on revolution and authority - a brief recollection.

from anagarika buddhadasa

With the notable exception of our continuing and heroic work in India, inspired by the great spiritual and social revolutionary Dr. Bhimrao Ambedka, I lament the passing within the order of that tangible feeling many of us had in the early years of the order of being active and radical participants in a social revolution; as indeed we were. I was initially attracted to the Dharma because it is radical. I saw in the Buddha not only a Supremely Enlightened Being but also a revolutionary who’s teaching, primarily directed to the individual, happened to be the most effective and peaceful means for transforming the evils of a caste ridden ancient Indian society or, in modern times, the capitalist and class ridden system of Twentieth Century England in which I had been raised. But who these days will openly admit to being inspired by the notion that the Dharma is revolutionary, or that the practice of the Dharma points to a life of adventure, heroism, even danger? How seriously do we still take Bhante’s heartfelt plea that he wants, “disciples who are bold, self-confident, and independent and who are capable of standing against the whole world if necessary”? Soon after I became involved in the FWBO I can remember Bhante remarking one day with a twinkle in his eye that, “There's in no revolutionary like an old revolutionary.” Regrettably, we do not hear such language within the order today.

While I’m on this theme of the early order it may also come as a surprise to some that Bhante’s leadership from day one was always remarkably constrained and gentle; even at times non-existent. My impression now is that Bhante mostly articulated what many of us were struggling to create through our personal and collective initiatives and unbridled enthusiasms. For example, while many of us were experimenting with community life (and please remember that this was also an aspect of the heady and alternative UK culture at the time) with or without the presence of the opposite sex, Bhante would be articulating the single-sex residential ideal. And where we might be talking about the possibility of working together and forming co-ops Bhante would be articulating team-based right livelihood, and so on. And you can either praise me or blame me for the phrase, ‘Senior and responsible order members’ for the record will show that I first used this expression in a letter to Bhante when he was residing in Cornwall in the early 70s. The order by then had grown in number to around 30 and this was making it increasingly difficult to hold debates and discussions, or to arrive at any agreement at all. I was therefore proposing a smaller unit of more senior and responsible order members - a sort of think tank - to work through the issues of the day. (Was this the forerunner of the College of Public Preceptors I now whimsically ask myself?) Anyway, it was a suggestion that Bhante seized upon and encouraged.

That Bhante spent a year in Cornwall when most order members lived and worked in London is surely an indication of his utter disinterest in exerting any form of personal control or authority upon the new and emerging order and that he was only too willing to give we tyros our heads. In his 'Buddhism For Today' Subhuti mentions that by the time Bhante returned from Cornwall the FWBO “had spread out to new centres in Scotland, Finland and New Zealand. Another generation of order members had taken over the running of the London Centre whilst those who had been conducting classes moved on to start activities elsewhere.” I therefore object as forcefully as I am able to the notion that Bhante somehow planned the whole thing, or that we unthinkingly did his bidding, or that Bhante wished to maintain control of the spiritual community as it was then struggling to emerge in response to his personal stature, influence and teaching. For the record, although I worked closely with Bhante for a number of years, he never told me or ordered me to do anything and I have never felt that his greater vision for the future order and mankind intruded upon my own very much weaker vision, or that it in any way conflicted or deviated from the Message of the Buddha. Looking back I see Bhante then, as I do now, an exemplar of Kalyana-mitrata.

But this, of course, did not stop many of us in those days from unconsciously projecting authority onto Bhante. I did so myself and after a very painful period I eventually understood for myself what was going on, confessed, and acknowledged that it had been entirely my own responsibility. Nowadays, most order members do not have the same day-to-day access to Bhante that I was fortunate to have then but I do observe that authority projections still fly back and forth willy-nilly throughout the order. Bhante doesn’t cop it so much these days but Subhuti has and so has the College of Public Preceptors. Again, for the record, it has always been an article of my personal faith that the order is and always has been a non-authoritarian order, and that individual order members have a duty to ensure that it so remains. This is so fundamental I’m surprised it’s still an issue. I’m reminded here of a quote by John Le Carré. “People constantly at war with authority are also in love with it.” This suggests that those who do love power will experience difficulty in separating the power mode, that characterises the workings of a group and society in general from the love mode that characterises the smooth and harmonious functioning of a spiritual community and, let’s make it so, our own order. Vive la revolution! Sabbe satta sukhi hontu!

Buddhadasa
Katoomba