as usual in the sense of continuity. Because this place was only made possible because we could sell Majumiloka and we could sell the other properties in Birmingham. And they were made possible through people's generosity and through the generosity of many, many people in the movement over the years. So it really does come down to belonging to all of us in that sense. I think we did good. I think it's a good buy. I think it's a buy as a purchase. It was a good purchase. Some of us were quite keen on a different one, a bit before, quite disappointed when that fell through, but actually overall unbalanced. It was good that that happened because this is a much better and more appropriate site. Anyway, there's gonna be all sorts of aspects to this place, study aspects, practice, meditation. People coming together to discuss things, meetings will happen here. It's a home as it were for the preceptors' college. So again, I think Ratna Darnie might say a bit more in Sunday about the relationship between the college and Adistana, but it technically belongs to the preceptors' college because it's held by the preceptors' college trust, which is made up of members of the college. So it's held in trust by a few trustees on behalf of the preceptors' college, but that's held on behalf of the order. Yeah, so technically it is the home of the preceptors' college. A few of us are living here, hopefully more will over time. And it's a home for the International Council meeting, another big part of the structures that we put in place at the moment in this particular time of transition in the order. I've said this before in talks, many of you have heard it, but somebody once said to me in an interbuddhist set up, they said, oh yeah, the Tibetan groups are famous for ritual and the Zen groups are famous for meditation and the F.W.B.O.'s famous for meetings. So it seemed only right to have a home for meetings. Actually, I think it's good that we do meetings because meetings, they're not just meetings well, some of them might be, but hopefully they're not just meetings for the sake of meetings and hopefully they're not just a case of perpetuating more words than talking. Which I know sometimes people think they are and some people really wouldn't participate in them, which is fine. But we didn't have some people willing to participate in them. It would be a bit harder to keep things kind of running smoothly. And one of the things for me that I find very inspiring about us as a community is our real desire to reach consensus. Consensus in a sensible way means sometimes it means ending up somebody making a decision, but it's taking people's views and opinions and needs into account. So whenever I hear that, or the F.W.B.O. or Tree Rat and it's really good at meetings, I think, yes. We try to be good at meetings because in some ways we're building community and what we do when we're coming together is we're trying to create the conditions for community to be held and honoured. And of course they do some people's heads in. And it's fine, I mean, not everybody. We've got an order of 1,800 and something there. We were never gonna get 1,800 people sitting around trying to make a decision, thank the Buddha because it would be horrendous. But nevertheless, we are trying to put structures in place through which decisions, et cetera, or even just opinions can be heard coming from people at their local situation working together and that coming together at a national level and at an international level. So I mentioned this because I do think it's very relevant to Adistana. So it's not just because I happen to be one of the people that like meetings while I used to. I think I've had it with them, actually, but anyway. And one of the people who goes to a lot of meetings and it strikes me that the particular structures that we're trying to put into place are the two wee structures. They tell you for information as it were coming into the centre. But they also tell you for Adistana to flow freely outwards from the centre. And not just from the centre out and from the outward in, but in a kind of mode of a dance than that. So they're all round the mandalas. They're all mandalas made up of hundreds of little mandalas. And each of those little mandalas in relation to each other can be homes for Adistana. And then be in relationship with each other so that Adistana can flow freely throughout the whole kind of structure. (audience laughs) So anyway. So yeah, this is gonna be a home for meetings in a way. Which I went to say all that, 'cause I think sometimes when you say, "Oh, what do you do, Adistana?" And you say, "It's a home for meetings." It's like, you know. Well, that sounds very interesting. But actually, for me, that's a deeply inspiring thing to have somewhere where we can come together. And when we are here together, we can start to really build up a sense of this being our home and practicing together here and working together here. And also, some of us who currently hold in international positions in the movement in the order are also resident here. So, in that sense, it's also a home. It's my home, thank you. So, one way of thinking, oh yeah, another important part of having this here is to be a home for pilgrims, a place for pilgrims. I always went to burst into song whenever I say that and we can see Kula Prabha's laughing 'cause she knows exactly which song I'm thinking of bursting into. But I won't. But the idea of having a place for pilgrims really inspires me. It didn't inspire me at first. I kind of thought, hmm, I'm not sure about that. But actually, having Banti here and already having had some people come to