Mostly my weekly newsletters for prisoners

We celebrate our most important Buddhist festival, known variously as Vesākha Puja, Wesak, Buddha Jayanthi or Buddha Day, annually on the full moon of the ancient lunar month of Vesākha, which falls usually in May or some years in early June. This year it will be on May 13th and we will celebrate at The Forest Hermitage on May 18th.

Traditionally at Vesākha Puja we celebrate the Birth, the Enlightenment and the Passing of the Buddha. Early Buddhist scriptures state that all three occurred on various Vesākha full moons. However, it is probably the Enlightenment that remains the principal focus since it was that that transformed Gotama the ascetic, known prior to his Enlightenment as the Bodhisatta, into Gotama the Buddha, the One Who Knows, the Awakened One. In the days and weeks leading up to Vesākha Puja, it can be useful to contemplate why he did what he did.  How he woke up to the awful realities of life, of ageing, sickness and death, and as a consequence felt compelled to renounce and leave behind his wealth, position and family to seek the unborn, the unageing, unailing, deathless, sorrowless, undefiled supreme surcease of bondage, Nibbāna.

The Enlightened state, achieved first by the Buddha, alone and unaided, and then through his example and teaching by many disciples since, is known as Nibbāna (Pali). It is achieved when in the mind of a person, through seeing the true nature of all things, attachment is let go of and all greed, hatred and delusion extinguished, which means that for the Enlightened there will be no more rebirth.

The precise year of the birth of the child who was to become the Buddha is uncertain but is believed to have been 623 BCE and the Buddhist Era commences eighty years later, counted from the year of the Parinibbāna or the Buddha’s Final Passing.

There are some slight cultural and local differences in how the various Buddhist groups and nations celebrate but broadly speaking devout Buddhists try to attend their local temple for at least part of the day with some remaining for the whole day and the night. The occasion will be marked with ‘the making of merit’, which means engaging in doing good and skilful things guided by the Buddhist principles of Giving, Virtue and Cultivation. It is said that one should not be slow to engage in merit since doing merit cleanses the mind.  Giving usually involves bringing food to the temple to offer and share, as well as supplies and symbolic offerings for the Shrine. Virtue is observed by reaffirming commitment to the five moral precepts, and for some, for the day and the night, the eight.  And the practice of Cultivation includes participating in chanting, meditation and listening to sermons.  Buddhist festivals are generally cheerful and happy occasions, expressive of loving-kindness and support in the Buddhist life and training.

Three months ago when I was relatively new to this unusual medical condition that I now have to manage, I thought that semi retirement or more was pretty definitely on the cards and I prepared myself for that. I certainly thought that by now I would be doing much less than what I am. Although I am still sometimes disappointed to feel so tired and below par and have to remind myself that I am not as well as once I was, I’m still doing all right and I appear to be getting better. By Friday and Saturday this week I was pretty done in but I’d had a busy few days and a good time and squeezed in much more than I would ever have managed a few weeks ago.

Monday was relatively quiet but on Tuesday I was off to Gartree and Stocken prisons. For these two I have to leave at around two o’clock in the afternoon and I get back soon after nine at night. Both are enjoyable groups and the drive, especially at this time of the year as we begin to enjoy the long, light evenings, is a pleasant one.

On Wednesday morning I was interviewed on BBC Coventry and Warwickshire local radio about the Coventry woman who was arrested and deported from Sri Lanka for having a tattoo of the Buddha on her shoulder. Of course i said it was a bit over the top of the Sri Lankans but it gave me an opportunity to speak about respect and what I call the growing culture of disrespect, and our concern at the way the Image of the Buddha and the word Buddha itself are so often misused and abused.

Wednesday afternoon and evening again involved me with two prisons but with the first there was a difference. Some prisoners manage to make something of their sentence and seize the opportunities to address their offending behaviour and improve themselves, not only by practising Buddhism and meditation, but with education. Some, even manage a degree with the Open University. And that, I may say, is a considerable achievement because prisons are generally far from being ideal places in which to study. And for some the path to that degree has had to begin with fairly basic studies that most of us have taken for granted but which they for some reason have missed out on. So, on Wednesday at the invitation of a chap I’ve been seeing for a few years now I went to Grendon Prison to attend his Graduation ceremony. He had gained a BSc in something to do with Pure Maths. I can’t remember the details because it was all a bit beyond me. It was marvellous to see him in his gown and to hear his short speech, which carried a powerful message, because he spoke about how in another prison, some years ago, he had been inspired by someone who had talked about lifelong learning. Academic learning was what was meant but the idea that you should keep on learning resonates with me because I go on all the time about the need to keep on growing and never to stop, with the understanding that everything is teaching us.

On Thursday I was off again to another two prisons. Well, officially they’re now one, HMP Isle of Wight, but actually they’re two separate sites, Parkhurst and Albany, and they were both amongst the first prisons I ever visited back in the summer of 1977. People think it’s a long way to go and it is a long day but I always say it’s a pleasant drive and then a little cruise on the Solent. The weather was good and I had an enjoyable time with both groups.

On the way back we called at my parents’ grave. My father died fourteen years ago and my mother seven years ago and on Thursday my mother would have been a hundred, while my father’s hundredth birthday was a week before on Thursday the 17th. As my mother used to say, ‘I’m not a cemetery person.’ But I thought that for their hundredth anniversary I ought to take some flowers and tidy up the grave a bit, so that’s what I did.

