A report on the recent meeting of the College of Public Preceptors

From Moksananda

Werner Herzog is reported to have once said that documentaries are as close to the truth as glaciers are to flatulence. The point being I guess that documentaries just cannot do justice to the subtlety and complexity of things. In the case of glaciers neither the awe they inspire nor their beauty can be captured.

Likewise, perhaps a report of a meeting of Order members can never really communicate what that meeting was like. Even a good report is inevitably flat and two-dimensional. A meeting of Dharmafarers exists in many dimensions, on many levels, and manifests the play of friendships that may go back a whole life-time. Certainly that is true of the recent public preceptors’ meeting.

I'd never been to Taraloka before. For some reason I wasn't expecting it to be quite so lovely. I guess I just imagined a place on the edge of a peat-bog being somewhat flat and uninteresting. But no, it's lovely. The retreat centre is really well done, light and spacious, well looked after, and the community just seem to brim with delight in it's smooth-running. And even after a week I was still finding corners of the place I hadn't noticed before.

And the birds. I loved getting up in the mornings and being outside just listening to their song! Maybe it's like that all over Britain this time of the year. After more than 20 years in Spain I don't remember. I suspect it is. What a delight! I felt happy before even getting into the shrine room, which itself was another delight. Being in it felt like a kind of blessing. Really. Light pours in through the large windows and there is such a stillness. I'm sure some of what I experienced had to do with being there with friends in the Dharma, but I'm equally sure it had something to do with the place itself and the many women who have sat there in meditation over the years.

After meditation, breakfast: my favourite meal on retreats. What is it about meditating with friends and then sharing coffee, porridge and toast? So simple, so satisfying, so normal.

We began our morning meetings at about 10 o'clock, coming together to sort out any practical details before getting on with whatever it was we were going to be doing. There were about 20 of us and during our 11 days together we spent time studying with Subhuti – his reflections on various suttas and things coming out of his recent conversations about the Dharma with Bhante – kula meetings, a report on the ordination process in India, discussion about structures for co-ordinating decision making (in the order, movement and college) and a number of other points such as college funding, mitra study, reviews of preceptors, the land project…


India:

The India Public Preceptors Kula discussed the consultation process for new preceptors with us and Subhuti talked about responses in India to Bhante's recent conversation regarding his personal life. We also heard a little about the effects of Karuna deciding to withdraw funding from the ordination teams in India. Karuna still supports the teams to some extent, but from 1st April their support has been cut by 25%, and it will be completely gone in a years time. The India Dhamma Trust has recently been launched with the aim of supporting the teams that work with Karunamaya and Suvajra, and to expand the women's team. This is important because these people do a lot of Dharma work, and provide many of the retreats in India. They are a crucial part of our Order and Movement there and if we are not able to find financial support for them it's going to have a big effect on things.


A structure for the Order and movement:

We spent some time discussing some of the principles for making communication and decision-making within the Order and movement more effective.

It's a complex issue, as we all know. We started by seeing that there is a lot already in place within the three strands of the Order, the Movement and the College. We have such things as the European and international chairs meeting, the centre presidents, the mitra convenors' meetings, the order convenors and chapters, the preceptors' college and the private preceptor gatherings. It's important that each of these three strands work effectively in each of the regions, and that there is good liaison between them. At present we have very little structure that allows the different strands to 'talk to each other' and in a way that balances on the one hand the views of all Order members, mitras and friends, and on the other, spiritual and organisational experience. We need to balance the horizontal and vertical, autonomy and coordination.

We talked about all this at some length in the college meeting, and we're very keen for Dhammarati, as chair of the college, to continue discussion with others in the Order and movement. In fact, we think it's pretty essential. Dhammarati plans a number of meetings with other bodies in the movement and we hope we can steadily move towards a clear structure with broad consent.


Funding:

Moksananda presented a report. We need to find a more effective and long-term means of finding funding for the work of the College. Though we are very generously supported by a number of the men and women who have asked for ordination, and a few Order members, we simply are not getting enough financial support to meet basic running costs. The funding of the college is somewhat precarious and we would like to find a more sustained and on-going source of financial support for our work. It seems to me important for the Order and movement that the college does get the support it needs to be able to work effectively. There’s more information about college funding on our web page and links if anyone is able to donate via standing-order. And there's a button to our JustGiving page here on our blog, for one-off donations.

We also discussed, amongst other things, mitra study (and the need to perhaps strengthen some elements in the course), the land project (the visions behind it and how it's going), the changing of the name of the Order and movement to Triratna, young people and how we can encourage them in the ordination process, and preceptor reviews. We also returned to look at the theme of Order members going to Dharma teachers outside of the Order, and in the light of Bhante’s message of last year.


During our time together we celebrated Dhammadina's birthday, we had Ratnasuri with us for dinner one evening, we marked the 20th anniversary of the death of Dhardo Rimpoche, and Chandrasil from India shared his life story.

And some of us watched 'Encounters at the End of the World' by Werner Herzog. The documentary is about people who spend half the year living in the Antarctic, mainly eccentric scientists and travellers who like to discuss such things as the beginnings of evolution or cosmic energies that permeate all things. A pretty wacky, but somehow very inspired and positive bunch of men and women. In some ways, not unlike a few of the public preceptors I thought…

Personally, the meeting was very enjoyable and I think beneficial. It was good to be back with my kula and catch up on where we're all at. I really appreciated Subhuti sharing his understanding of the Dharma so fully and hope that he has the opportunity to share some of what has come out of his conversations with Bhante as widely as possible. I think of lot of people would find it very helpful. I also loved seeing more of Suvajra. And if any of you want to see some photos of our meeting, then Suvajra has posted quite a few here on Facebook.

'A report on the recent meeting of the College of Public Preceptors' sounds so prosaic, doesn't it? Couldn't I be allowed to call them 'Dispatches from the Edge of the World', or 'Glimmers of a Glacier'?

Or maybe just this once, ‘Birdcall from the Realm of Tara’?