All gifts, the gift of the Dhamma excels.

.

From Venerable Ajahn Khemadhammo

There is a notice I am thinking of sticking up near our front gate, it should read: "Quiet, please! Monks and meditators working." You'll see why in a minute.
Lately, as people have become more and more concerned about the damage being done to the environment you could be forgiven for thinking that never before had anyone considered the quality and suitability of their living and working space. When you look back through history though you quickly realise that individuals and groups have been for ever on the lookout for conditions where they could feel comfortable, which suited their way of life and where they could work and adequately sustain themselves. History also tells us that most communities have been protective of the places and resources they've valued, with their members even being prepared to fight and to risk their lives defending them. Those same people have also been willing to change, to move on and to migrate to new and more suitable conditions when their existing surroundings no longer suited them. And it has to be said that while bhikkhus might not be willing to resort to quite the desperate defences of some people and nations, nevertheless, Buddhist monks are very sensitive about the suitability of their living and working space.
"Their living and working space!", I hear you exclaim, "but I thought they never worked." Well, I'll concede that there are Buddhist monks who don't do much of anything and that there are many who do what they shouldn't, just as there are rotten apples in any barrel. But there are also good bhikkhus who do understand the purpose and aim of the holy life and who do work at fulfilling their goal. For these the monastery or hermitage is their living and working space.
At this point let me say that I think any sane and civilised society cares for its members and tries to provide amenities like schools, hospitals and places of recreation and excellence. A decent society also recognises the merit of having in its midst those who make a profession of virtue and the search for wisdom and truth, and cherishing the example of such good and worthy people it encourages their presence and provides for them.
The Buddha favoured quiet and empty places: "As for dwelling places that are free from noise, free from sound, their atmosphere devoid of people, appropriately secluded for resting undisturbed by human beings: I praise association with dwelling places of this sort." And in order for them to develop their meditation he repeatedly urged monks to seek solitude. To his own young son he counselled, "Associate with good friends and choose a remote lodging, secluded, with little noise." And this concern for quiet was simply because the work of the monk, his bh2van2 or cultivation of a healthy inner attitude, requires the practice of meditation and that is best undertaken where there are few distractions and little noise. Monks therefore should seek out such places in which to live and work.
Should a time come when their place is no longer peaceful and quiet, then monks may need to relocate. This of course is fine and easy when it's only an individual or a small group of bhikkhus wandering here and there, camping and moving on - it might even help their practice of non-attachment. But now, with forest wildernesses so depleted that we have to rely on settled monasteries and hermitages established at a substantial expense of time, energy and funds over perhaps many years, it's likely that both monks and their supporters might refuse to abandon an endangered monastery without a struggle.
Unfortunately, this is a situation known only too well in Western Australia. There, the exquisite Bodhinyana Monastery has within the last year or so successfully opposed plans for a nearby firing range and a gravel pit but has just failed to stop huge trucks from passing the monastery every four or five minutes. These trucks with gigantic trailers attached are ferrying clay from a pit somewhere up the road to the Metro Brick Company. This goes on for twelve hours a day, six days a week and is supposed to be only (sic) for six weeks a year but naturally there is a suspicion that this could be the thin end of the wedge. So noisy and so intrusive is the disturbance that Ajahn Brahmavamso, the abbot, has already said that the monastery may have to be abandoned. When you consider that he has devoted the past fifteen years to building it, much of it with his own hands, you realise the severity of the situation.
I expect there will be criticism of Ajahn Brahm's recommendation and someone is bound to say that on the busy street where they live they have to put up with far more noise. But that betrays their ignorance of why bhikkhus are bhikkhus, the difference between their lifestyle and that of the bhikkhu and the purpose and nature of a monastery. Others might parrot what they've heard some teachers say about watching your mind during difficult and uncomfortable experiences as if that's all you should ever do and never try to change or improve anything. Of course Buddhist monks can tolerate noise like anyone else but I repeat, noisy places are not suitable workplaces for a bhikkhu and a hermitage or monastery is where bhikkhus both live and work; and a bhikkhu's work is bh2van2, the cultivation of a healthy inner attitude, with meditation his principal tool.