And that was the week that was!

It was the Queen’s eighty-eighth birthday last Monday and I felt I’d like to pay a tribute, particularly for her part in bringing peace to the relationship between this country and Ireland.

After centuries of violence and discord between England and Ireland and between Republicans and Loyalists in Northern Ireland, three years ago the Queen went to Ireland. There she paid her respects at the memorial to those killed in the independence movement and to the amazement of her listeners, at the formal banquet in her honour she took the trouble to open her address with a sentence and greeting in Irish. And then this year she not only welcomed the current President of Ireland to Windsor but also shook hands with a man who is believed to have been seriously implicated in the IRA’s campaign of violence against this country. A campaign that murdered her own second cousin and uncle to her husband.

There comes a time when the hating has to stop. As the Buddha said, ‘Hating doesn’t stop with hating, hating stops with not hating.’

Songkran, the Thai, Burmese, Cambodian and Sri Lankan New Year was celebrated at The Forest Hermitage (Wat Pah SantiDhamma) on Sunday, April 13th. And the day before in Nottingham at Khun Yod’s YodSiam Restaurant.

The 13th dawned bright and sunny and we had a marvellous day with an impressive and international turnout of people from all over the country. Yod and Nid had flown in specially from Thailand, first to host the Songran at their restaurant the day before and then to be with us on the 13th. And Khun Peter not only organised most of the food but also most generously provided a coach from London.

As I had the day before in Nottingham, in my talk I explained that the bathing of the Buddha Rupa, the monks and elders and then of each other was really meant to be a sign of respect and I emphasised the importance of respect. After all, without respect there can be no harmony in society and our individual ability to learn, to grow and to develop is seriously impeded.

As always, people were very generous and as well as various supplies and food for the day, £3,177.82 was collected and offered. The day before at Yod Siam another £605 was raised. For that and all the hard work of preparation and cleaning up afterwards, Anumodana.

I doubt whether my powers of description can possibly do the day justice and so I’d rather refer you to this video.

Any day now I ought to tweet a reminder about our Songkran next Sunday, which reminds me that last time I tweeted a reminder about an event here I made a mistake. For several days no one commented, or perhaps even noticed, that I’d given the wrong date by a whole month, until one of our neighbours kindly sent me a text pointing out my error. Now I could have tried to cover it up and perhaps even suggested it was a teaching and demanded to know why everyone had been so unobservant and unaware and why it had taken so long for anyone to notice. Covering up and not admitting to errors is what small minded people often do but a long time ago I learnt how a big man handles a mistake.

It was when I was a young actor and in my second year at the National Theatre. I was really excited when the legendary Sir Tyrone Guthrie joined the company to direct two productions and I was cast, albeit in a small way, in one of them, in Volpone. I remember one day I was in the rehearsal room, I suppose waiting to get to a scene I was in, and idly watching Guthrie work with the two actors playing Volpone and Mosca. It soon became apparent that there was some difficulty with the scene they were rehearsing and that Colin (Volpone) and Frank (Mosca) were cautiously trying to suggest that it was Guthrie’s interpretation that was at fault. Now remember, Sir Tyrone Guthrie was one of the great men of the theatre, a director of immense experience and international renown, and he had already been responsible for umpteen productions of Volpone and these two were trying to tell him that he’d got it wrong! Imagine. Suddenly, Guthrie caught on to what they were trying to tell him, stared at the text and without missing a beat exploded, ‘Good God! You’re absolutely right. Change it!’

That’s how to do it. That’s how to admit to a mistake.

So it’s about two and a half weeks since I returned from Thailand and over the last couple of weeks I’ve begun to resume my prison visits. In each of those two weeks I’ve managed two days out and three prisons visited. I’m pacing myself. My medical condition and my age are good enough excuses for doing a bit less running around now. But I’m not stopping, just reorganising and being a bit sensible with my time and energy. At least that’s the idea.

One of the exciting things I look forward to when I get back every year from Thailand is the re-emergence of my two tortoises after their winter hibernation. I was reckoning on it being today or tomorrow but then suddenly, just a week after I’d returned I heard a noise that for a little while I couldn’t place. Then it hit me. It was the tortoises moving about in my loft where they’d been asleep. I got up there and sure enough they were both wide awake so the next day, down they came and into their heated home, where they’ve been pretty active.

Having not done very much to maintain our property for years, over the last few months we’ve been having some much needed repairs and refurbishment done, mostly to the roof, the conservatory and the bathroom. And there’s still more to be done. But last week the latest improvement was the replacement of our old, rather pathetic and expensive to run, oil fired AGA with a newer, second-hand electric model that heats up overnight on Economy 7. We’ve only been trying to do something about the old AGA for about the past ten or twelve years so it was quite a relief when it all suddenly fell into place: we found what we wanted, supplied by a chap we liked and someone came up with a hefty anonymous donation. Anumodana!