visit Banti and just seeing how a 15 minute visit to Banti, the effect it can have, particularly for people coming from overseas. So, in the last week, Banti's seen somebody from Australia, who was visiting, and somebody from Mexico who was visiting. And for both of them, it was extraordinary for them to just have that opportunity. In the Mexican woman, she asked for ordination about three months ago. She's in her 30s, young woman. She came over especially, she fitted other things around it with a hope that she might see Banti. And if she couldn't, at least to see where he lives, I find it quite moving, actually. You know, she sort of came and stayed for a couple of days here. Young woman from Mexico. But she just went back. You know, she was radiant, actually. So, I'm happy that we can be that for people and that they do have somewhere. And even when Banti's not with us any longer, he'll be buried here. And I think people will come, I meant to do pilgrimage to that. He wants us to create a situation where people can come and sit. And reflect upon impermanence. So, I think, you know, that would be quite an important part in the future. Anyway, so that was by way of introduction. I wanted to just mention a way of thinking about Adistana that I find very inspiring. And it's been talked about quite a lot, actually, since the opening weekend. I talked about it on the opening weekend and Sabouti talked quite a lot about it in the retreat situation that there was in August for chairs and metrokimbinars and presidents. And I can't even remember, basically. Lots of people, 120-something of them. And that's a way of thinking about this as a home for the continuation of the four lineages that Banti has given us or left us. We hasn't left them yet. He's handed them on. He's still holding them himself. And the first time I heard him talk about this, it might not have been the first time, but the first time I heard him talk about this was in a college meeting in 2008. And it was just before the publication of "The What is the Western Buddhist Order" paper. I think that's right. And we had a little kind of special meeting of the college. Banti asked as many of the public preceptors it could to come together because he wanted to talk to us about the paper before it was sent out. Well, actually, it must have been in early 2009. So we all kind of got together and we had a question and answer. We've been to a couple of times. And I think it was in that question and answer that he got a question about lineage. And he said to us that he felt he had given us four lineages. So they were the lineages of teaching, of practices, of inspiration, and initially I think he said responsibility, and then he called it institutions, or it might have been the other way around. It was the other way around. He first of all talked about the lineage of institutions. So that's what I'm going to talk about for the rest of the talk, really, of those four lineages and how can we, as an order, kind of hold those lineages, keep them alive and kind of take them into the future. So the first one, I'm not going to say very much about them, but the first one is the lineage of teachings. So, of course, they're the teachings of the Buddha, but they're the particular teachings of the Buddha that Banti has chosen to highlight, to emphasize, to give centrality to. And he's made it very clear that other teachings of the Buddha, of course, we're not leaving them out. But he asks us to look at them and see how they relate to the central doctrine of conditionality. So this is all laid out, partly in the what is the Western Buddhist order, but it's much more thoroughly laid out in revealing and relying on the Dharma. So he asks us to look at the teachings. When we come across teachings, look at them in relationship to conditionality. And, you know, when you think about how much Banti's done over the years that he's been teaching, one of the things that we've talked about doing here is looking back at some of the early seminars. There's some fantastic seminars that Banti did in the late 70s, early 80s, around that kind of time. He did, or actually it was a longer period than that. It's probably into the late 80s. And he did a whole series of seminars on texts. So he chose texts and he used them as the basis. Now, many of them have been transcribed, they've been made into book form, they've been brought together amazingly, they've been brought together and edited, which I must say, I think is a fantastic task. And I'm really taking my heart off to those of you, including Vidya Devi, who's sitting here, who had so much to do with that work. And right back to Silla Badra, people who really took that on and made those seminars available. And fantastically, every single seminar is available on free Buddhist audio. You can go into free Buddhist audio and find everything. And I sometimes think, I know Banti's talks and they're all there. And I know that these days in Mitchell's study, for example, a lot of people don't actually listen to the tapes anymore, or the tapes, you know, tapes. [LAUGHTER] They don't listen to the audio, they often read the text. And in a way, it's an easier way to do it, because you've got it in front of you, you can write on it, you can mark it. But there was something quite extraordinary about sitting in Mitchell's study and listening to all those tapes. And by the time, I don't know, it was the point I realized, I've listened to every single tape, every single talk. I made it a practice to do that. I've lost it now a bit, because there's so many. But for quite a long time, I just made it a real practice to just listen. And there