In todayand#8217;s FBA Dharmabyte, and#8220;Living the Buddhist Life: Community Lifeand#8221; is an excerpt from a conversation between Maitreyabandhu and Subhadramati as part of an evening entitled and#8216;The Dakini of Friendshipand#8217; which took place during the LBCand#8217;s Urban Retreat in 2010.
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Living the Buddhist Life: Community Life
[music] Dharma Bites 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. Yeah, we did. We could have got time to ask you my other one. So, because I was in, it kind of ties in with what I was interested with you, because I, so we both got involved roughly at the same time, and then we were around here for about 10 years working alongside each other. The teacher had this class for ages together when we were in our, I guess our 20s and early 30s. And then I went off to the Buddha Center in Ireland, the Dublin Buddha Center, to help there. So, I was away from 9 or 10 years, and I came by and you were still here. I'm still looking to the class, still have answers in the community. And I just thought, that's, to me, I'm fascinated by that, because it's quite rare in this day and age. Apart from people who live in, you know, a sort of sexual relationship, couple, or who live in a family, to live with the same, I mean, you've lived with a lot of the same people for many, many years, and you've worked in the same place. And so, I just wonder what's that I've been like? And do you ever kind of have a want to do a bid for free or more? How do you kind of, you know, because you seem quite fresh and you seem to come to it quite fresh. Yeah, it's true. I mean, in a way, the other day, I was saying, "Oh, my life, I'm just like my family." So, with my parents, he's doing a, well, I still own a coach firm. We used to go to coach firms and taxes and lawyers, and we lived on the business, and coach drivers have come in for breakfast and have great big bits of toast. And, you know, a small business when running their own business. And suddenly, I was living above the body center, sort of trying to run the place, you know, the magic of the jeans. But I have, yeah, I've been here, I got involved, I think I moved into the community above here just about 24 years ago. So, for instance, I've lived with Paramount Bandit 24 years. Paramount is, is he here? No, he's teaching me. Anyway, I've lived with Paramount Bandit for 24 years. I've lived with young Varchiff for 13 or 14 years. I've lived with Metro Orange for about a centime. I share a bunk bed, or at least at the moment, I have a room to myself. But for the last 10 or 15 years, I've shared a bunk bed. I usually go on the top because I'm taller than the person who's sleeping in the book. And so I've lived, I've lived community all that time. All on this premises. And when I first started, I mean, I first started working because I was an artist in residence. And the boy's Catholic school in Dagenham. And someone suggested I become the cleaner here at the center. It was like after the revolutionary, I got from Arceus to cleaner. And, yeah, I started off just being cleaner at the center here for quite a few years. And then, I've just carried on here. I don't quite understand it. I just seem to, it's a regular kind, a certain sort of way. Now, I just carried on living here. I think partly my instinct is that I always want to go deeper in something rather than see more of something. Thank you. I noticed this even when I was painting. I still paint occasionally, I don't do much anymore. But I tend to paint the same thing again and again. Like I paint, I paint the same group of trees again and again and again and again. And my instinct is to want to understand it more and more deeply rather than go and find it. I'm not interested in visitors in a certain sort of way. It's not quite true in a certain sort of way. I want to go into something very, very deeply. And, you know, I can't, you know, I go somewhere else and I'm just the same person. You know, it's that awful disappointment when you go on holidays and then you go to Mulberry or something. You get off and then you think, "Oh, I know it's you again." You'd rather hope to left you behind. And the person standing on the top like, "It's just you again. You may as well be in Coventry." [laughter] I don't know. So I think for me there is something about, I don't know, the job of spiritual life is very obvious. You need to cultivate positive mental states. And then from positive mental states, you need to try to see the nature of reality. There's an awful lot of work to be doing in that. You need to be mindful. You need to cultivate positive mental states. Then you need to see how things really are. I believe that is the human task. That's what we mean by being human, is someone who's mindful, aware of actually living, actually in a positive mental state, and able to abide in positive mental states, much, much more difficult than it sounds. It's alright when you're having a cup of tea in a coffee with someone, but over many years, much more difficult. And then you try to see through the nature of reality. I don't see the going anywhere else. It's going to make it more likely to experience that. I mean, at the same time, I think to like to concern myself in a particular field. So I've been particularly concerned with this centre. I have got concerns with other centres now, but most particularly centre. But the job is just there, isn't it? And I've always gone on retreat. So I always, you know, I live here, I teach here. And for me, teaching is one of the best things I do. One of the things I most enjoy doing. For one of the things I most experience, my value is being sort of coming back at me. And I never, I can never see why people get tired of teaching. Because you never just teaching a teaching individual people, and they're always different. And you're always different. And I'm trying to take my practice deeper, and they're trying to take the practice deeper. How could you get bored of that? You know, the practice of Buddhism, even things like mindfulness of breathing, there's endless depth to them. There isn't a sort of stopping place. It's not like learning to ride a bike. So I think my instinct is I can't, you know, I'm in a nice place. I'm in a good place. If I can't do it here, I probably can't do it anywhere. I do that when I go on, you know, I go on a retreat. I go on a follow-through retreat. And I tend not to go anywhere. I just, once I get there, you know, I've got this beautiful view. Why go and find another beautiful view? So how about we actually try and really experience this one, very, very deeply indeed? And I think, I suppose I've felt the same about my friends. I don't think the friendship is something you can rush, you know, like Parabandu. I mean, I've been friends with him for so long since I was 23. I'm 49 now. That's much longer than many marriages. I know him in a way that's very, very difficult to explain. It's like there's a sort of osmosis between us. Same with the honor of our, well, same with you as well. We've known each other in so many different situations. We've gone retreat together, we've argued together, we've had a laugh together. You just can't, you can't push the pace of that. Friendship grows so slowly and so naturally. And such a rare thing. People are so keen to move about. And obviously it's much easier to put all your eggs in the sort of romantic basket. You know, you can't have the one, put one or two in there. Can you, put it in your order. [laughter] No, but it's just that person. [laughter] Putting all of them is a bit silly, you know. So I think I have really, I think friendship for me has been extremely important. And sometimes my friends will be able to, you know, sort of keep the fence down when I want to put it up. And I think that's important. So let's finish with one of two last things. What could we ask you for the last thing I wonder? [music] We hope you enjoyed today's Dharma Bite. Please help us keep this screen. Make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. And thank you. [music fades out] [music fades out] [ Silence ]