Of course nearly all our attempts to improve things cost money and so it was a bit of a blow this week when walking back from my night time stroll with my dogs I noticed the silhouette of one of our leylandii fir trees bordering the lane leaning at an awkward angle across the road. I could see this could cost us a bit! It turned out it had split but it’s fall had been arrested by other trees so it was being held just clear of the telephone cable that supplies us and all the other properties further down the lane with phone and broadband. Very fortunately the tree surgeon we know responded very quickly and the day after we phoned him he and his assistant were here to deal with it. It was six hours hard work in wet and not very nice weather. But they did well and I’m so glad they got it done because the day after there blew a gale and that tree would never have stayed where it was. So we were lucky, very lucky, but it’s still going to set the temple back about five hundred quid. Never mind, that’s life, no one was hurt and it could have been a lot worse.

 

Yesterday, I read it was the 50th anniversary of Sir Winston Churchill’s funeral and I saw that on Monday, Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr were performing together in a concert to celebrate 50 years ago when the Beatles took the States by storm. So that all means it’s 50 years since I first set foot in the US with Theatre Group 20 for a four month tour. I remember it was at our first stop out of New York, at a hotel in Maryland, that Churchill’s funeral was on television. I didn’t watch it but I remember my friends who did being pretty shocked with the interruption, ‘Now a word from our sponsor – Winston cigarettes!’ Can you imagine? I’ve never forgotten arriving at that hotel. I got out of our coach – well a big Greyhound type bus that carried all our gear, props and scenery, as well as us – and as I strolled to the hotel entrance a group of teenage girls started screaming. I couldn’t quite believe it, so I quickly thought of an excuse to go back out to the bus – and they screamed again. And again when I went back into the hotel! I found it was to happen quite often on that tour but pretty modest compared to the Beatles. Another thing I remember at that hotel was seeing our advance manager open his suitcase and there was his gun. I’d never seen anyone wandering around with a loaded pistol before. Fifty years! Hardly believable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sitting here in Thailand with practically nothing to do I‘ve looked at my blog. Well, I knew it was ages since I wrote anything for it but I hadn’t quite realised how long. So, now for a long overdue update.

It’s pointless trying to remember everything that’s happened since the last posting in October and then deciding what of that’s worth writing about or needs to be included. I’m not even going to try, I’m just going to tell you where I am now and what that might mean for the future.

Yes, I’m in Thailand and as I write this I am by the sea with sound of the waves in the background at Cha’am. In a little over an hour we leave for Bangkok where we are to eat at Khun Yod’s factory. Then Ajahn Manapo will leave for London and I will remain in Bangkok for another night. On Monday evening I will attend the chanting for Somdet Phra Sangharaja who died recently. Then shortly after midnight on Monday I too return to the UK.

I have had a marvellous two weeks. I flew out of London a fortnight ago tonight and on the following Tuesday I was received with much ceremony at Mahachulalongkornrajavideyalaya University where I was presented with an Honorary Doctorate. Then Ajahn Manapo and I were driven at some speed to Ubon where we were to stay at Wat Pah Nanchat for a few days. On the Thursday it was the big day at Wat Pah Pong, the Ajahn Chah Memorial Day, and there I took part in the annual circumambulation of the Ajahn Chah Chedi. After that I had the chance to visit Peter and Tipawan and to see my old friend and mentor, Luangpor Dang, before flying back to Bangkok and driving South to Cha’am. While in the North East for some of the time we were in the enjoyable company of Ant and Joob and when we went for tea at Peter and Tipawan’s we surprised them by turning up at their house with Matthew and his wife. And throughout our trip, from time to time and much of the time, we have been looked after by the loyal and admirable Ken.

Throughout I have been shown care and kindness and I’m afraid I’ve needed it. In fact I‘ve been lucky to have made it here this year and in the procession circumambulating the Luang Por Chah Chedi I was almost shedding tears of joy.

You see, in December I became rather unwell and was eventually diagnosed with Temporal Arteritis or Giant Cell Arteritis. Fortunately my GP was onto it pretty sharpish and there has been no damage to my sight. I am being treated. It is incurable but does sometimes go into remission and I am optimistic. I’m all right. But I shall have to take things easy, or at least easier and do less than before. But I don’t mind that, after all I’m not exactly in the springtime of life!

So there you are. Now you know. And I’ll try in future to reform and update this blog more often.

This week began for me like most with little to do on Monday until the evening. Then I had to teach at Warwick Uni Buddhist Society and immediately after our Monday evening group at The Forest Hermitage, for which I’m afraid I was rather late. For the last few Mondays Ajahn Manapo has been away at Bradford on Avon, so I’ve been on my own here. Tuesday was out to prisons as usual but then Wednesday was rather different – I had to go to London.

That meant an early start and an early meal. I had to be at the MoJ building in Petty France by 1:30. The reason was a meeting of the Prison Service’s Chaplaincy Council. That sounds rather grand but the reality was an assorted group of people of different religions crammed round a table in a sort of glorified and airless cupboard, which I believe they call a meeting room. I was stuck in there for three hours and I wasn’t in the best of shape by the time I escaped. It’s this strange addiction to air and breathing that I have that was the trouble! And the content of the meeting didn’t help. I suppose it was all necessary stuff – some people seemed to be able to get quite enthusiastic about it – but you could never have called it creative.