was something about the act of listening, that in itself, it might put you to sleep occasionally. But there was also something a walk in most of us, I think, as we listened to them. So I do recommend it. And we've wondered about looking at some of the texts that Banti chose to do seminars and doing some seminars here, so that that material can be explored again and kind of brought into relationship with now, as it were. So some really good stuff in that. And then there's the lineage of practices. So again, what is the Western Buddhist order? Banti talks about practices that he has given us. And he talks about the specific meditation practices. But he says it's not just meditation, it's a broader sense to it. Although, obviously, to a great extent, the emphasis has been looking at continuity in practice of meditation. And I think it's a really interesting topic at this point in our history. Maybe it's always been an interesting topic. Maybe it always will be. Maybe there will always be something that we look at and say, and how does this fit in? But I think one of the important things is we need to learn how to do that, how to look at things and wonder how they fit in. So recently, Sabote was very keen that we start to look at and talk about commonality of practice. So he'd brought some of that into that chairs, metric conveners, et cetera, meeting. And also, just been trying to seed conversations about this in different ways in different places. And I think it's a really important thing to be thinking about at the moment. To think about how different practices meditative, but broader than that, but particularly meditation practices that are coming into the movement, how do they integrate? How do they come into relationship with a system of practice that Banti's given us? And it's a pretty wide system. It's not a rigid system by any means. It's extraordinarily broad, really. You know, I've actually-- I know quite a lot of people who meditate in other communities. And frankly, we're pretty broad. We're a pretty broad church, as it were. You know, we don't have just a single line of practices like some communities do. And that's where they find their purity. They talk about their purity of when age of practice. Coming through the fact that everybody will do the same practice or a very, very small number of practices which stem from a single practice. And then on the other end of the scale, there are groups, communities, movements who are very wide open and seem to have very little that hold them together in terms of practices, or even in terms of community, I think. So we are somewhere in the middle of that, or I don't know if we're in the middle. We're on that spectrum somewhere. So we do have a system of practice. We have a system of spiritual life with stages too, which aren't linear stages, but aspects of looking at our spiritual life. So it's really important that when we come across practice, and it's useful for us, how does it actually fit into that? And maybe especially before we teach it, thinking about how it sort of fits into our system. Now, it feels like, you know, I say that, and I kind of hope that nobody's sitting here just here and that thing, you know, and feeling that they're being asked to be narrower. Because I don't think that is what I was certainly not what I'm asking. All I'm asking is that we stay in communication with each other, and that we find some way, some forum, some forum, in which we can communicate with each other, and kind of build on each other's experience and practice and insights and, you know, explanations and experiences, that we can actually make them a kind of, a whole rather than a fragmentation. So we've been looking at ways of trying to come together and set up. I think there's an idea to set up a small panel in the new year to look at practices, which will have different people in it. And it's only a start, it's an experimentation of something, and starting to kind of just get a bit of a sense of how can we be in communication. And it seems very much in line with this idea that Banti talked about, of the pillar of innovation or experimentation. So in the air, I'm going to just segue from the four lineages to the five pillars for a moment. So we're having five pillars as part of the second lineage, just to keep you oriented. Some of you remember, Banti gave a talk on an FWBO day, as far as I remember, probably in the early 90s called the five pillars of the FWBO. So I imagine quite a lot of you in this room were at that talk. And he gave, he talked about five pillars. I'm just going to briefly remind you what those pillars are, so that you see where experimentation comes in. So the first pillar Banti talked about was the pillar of ideas. And he talks about ideas in the platonic sense. He talks about ideas in the sense of values that move us. He talks about justice, for example, as an idea. So it's not an idea in the abstract, puedly philosophical sense, but it's a philosophical idea that actually has, that moves people, that moves us, and can actually change life, is it where it can change views, it can change people. He talks about, he gives lists of ideas like evolution, science even, and how at one time they're controversial, and then they become interesting, but not so controversial, and then they become almost the establishment. Which is quite an interesting sort of thing, isn't it, how that happens, and how something that seems very new and exciting. You look back to it a few years later and you think, yeah, and, because it seems so normed, it's become the norm in a certain way. And he talks about relativities, an idea that changed people's