On March 4th a court action that questioned the legality of the Shire's decision to allow this heavy trucking along Kingsbury Drive and past the monastery was brought by the Buddhist Society of Western Australia which supports Bodhinyana Monastery and was lost. This means that a bill for legal costs in the region of £30,000 has exacerbated their problems. Ajahn Brahm has told me that it's definitely belt-tightening time over there now with one meal every other day! I believe he was joking but you never know.
If anyone would like to help by joining in the letter writing campaign I have addresses, email addresses and specimen letters, or if you have an Internet connection you can visit http://www.iinet.net.au/~ansonb/bswa/index.html where you'll find it all.
A few months after I'd visited Perth in Western Australia about four years ago, I paid a lightning visit to the other and older Perth on the eastern side of Scotland. Now, while I have no immediate plans to visit either place, both these parts of the world are again prominent in my mind. I'll change the subject now and switch from Australia to Scotland.
Four years ago a group of us went north of the border to explore what might be done about extending Angulimala's activities and ensuring that Buddhism was available in Scottish prisons. We had two meetings, one in Edinburgh and another in Glasgow, and we gave a brief presentation to the Joint Prison Chaplaincy Board who were meeting at Perth Prison. Although there was enough interest in helping amongst the Buddhists that we met we've never quite been able to take things much further. That isn't to say that Buddhist prisoners haven't been visited and supported but we have not been able to organise properly. In January Reverend Lewyn Blake was formally installed as Prior at the newly established Portobello Buddhist Priory in Edinburgh. This was very good news for Angulimala in Scotland. On several occasions Reverend Lewyn accompanied Reverend Saido of Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey and Angulimala's Co-ordinator on his long trips south to the quarterly Angulimala workshops. So it means that now we have someone in Scotland with experience of how Angulimala functions and with the commitment to get things under way. In consequence I shall be going up to lead a workshop on Saturday, June 5th. This will be at the Portobello Buddhist Priory, 27 Brighton Place, Portobello, Edinburgh from 10 a.m. until around 4.30 p.m. I would be obliged if word of this event could be spread far and wide amongst the Buddhists of Scotland and for all those with an interest in helping us would attend. I am very grateful for this opportunity to extend our work and I hope we can maximise our use of it.
From time to time I get enquiries from overseas, mostly emails from people who've stumbled across the Angulimala web site, who would like to see something similar to Angulimala operating where they live. As someone has just written from the United States, "This appears to be a much needed venture, in all countries. Here, in California, I work in a prison, and would very much like to see this same type of organisation in place. The roadblocks are many, however, and where to begin is a problem. Perhaps someone could provide direction?" I cherish the thought that what we are doing here in the prisons might be replicated elsewhere and given the opportunity I would like to try to provide that direction.
Coming back to the nitty-gritties of Angulimala here and now, we are desperate for more chaplains, we could do with more literature and we need someone to take on the Buddha Grove project. To address the first of these I am occasionally compiling and sending out a document that I've taken to calling 'Angulimala Requests' in which I list some of the prisons for which we are most anxious to find Buddhist chaplains. I am not very systematic about when I do this nor where I send it, it's just something I fit in when I can or when I've been nagged by some prison or other or by a group of inmates somewhere for a Buddhist chaplain. Basically we're looking for committed Buddhists who do their best to keep the Five Precepts, who are sympathetic to Buddhist schools other than the one they follow and who can devote a certain amount of time to a prison near where they live. Please help if you can.
A week after Scotland I'm off to Thailand for a few days, so June looks like being a rather international month for me.
But back to the here and now again and there's more change in the wind at the Forest Hermitage. For the last three years and another year, further back, nearly nine years ago, we have benefited by the presence of Khun Chaiya, better known to us all by his nickname of Moo. Through those years he's been our monastery helper, cooking, cleaning, gardening and liaising for me with the Thai community. Invariably good-natured, reliable and helpful, it's felt as if he's always been here and would always be here, but you can never tell what's round the corner. A few nights ago he took me aside for a private chat and announced that on May 1st he and Kath, one of our regulars at the Monday and Friday sittings, are getting married. Although some are still reeling from the shock I'm sure everyone will want to wish them the very best.