Once I’d escaped, Luke appeared to pick me up and run me over to Soho, to Dean Street. Had you been strolling through the heart of Soho on Wednesday evening you might have glimpsed this Buddhist monk, quick as a flash, disappearing down a darkened alley next to Quo Vardis. Had you followed you would have found yourself in a little Court and seen me disappear into a studio run by Giles Forman. Until that evening I had never met Giles, although we had spoken a few times over the phone. His studio is where he trains young actors and Giles himself was taught at Drama Centre where I went fifty years ago. I was received by Giles with great courtesy and introduced to some of his young students as having been in Group One at Drama Centre – they all seemed to know what that meant. And for anyone reading this who doesn’t know what it meant, well there are previous entries to this blog that will inform you. Coincidentally, Christopher Fettes, who taught me at Drama Centre, was there that evening and still teaching at eighty-four. The purpose of my going there had been to meet Giles and to talk about how we might in this fiftieth anniversary year of the founding of Drama Centre honour it and the teachers who taught there and especially the great and wonderful Yat, who died eleven years ago. So Giles, Christopher and I had a brief discussion until Giles had to go off and take a class.

I’ve never forgotten how one day, around fifty years ago, I heard Christopher describing Yat as a creative man. I suppose I knew that already but I hadn’t heard it said. I don’t think I’d ever heard anyone called that before and it struck me then as such a wonderful thing to be, to be a creative person. It’s stayed with me. And that evening with those two people and their young students I was reminded of that and the contrast between what I sensed there and what I’d been through that afternoon was almost overwhelming.

What is done in that studio and what I used to do over forty odd years ago and what I do now is all linked. Yat’s work is described as the Psychology of Movement and what I learnt as a student and as an actor with Yat and Christopher and all the rest has a great deal to do with what I do now, and with what Buddhism has to say about the human condition, our suffering and the cause of our suffering. Life and living and dealing with our difficulties has to be a creative process. You must try to be a creative person. I do and if ever I’m called that it will be for me one of the greatest of compliments.

We had a marvellous day with something like two hundred people here – three coaches and thirty cars, they say. Khun Peter from Two Point Restaurant was the main sponsor and he and everyone who came, they were so generous. And the weather too was good to us, the rain cleared and the sun shone. New robes were offered, and an assortment of supplies, there was plenty of good food and around £3,500 was collected – Anumodana!

There are more pictures here. And pretty much the same on Facebook, here.

This afternoon a meeting of the committee of the Theravada Buddhist Sangha in the UK (TBSUK) was held at The Forest Hermitage. The purpose of the meeting was to take forward the proposal, agreed at our last General Meeting in August, to develop TBSUK as a professional registration body for Theravada Sangha members in the UK.

This was a well attended meeting with almost a full complement of committee members present. Only Venerable Seelawimala of the London Buddhist Vihara was unable to be with us.

For the benefit of Ashin Pannobaso who was not at the last couple of meetings and to remind other members, I briefly related the circumstances that had led us to consider the advantages of having all Theravada monks and nuns in this country properly and professionally registered with a responsible and known association or body, just as is the case with practically all other professions. I explained that this is not to be disrespectful of our various origins in Thailand, Sri Lanka and Burma, or wherever, but to develop for the UK a body not unlike what we have in those various Buddhist countries that registers, regulates and to some extent governs, represents and protects the Sangha. Furthermore nearly all our monasteries and temples in this country are small and it’s obvious, especially with some of the problems we have in common, that what each of us on our own can achieve is relatively limited but when we come together so much more can be done. A recent example has been the Immigration problem and I’m sure it made a difference when I was able to say at a meeting with the Immigration Minister that I was representing fifty temples. Registration will be voluntary and will take time and so I believe we should get on with it as soon as possible.

I’m pleased to say that we had a very useful discussion and now the work begins.

When our main business had concluded, Ven. Chao Khun Phrapanyabuddhiwithet (Ajahn Laow) raised two matters that he had brought from a recent meeting of Thai monks in Europe. The first concerned a so called work of art in Munich that features a large Buddha-Rupa on its side. This has caused a lot of offence and there’s been quite a bit about it I believe in the Thai press. But the protests have all been ignored. And the second was the refusal of Belgium to recognise Buddhism as a religion and in consequence of this there have been some difficulties put in the way of monks going to there. I don’t think there’s much we can do about the first matter but regarding the second I said I would make some enquiries about what EU law has to say about it.

All in all it was an excellent afternoon and I’m so grateful to everyone for going to the trouble of coming here.

Much of my fortunate and fascinating life, when I’m not at the Forest Hermitage, is spent in prison. I’m usually out about three days a week teaching Buddhism and meditation in up to five or six prisons. Some I go to regularly and some as the need arises. Lately I’ve been going back to the Isle of Wight, to a couple of prisons now clustered as one, that were amongst the very first I went to in 1977 when all this prison stuff began for me. It might seem a long way to go but it’s not a bad drive, then a pleasant cruise on the Solent, and an afternoon of agreeable company practising and discussing the Dhamma, before another cruise and the drive back. Not bad really!

There are naturally departures from this routine, for instance attendance at meetings of the Prison Service Chaplaincy Council and times when I’m teaching in other places, like Khun Peter’s restaurant on the first Sunday of every month and during term time, every Monday evening at Warwick University. I’m also the longest serving chaplain at Broadmoor Special Hospital and lately I’ve started going to Wellington College.