view of the world, and then in the same way that our ideas within Buddhism, and again he talks about the idea of conditionality. So ideas in that sense. So the kind of views, the underlying principles, the metaphysics, what's underneath what we do. He also talks about ideas common to us as a tradition, as an order, as a community. For example, spiritual friendship. So it's quite interesting because in this spiritual friendship it's an idea. But then we go into the second pillar, which is the pillar of practice, and in there we find spiritual friendship. So obviously things don't stay in the realm of ideas, but they put into action the effect how we are in the world. So the pillar of practices, all our meditation practices, our devotional practices, ethics, Dana, friendship. So again they're practices that unite us as a community, that hold us together as a community, that we ascribe to, as it were, as a community. And then he talks about the pillar of institutions. So I'm just going to say briefly about that because I think, again, it's relevant to us here at Adistana and, in fact, to the lineages. So he says institutions are principally of two kinds. Those whose specific purpose is mundane, and those whose specific purpose is spiritual. Some fulfill both purposes to some degree. So that made me think, actually, about institutions. And I think it's quite interesting because I think it's so easy for something to be mistaken for the other. You know, I think it's easy to look at what we might think of as a spiritual community, but unless it's alive it can actually just be a very mundane institution. See what I mean? You know, if we think of something, we look at something and think, that's a spiritual institution, but actually if the people in it aren't really wholeheartedly involved or engaged, well, then it isn't. It's going to be a mundane institution, isn't it? And then there are things that might be looked at as mundane institutions like the International Council of the Trivatna, but they're not. Hopefully they're serving a purpose which is not mundane. Excuse me. So I think it's pretty crucial that all of us, we're all of us involved in institutions and some way or another. The very fact that we're here, we're engaged in an institution known as National Order weekends or Area Order weekends. So we're here. We're participating in something institutional. We need to really make sure that it stays alive, that it has at its heart the flame of passion for the Dharma and of engagement with a spiritual life. Otherwise, it's just like I'll just turn up and I'll see someone pals and the food's not bad and, you know, I mean, I'm Cari Kachun slightly, but I think in any of it institutions, we probably have to stay alive to that. And then the other hand, not dismiss some of it institutions as purely mundane, if they're actually attempting to create channels for the flame to stay alive. And in that talk, Banti talks about our three main spiritual institutions, the public centre, the residential spiritual community and the team-based right livelihood business, aka co-ops so that you can call them the three seas. So it's just interesting that in the early 90s, Banti is talking about those as, you know, spiritual institutions. And these days, I think it's quite hard to say that in a sense, in the sense of expecting that everybody's going to be involved in them because many people aren't. Many people don't live in residential communities, don't work in right livelihoods, many do, some don't, and many don't have that much in the order, don't have that much involvement in a local centre for whatever reason geographical circumstantial or just let us know at the phase that they're currently in. So I guess, what does that mean? What did those institutions mean? You know, what is it that they were there for? What was their purpose? So how do we hold what the purpose was if we know actually participating in the form, as it were? And you know, people talk about the future of the origin movement after Banti's death. Quite a lot. It's a common topic, actually, at the moment. I'm often in conversations when I travel around, people say to me, do you know what's going to happen after Banti's death and have to say, well, no, I don't exactly. I mean, I kind of have hopes and concerns, but, you know, we're trying our best to put things into place, but, well, in a way, it's in everybody's hands, really, isn't it? And people sometimes say, oh, you know, I'm really worried because for this reason or for that reason, or, you know, people are doing different things or they live indefinitely and stuff, and I think for me, if there's anything that causes me concern and makes me wonder why we have a future beyond a couple of generations or something, it's to do with community, but it's not necessarily to do the residential community. Although, you know, I personally find residential community a really good way of having that experience, but I think it's something about community that concerns me because how do we keep our sense of community over such diversity of culture, of class of age, generation, country, et cetera, et cetera. How do we hold that? When I said at the beginning, when I first, you know, first order weekends, I was actually new everybody. Well, when I used to get Shabda, I knew everybody who I was reading about in Shabda. I mean, even I can't say that anymore. You know, I still know a lot of people in the order, but nobody, I can't think there's anybody in the order who would now be able to say they know everybody in the order. What I think we probably do still have is something like just one degree of separation, maybe