 

I’m also occasionally reminded of my formative years at Drama School, that’s especially been the case in the last week or so because tomorrow, on September 30th, it will be fifty years to the day since we opened Drama Centre, London. By then I’d already been a drama student for two years. I’d been accepted at what is now the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama a week after my seventeenth birthday and there I spent two amazing years studying with the most extraordinary combination of teachers. We were utterly devoted to all of them but one of them, Yat Malmgren who is almost always known just as Yat, we held in special esteem. Then shortly before the conclusion of our second year, with one more year expected to go, we were dealt a cruel and unexpected blow. I can still to this day vividly remember the Principal, a rigid, unbending woman with one glass eye, which meant you could never work out who she was looking at or talking to, telling us that she had dismissed Yat and that John Blatchley, the Director of our Stage course and the rest of that extraordinary team had in consequence resigned. We were just expected to accept this and carry on with whoever else they managed to employ for the following year but we were having none of it. Furious, we met together and decided to ask Yat and John, if we could find the place and the means, would they give us our final year and they said, yes. So we left Central and set about the formation of what was to become Drama Centre, London. Since leaving a year later and since a small company that some of us formed collapsed, I have had practically no contact with my former fellow revolutionaries. Most of them I’ve never seen again. But two days ago I met one of them in London. A couple of years ago, Patricia Grant, was googling the people who had meant most to her in her life and came upon a piece about Yat, which I had written and published on my blog. And so she found me. Since then we’ve been in touch and now while she’s over visiting from Canada where she lives we’ve met again and on Friday we paid a nostalgic visit to the old building, the previous Methodist church in Prince of Wales Road, Chalk Farm, that used to house the Drama Centre.

 

This weekend, yesterday and today, at Wat Buddhapadipa in Wimbledon, there have been ceremonies and chanting to remember and honour, at fifty days after his death, the late Somdej Phra Buddhacharn (Somdej Kiew), the Abbot of Wat Saket in Bangkok and Chairman of the monastic panel acting on behalf of the Sangha Raja, the Supreme Patriarch. Somdej Kiew passed away on August 10th. He was 85. I had known him for almost forty years and he had been very kind to me so I was both honoured and pleased to be there yesterday and to be asked to say a few words as a tribute to him and the kindness he exemplified.

In the second week of September, the glorious summer weather we’d been enjoying and which had appeared to be set to go on and on and on, suddenly, changed and that week the forecast for Sunday, September 15th was that we were to expect the first great storm of the autumn. High winds and lashing rain were supposed to sweep the country. This was not the news I wanted to hear for on that very Sunday we had chosen to hold our annual celebration at the Buddha Grove in HMP Spring Hill. This is when every year members of the Thai community come into the prison and cook for all the prisoners and for the Buddhist inmates and staff next door in Grendon Prison. First we have a gathering with prisoners, staff and invited guests at the Buddha Grove, which is of course in the open air, then everyone troops down to the dining hall where the food is served, and when that’s done we come back for a candle-lit circumambulation at the Buddha Grove, again outside. This has been going on for over twenty years and we’ve always been lucky with the weather but this year for the first time I began making contingency plans for an event indoors. On the day itself, the morning looked promising but as the day progressed the clouds gathered and when we drove into Spring Hill at a quarter to five that evening the promised storm appeared to be on its way, the wind was rising and at intervals flurries of teeming rain lashed the hillside. We waited and watched. I went down to visit the kitchen and admire all the good work being done there. I arranged for the serving of the food to be delayed as long as possible. Then I went back up to the main building and the Buddha Grove and we watched and we waited. Guests gradually arrived. And we waited – and the rain eased off – we decided to go for it. It was a bit damp, a bit blowy – we couldn’t light the candles, at least they wouldn’t stay lit, but we managed – the chanting, the speeches, after the food the circumambulation – everything! It was great.

As he is every year, Lord Avebury was there, you can see him speaking to us in the right hand picture above. The current Governor and two previous governors were also present. And this year we were particularly honoured by the presence of the Minister from the Thai Embassy, Mom Rajawongs Sukhasvasti.

And as always, thank you so much, everyone who helped – everyone, in small ways and big ways – to make this the great success it was. Anumodana!

At 3pm on August 7th at Wat Pah Santidham, The Forest Hermitage, we held the latest biannual General Meeting of the Theravada Buddhist Sangha in the UK (TBSUK) under my chairmanship. Present were sixteen monks representing Wat Mahathat UK, Wat Santiwongsaram in Birmingham, Wat Sanghapadipa in Wales, Amaravati, Wat Phra Singh UK in Cheshire, Sri Saddhatissa Temple in Kingsbury, Wat Sri Ratanaram in Manchester and of course Wat Pah Santidham, the Forest Hermitage.

I had emailed notice of the meeting to all the temples for which I have email addresses and posted notices to those I haven’t, in all fifty Theravada temples. I have had one posted letter returned, addressee gone away or address incomplete, from Wat Santiranaram in Kent. And one email to Saraniya Meditation Centre in Manchester bounced. I had had one apology from Venerable Bodhidhamma and another from Sister Candasiri in Scotland. Concern was expressed that again we had no Burmese monks present and only one Sri Lankan temple represented. There was a short discussion about how we might remedy this in future and widen and improve the representation of the Burmese and Sri Lankan Temples.

Every year at our August meeting it is necessary for one third of the membership of our Committee to stand down and either stand again for re-election or be replaced. This year it was the turn of the Burmese monk, Ashin Pannobaso, and the committee’s Thai secretary, Phra Bhatsakorn Piyobhaso, and both were unanimously re-elected.

Next on the Agenda was the ever present Immigration problem and I took questions and commented on the report that I had already circulated of a meeting I had with Mark Harper, the Immigration Minister, in March. The main points from that were that there can be no change to the English language requirement for Tier Two and no movement from Tier Five to Tier Two. Tier Five must remain by its nature temporary. It was confirmed that there is no requirement for the resident labour market test to be met when applying for a visa under Tier Two and no need to report authorised absences or to keep copies of passports for unsponsored residents. And it is possible for Buddhist monks and nuns here under Tier Two (Minister of Religion) to claim settlement and they will be exempt from the £35,000 threshold which will apply to workers in other Tier Two categories from 2016.

Then we talked briefly about the conviction and imprisonment of the Head of the Thames Vihara for sexually molesting a young girl. He has appealed and the appeal has not succeeded. The extreme seriousness of such matters both within the framework of the law and of the Vinaya was emphasised and no matter how shameful if might be temples should not even think of trying to cover up behaviour of this kind. It cannot and must not be tolerated. The problem of the lay supporters not knowing and not understanding monastic rules was also spoken about.

This led onto a discussion on the upgrading of TBSUK to become an authorising professional body. In Buddhist countries the Sangha has some sort of governing body but here we have nothing of the kind and I said that I felt that it was time for the Sangha here to grow up and begin to take care of itself rather than be endlessly referring back to Thailand, Burma and Sri Lanka. I went on to quote the late Venerable Saddhatissa who when we came to England in 1977 Luang Por Chah told Ajahn Sumedho and myself to respect as we would the Sangha Raja. Venerable Saddhatissa once made the point to me that it is incorrect to refer to the Thai Sangha and the English Sangha and so on, properly there is just the Sangha and within that we should drop all worldly conventions of class, caste, rank and nationality. I have just registered with the UK Board of Healthcare Chaplaincy which is seeking to promote and raise the status of chaplaincy in healthcare and I believe it would be advantageous for Buddhist monks and nuns to be similarly registered. I believe it would be a support to Sangha members, it would give a recognised and proven authority as to who and what we are, it would expose fake monks and fraudulent activity, it would help us to maintain and even improver standards, it would enable us to deal effectively with bad behaviour and it would help justify the faith and confidence that our lay followers expect to have in us. I do not see this as another religious power block but as a simple and effective way of ensuring the growth and stability of the Sangha in this country far into the future. Obviously to begin with it will have to be voluntary and I recognise that it will take time to develop and I believe the sooner we get on with it the better.

So then we decided that the Committee should take this further and for that reason meet here on October 16th at 3pm.

Next concerns were raised about the recent reports in the media of the Buddhist attacks on the Muslims in Burma and the video of a certain Thai monk living it up on a private jet that had gone viral on the Internet. My answer was that these are more good reasons for upgrading TBSUK. If we were properly established and well known we would be able to answer our critics and publish statements that would make the position of the Sangha clear. When things like these happen the media would learn to come to us and we wouldn’t have to remain silent and put up with all this damaging publicity.

Our next General Meeting was then set for March 5th next year at 3pm at Wat Buddhapadipa in Wimbledon.

Our amicable and productive afternoon then wound up with the Asking Forgiveness ceremonies and the all important photo calls.

At 3pm on August 7th at Wat Pah Santidham, The Forest Hermitage, we held the latest biannual General Meeting of the Theravada Buddhist Sangha in the UK (TBSUK) under my chairmanship. Present were sixteen monks representing Wat Mahathat UK, Wat Santiwongsaram in Birmingham, Wat Sanghapadipa in Wales, Amaravati, Wat Phra Singh UK in Cheshire, Sri Saddhatissa Temple in Kingsbury, Wat Sri Ratanaram in Manchester and of course Wat Pah Santidham, the Forest Hermitage.

I had emailed notice of the meeting to all the temples for which I have email addresses and posted notices to those I haven’t, in all fifty Theravada temples. I have had one posted letter returned, addressee gone away or address incomplete, from Wat Santiranaram in Kent. And one email to Saraniya Meditation Centre in Manchester bounced. I had had one apology from Venerable Bodhidhamma and another from Sister Candasiri in Scotland. Concern was expressed that again we had no Burmese monks present and only one Sri Lankan temple represented. There was a short discussion about how we might remedy this in future and widen and improve the representation of the Burmese and Sri Lankan Temples.

Every year at our August meeting it is necessary for one third of the membership of our Committee to stand down and either stand again for re-election or be replaced. This year it was the turn of the Burmese monk, Ashin Pannobaso, and the committee’s Thai secretary, Phra Bhatsakorn Piyobhaso, and both were unanimously re-elected.