two degrees of separation. We're probably all still linked in enough to somebody who's linked in to somebody, so I think we still hold together as a community. But I kind of wonder further down the road, how is that going to happen? And I'd really like us to be thinking about that. How do we hold our community together in those kind of circumstances? And I train of thoughts just going there. Yeah, you know, oh, yeah, I remember what I was going to say. Somebody pointed out a meeting I was in recently. I mean, I think it was actually the president's meeting. It might have been a college meeting. I think it was Nagabodi actually said, he wondered if we all realized just how much our work together functions so well because of how long we've all known each other. And actually, you know, we haven't really thought of it, but in the college, for example, there are people in the college that I've known for 35 years, and they've known each other, some of them for 40 years and more. It's a seriously long time. You know, and a lot of, as a fallot run, the room at the college, we've lived together, we've worked together, we've played together, we've slept together, we've had insomnia together, you know, we've fought each other, we've fallen out, come back in a relationship with each other. So actually, the bonds are quite, they're strong, they're strong. And obviously that isn't going to be reproduced. Most of us, when we first go to each other, we were in our 20s. So we had that, you know, we had that possibilities that where many people coming into the ordinary are just that little bit older, although some are still young, there's a couple of them there just kind of reminded me that they're still under 35, I believe. I think there's only, am I right that there's only two Dharma Chinese in the world under 35? There's Singamati, who's not get long to go before she can't say that anymore, but she's got a wee while, a few years, a couple of years. And Shradavajri in India, to the best of my knowledge, the next generation above that is 35 and one in the women's wing. And actually, it's not a lot different with the men. There's not that many young men either. There's a few more, aren't there? But, you know, so there you go, there's a fact to think of, isn't it? So how do we get that sense of community? How do we encourage that to stay? And what does it actually mean in the cotton, zeitgeist of our ordinary movement? Not giving you any answers, just asking questions. And then we had the pillar of experiment, which is what I was getting to. Subanti talks about this quite specifically here. He says, "An experiment is something planned. It is not done at random. It has a definite purpose. It's a result of serious thinking. Experiments should be a number of experienced people working together, a number of order members, and they should plan to test their hypothesis in accordance with the spirit of the movement." So that sounds very neat. Actually, I don't think it works like that quite often. That isn't often how it happens, is it? Often what happens is somebody in their own practice, you know, they find something that works for them or they read something or they find they come across a particular teaching or a particular meditation that really works for them. And then, generally speaking, they don't kind of set up an experiment. We're a number of people and they plan it and they get together and take notes and over time, pursue it, and present a paper to the order. And, you know, it kind of doesn't happen like that, does it? And the other thing is probably never going to happen quite like that, because it's not really the nature of human beings. However, there's probably something in between that structured and approach in the wind hand, incompletely random on the other hand. So I guess it's worth thinking about that and what can we do, each and every one of us, to try and think about how can any experiment or innovation that we're engaged with come into relationship. I think that's for me, that it's the main thing, isn't it? It's how is it come into relationship? And then, how can it be assessed? And I don't mean, again, I don't mean assessed, and I kind of, you know, tested. Assessed in a real living life way where people can share their experience and actually learn from each other and look at how does it fit into the spirit of our movement. How do the views of things coincide with the views of Buddhism, of the Dharma, of the Dharma as practiced in a particular tradition? Okay. And then, the last of the pillars, for the sake of completion, was the pillar of imagination, which I think is very connected with Adistana. I think the idea of Adistana, for me, is also very connected with the idea of something mythic, something magical, something that flows. And you might remember that in, "What is the Western Buddhist order?" Banti said. At the end, at the very end, he says, "There is something about the movement, the order, and even about me, that is not easily definable. There is a touch of something that cannot be buttoned down, that cannot in the end be defined. Even the desire to button it down or define it is a mistake." Everyone will need to take care of that rather mysterious, indefinable spirit that gives the movement life and energy. Everyone must play their part in keeping the order and movement alive, especially in terms of that indefinable element. So, where's the magic? Where's the mystery? Where's that indefinable element? And how can Adistana, as a place, help participate in that? But the important thing is that that indefinable element, in many ways I think that, is Adistana? It is that kind