Next on the Agenda was the ever present Immigration problem and I took questions and commented on the report that I had already circulated of a meeting I had with Mark Harper, the Immigration Minister, in March. The main points from that were that there can be no change to the English language requirement for Tier Two and no movement from Tier Five to Tier Two. Tier Five must remain by its nature temporary. It was confirmed that there is no requirement for the resident labour market test to be met when applying for a visa under Tier Two and no need to report authorised absences or to keep copies of passports for unsponsored residents. And it is possible for Buddhist monks and nuns here under Tier Two (Minister of Religion) to claim settlement and they will be exempt from the £35,000 threshold which will apply to workers in other Tier Two categories from 2016.

Then we talked briefly about the conviction and imprisonment of the Head of the Thames Vihara for sexually molesting a young girl. He has appealed and the appeal has not succeeded. The extreme seriousness of such matters both within the framework of the law and of the Vinaya was emphasised and no matter how shameful if might be temples should not even think of trying to cover up behaviour of this kind. It cannot and must not be tolerated. The problem of the lay supporters not knowing and not understanding monastic rules was also spoken about.

This led onto a discussion on the upgrading of TBSUK to become an authorising professional body. In Buddhist countries the Sangha has some sort of governing body but here we have nothing of the kind and I said that I felt that it was time for the Sangha here to grow up and begin to take care of itself rather than be endlessly referring back to Thailand, Burma and Sri Lanka. I went on to quote the late Venerable Saddhatissa who when we came to England in 1977 Luang Por Chah told Ajahn Sumedho and myself to respect as we would the Sangha Raja. Venerable Saddhatissa once made the point to me that it is incorrect to refer to the Thai Sangha and the English Sangha and so on, properly there is just the Sangha and within that we should drop all worldly conventions of class, caste, rank and nationality. I have just registered with the UK Board of Healthcare Chaplaincy which is seeking to promote and raise the status of chaplaincy in healthcare and I believe it would be advantageous for Buddhist monks and nuns to be similarly registered. I believe it would be a support to Sangha members, it would give a recognised and proven authority as to who and what we are, it would expose fake monks and fraudulent activity, it would help us to maintain and even improver standards, it would enable us to deal effectively with bad behaviour and it would help justify the faith and confidence that our lay followers expect to have in us. I do not see this as another religious power block but as a simple and effective way of ensuring the growth and stability of the Sangha in this country far into the future. Obviously to begin with it will have to be voluntary and I recognise that it will take time to develop and I believe the sooner we get on with it the better.

So then we decided that the Committee should take this further and for that reason meet here on October 16th at 3pm.

Next concerns were raised about the recent reports in the media of the Buddhist attacks on the Muslims in Burma and the video of a certain Thai monk living it up on a private jet that had gone viral on the Internet. My answer was that these are more good reasons for upgrading TBSUK. If we were properly established and well known we would be able to answer our critics and publish statements that would make the position of the Sangha clear. When things like these happen the media would learn to come to us and we wouldn’t have to remain silent and put up with all this damaging publicity.

Our next General Meeting was then set for March 5th next year at 3pm at Wat Buddhapadipa in Wimbledon.

Our amicable and productive afternoon then wound up with the Asking Forgiveness ceremonies and the all important photo calls.

June began for me with a very busy weekend.

On Saturday, June 1st we had the second of this year’s quarterly Angulimala workshops for Buddhist prison chaplains. This particular one was rather special because our guest for the afternoon was Nick Hardwick CBE, HMI Chief Inspector of Prisons. We have been fortunate in the past to have had the three previous Chief Inspectors, Judge Stephen Tumim, Sir David (now Lord) Ramsbotham and Dame Anne Owers come here to speak at our workshops and I was pleased that we were able to continue the tradition with the latest holder of the post. I must say that Nick Hardwick was very generous with his time and gave us a very enjoyable, useful and inspiring afternoon.

These workshops are long days for me because not only is there the preparation but then the meetings run from 10 o’clock in the morning right through until 7 or 8 in the evening. So you can imagine I might prefer to take it easy the day after but that’s not always possible and on June 2nd I had to leave early for my first Sunday of the month Dana and Dhamma Desana at Khun Peter’s restaurant near Baker Street in London. And when that was over I had to make a pretty swift return in time to be at Coventry Cathedral for a service to mark the 60th anniversary of the Queen’s coronation. So, you can see it was a busy weekend.

A few days later on June 4th we had a visit by Luang Por Kumpong, a senior monk of Wat Pah Pong, who came for the meal with a group of monks from Amaravati. I have known LP Kumpong since 1973 when newly arrived he was still in white and sent over by Luang Por Chah from Wat Pah Pong to Wat Keun to spend his probationary period with us there. It was a pleasure to see him and to welcome him to The Forest Hermitage, Wat Pah Santidham.

I’m mainly only setting down here the principal events of these few weeks, you can take for granted that every week on usually three days I am out and about with my prison visits and odd moments here are also occupied with Buddhist prison matters. It was after one of these visits on June 19th, which just happened to be the first anniversary of the death of my old friend Victor Spinetti, that I called on his brother who lives not far from here and we spent a lovely couple of hours remembering Victor. Then the next day I was off down to the Isle of Wight to visit the Buddhists in the two remaining prisons there.