of indefinable magic that flows out through the order and movement. So, all of that was on the second of the lineages. So, that was on the lineage of practice. And then there was the lineage of inspiration. So, this is a quote from Banti. This is what he said at that college meeting. And then there's what I call the lineage of inspiration. Because from me to others, and from others to yet others, there flows something which isn't just the teachings, just the practices. There's something above and beyond that, which is communicated personally, in which I know many people experience at the time of their ordination. So, the inspiration needs to be there. That's the flame. That's the fire that keeps things alive. There was a great quote somebody said in the college meeting, which was Ramallah, Gustafmala. It was, can either you guys remember it? It's like tradition. It's not a matter of worshipping the ashes. It's a matter of keeping the flame alive, of keeping the fire alive. So, I thought that was really, really spot on actually for what we're trying to do. You know, when we talk about trying to look at innovation and try to bring it into relationship with a system, and you know, the continuity and Banti's teachings, you know, we're not actually trying to resist, conserve the ashes of something dead. We're trying to be part of something that keeps the flame alive. Okay, and then the last of those lineages was the organizational lineage or the lineage of responsibility. I think in the organizational kind of works for me actually, because what Banti said in that was there's the framework, the organizational lineage, the structures that need to be carried on, and in some cases perhaps more defined if they no longer fulfill their original purpose. So, I think that's important to hold that, the structures. So, we have structures. They need to be carried on, but they also need to be looked at. Are they working? Are they functioning? But that needs to be done again, not in a sense of like, oh, I'm a bit fed up with that one. Don't think I'll do that anymore. But in a sense of really kind of like putting it in relationship with the spirit that we're trying, the flame that we're trying to keep alive. So, my hope is the Adistana, the place, can play an important role in that in the continuation of those lineages. But also, I'm thinking about Adistana and reflecting on the concept of Adistana and maybe even the experience of Adistana. What my hope really is, is much bigger than that. My hope is that Adistana can stay alive everywhere in our ordering movement, that all of us as our members, the whole ordering movement can be fed by that sense of blessing, nourished by that sense of blessing, but also, in our own way, be part of the stream of blessings. Because it's a stream, it has to keep moving. It's like any stream. It'll go stagnant unless it keeps flowing. So, we're in a very important time in our ordering movement. We've been setting that for quite a while now, but it's still true. We're in the transition period from a founding teacher to whatever happens beyond the lifetime of that founding teacher. Now, hopefully, that transition is going to be long and it's going to be quite a while before we move into the next phase of it, as it were, the phase when we no longer actually have anti-physically with us. But we're definitely in that transition, and those papers from 2009 onwards have been a very important part of that transition. They've given us a sense of clarity and a sense of, like, Banti's really went to clarify before he's, you know, before he goes, he's really went to make sure that we're clear about what his teachings are, we're clear about what he's given us as an order, and I think he also wants to know that we're willing to pick it up, as it were, and carry it on. I was going to say run with it, but it doesn't feel like quite the right image, but, you know, that we're really willing to kind of, to hold those lineages and to carry them on. So, we're growing and we're diversifying. As said, there's over 1,800 order members now that in many, many countries, different cultures, and we need to be sure that that central fugal force that is the order and the movement moving out, also has something centripetal to hold it together, and I guess what that is, is a common understanding of the centrality of going for refuge to the three jewels as understood within Sri Ratna. It's kind of obvious, isn't it? So a common understanding of our going for, the centrality of our going for refuge to the three jewels as understood and lived within our tree ratna order and community. So we've had those, those papers at that meeting that I mentioned where Banti said, talked about the lineages. I think it was at the same meeting. We talked about things that were going to be in this paper, what is the Western Buddhist Order, and some of us had expressed some concerns and things we were unsure about, and what we light, and ask questions, etc. At the very end of that meeting, and I've said this before in talks, but forgive me please for repetition, but at the very end of it, Damirati said to Banti at the end of the question and answer, he said, "Is there anything else Banti you'd just like to say to us?" And he kind of thought about it, sitting in his big wing arm chair, and he sort of leaned forward and he said, "Yes, I think you can take this as the refounding of the order." I could just finish there. But I went. It was a very strong moment, actually, it was a really strong moment. For me it was strong in a number of ways, viscerally it was very strong, and there was an element to it which was to do with the juxtaposition of this rather frail, elderly, slightly, you know, bedraggled in the sense that he needed a haircut, man, Englishman, just sitting in his big wing arm chair, and then this "vadric force" that kind of came out, as he said that, you know, just you may consider this the refounding of the order, and at which point he said, "Thank you very much," and he got up, and kind of shuffled out, you know, and I remember Mahamachi, I think it was going to help him to leave the room, and I think the rest of us just sat there. What was that? And there was something very sort of powerful about that, and what I take him to mean by that as a refounding of the order, it's not that everything that went before counts for nothing. It's not something, it's not a break we won't win before, but neither is it business as usual. So, it's business as usual only in the sense that it's built upon what there was before, but Bant is also asking each and every one of us, and he says that in each of those papers, look at this, read it, take it seriously. If you can't read it because you find it too dense or too, you know, some of them are long, some of those papers are long, people don't always get on with them, find a way of finding out what's in them, you know, make sure that you're either, you know, get some that give you a preseal of them or something, but just, you know, Bant is really asking us to take on board the ideas and those, and to really look at them as the kind of the building bricks or the building blocks of our community, is to really sort of take them on board and think about them and come into relationship with them. So, it's business as usual in that sense that it's still building and what there was before, it's a kind of middle way. Bant is very clear, he didn't want us to dismiss everything that's happened before, but nor did he want us just to carry on as if nothing new had happened. So, that's the ground, the colon that we inhabit, is the continuity from all that we've done before, and the opening up to the addy stanna of Bantie through those papers, through her connection with him, through what we can learn and take into the future. They clarify principles and, you know, we are in this transition point, I guess we need to really ask ourselves what can we do towards the future, and all that might be is just carry on practicing as I'm practicing right now, you know, it might be nothing very dramatic, but it's kind of making conscious that everything that we do is part of that, that we all of us have an effect. So, the world needs the dharma, you'll recall that addy stanna is a place for the warrior to stand. So, the warrior stands upon addy stanna, but she also creates the conditions for addy stanna to spread. So, that is business, as usual, because the world has always needed the dharma, and the world still needs the dharma, and I suspect the world will always need the dharma. So, in that sense, it's a continuation of 2,500 more years of people really trying to awaken, people trying to see through the selfishness, see through the things that tie them and bind them, break free of that, and actually be awake, and awake with compassion to each other. So, in that sense, it's business as usual, and it's business as usual in terms of tree ratna, it's a continuation of trying to create spiritual community. So, may addy stanna be a powerful force for grace and blessings shared by our whole order and community, not only here in herrofiture, of course, but throughout the globe, throughout the world. May any blessings that emanate be blessings imbued with bodhicitta. So, the top was called business as usual, addy stanna and the bodhicitta. So, the bodhicitta is where it begins, the bodhicitta is what makes it alive, and the bodhicitta is what's needed for the continuation of what we have. Many, many, many times, many, many, many of us quote this little quote from the talk that Vanti gave in 1990, no, sorry, from the my relation with the order, where he talks about setting the order in motion. So, business as usual, I'm going to read it. He says, "Not long ago, I spoke of my having taken upon myself, the onerous responsibility of founding the Western Buddhist Order. I indeed took that responsibility upon myself, and it was indeed an onerous one. Nonetheless, there are times when, far from feeling that it was I who took on the responsibility, I feel that it was the responsibility that took on me. There are times when I am dimly aware of a vast, overshadowing consciousness that has through me founded the order and set in motion her whole movement." That's addy stanna. That's the addy stanna that worked through Vanti to set her order in movement and motion. That's the addy stanna that he has given us, and that's the addy stanna that we can honor and continue and make even stronger. So, we can create the conditions not for the horizon of the Bodhi Chitta, but for its continuation and for its play in the world. And Vanti also talks in the 1999 talk about what will happen if we are in harmony. When we are spiritually united, we will be the locus for the manifestation of the Bodhi Chitta. So, may we be that? May addy stanna geographically be a locus for many, many, many things, but may we as an order be the locus for the Bodhi Chitta. So, where the Bodhi Chitta has not yet arisen, may it arise, where it has arisen, may it flourish, and where it flourishes, may it never die, may it's addy stanna spread forever, for generation upon generation upon generation. We hope you enjoyed this week's podcast. Please help us keep this free. Make a contribution at FreeBuddhist.io.com/donate. And thank you. [end] [BLANK_AUDIO]