Then we had Ajahn Cittagutto come for a week. He was the first monk to ordain here and now lives in Northern Thailand. Every year he visits his family in Germany and comes over here to see me. The day he left, Ajahn Manapo embarked on another tudong walk. We packed him off on a train down to Weymouth where he was met and driven to his starting point somewhere nearby. At Bradford-0n-Avon he ran into the owner of a Thai restaurant who with others is in the process of creating a small temple in an old building near the river. He stopped there for two nights and while he was there I went down to see him and the place and meet the good people setting this up. The result of this chance encounter is that from September Ajahn Manapo will be going down there every Monday for five weeks to teach meditation and then we’ll see what happens after that. His walk ended a few days later back here in time to be here before Tahn Nyanavisuddhi returned to Amaravati. We very much enjoyed having Ven. Nyanavisuddhi here and I hope he’ll be back.

By this time we were well into July and the following week was a birthday week. Khun Ting’s was on the 16th but she invited us to her restaurant in Nottingham on the 15th. That was also the day that work began on the new gate. Then it was my birthday on the 17th and as usual people were very generous. There was one huge cake presented when we were at Khun Ting’s and another on the day with cards and presents. Really, it’s amazing! I have to pinch myself to remind myself that at 69 I am now in my seventieth year!

That evening and the next day it was back to prisons. In the evening of the 17th I was at Rye Hill and on the 18th I went all the way up to the Lake District to see the Buddhist group in Haverigg Prison. Afterwards we had a little drive around Lake Windermere which was nice.

Of course my special reason for making that extra effort to go to Haverigg and at other prisons as well as here was because we were celebrating Asalha Puja or as it’s sometimes known now, Dhamma Day. This is the anniversary of the Buddha’s First Sermon. The actual day was Monday, July 22nd with the Entry to the Vassa the following day but our celebration at The Forest Hermitage was on Sunday, July 21st and a very lovely day it was too.

June began for me with a very busy weekend.

On Saturday, June 1st we had the second of this year’s quarterly Angulimala workshops for Buddhist prison chaplains. This particular one was rather special because our guest for the afternoon was Nick Hardwick CBE, HMI Chief Inspector of Prisons. We have been fortunate in the past to have had the three previous Chief Inspectors, Judge Stephen Tumim, Sir David (now Lord) Ramsbotham and Dame Anne Owers come here to speak at our workshops and I was pleased that we were able to continue the tradition with the latest holder of the post. I must say that Nick Hardwick was very generous with his time and gave us a very enjoyable, useful and inspiring afternoon.

These workshops are long days for me because not only is there the preparation but then the meetings run from 10 o’clock in the morning right through until 7 or 8 in the evening. So you can imagine I might prefer to take it easy the day after but that’s not always possible and on June 2nd I had to leave early for my first Sunday of the month Dana and Dhamma Desana at Khun Peter’s restaurant near Baker Street in London. And when that was over I had to make a pretty swift return in time to be at Coventry Cathedral for a service to mark the 60th anniversary of the Queen’s coronation. So, you can see it was a busy weekend.

A few days later on June 4th we had a visit by Luang Por Kumpong, a senior monk of Wat Pah Pong, who came for the meal with a group of monks from Amaravati. I have known LP Kumpong since 1973 when newly arrived he was still in white and sent over by Luang Por Chah from Wat Pah Pong to Wat Keun to spend his probationary period with us there. It was a pleasure to see him and to welcome him to The Forest Hermitage, Wat Pah Santidham.

I’m mainly only setting down here the principal events of these few weeks, you can take for granted that every week on usually three days I am out and about with my prison visits and odd moments here are also occupied with Buddhist prison matters. It was after one of these visits on June 19th, which just happened to be the first anniversary of the death of my old friend Victor Spinetti, that I called on his brother who lives not far from here and we spent a lovely couple of hours remembering Victor. Then the next day I was off down to the Isle of Wight to visit the Buddhists in the two remaining prisons there.

Then we had Ajahn Cittagutto come for a week. He was the first monk to ordain here and now lives in Northern Thailand. Every year he visits his family in Germany and comes over here to see me. The day he left, Ajahn Manapo embarked on another tudong walk. We packed him off on a train down to Weymouth where he was met and driven to his starting point somewhere nearby. At Bradford-0n-Avon he ran into the owner of a Thai restaurant who with others is in the process of creating a small temple in an old building near the river. He stopped there for two nights and while he was there I went down to see him and the place and meet the good people setting this up. The result of this chance encounter is that from September Ajahn Manapo will be going down there every Monday for five weeks to teach meditation and then we’ll see what happens after that. His walk ended a few days later back here in time to be here before Tahn Nyanavisuddhi returned to Amaravati. We very much enjoyed having Ven. Nyanavisuddhi here and I hope he’ll be back.

By this time we were well into July and the following week was a birthday week. Khun Ting’s was on the 16th but she invited us to her restaurant in Nottingham on the 15th. That was also the day that work began on the new gate. Then it was my birthday on the 17th and as usual people were very generous. There was one huge cake presented when we were at Khun Ting’s and another on the day with cards and presents. Really, it’s amazing! I have to pinch myself to remind myself that at 69 I am now in my seventieth year!

That evening and the next day it was back to prisons. In the evening of the 17th I was at Rye Hill and on the 18th I went all the way up to the Lake District to see the Buddhist group in Haverigg Prison. Afterwards we had a little drive around Lake Windermere which was nice.

Of course my special reason for making that extra effort to go to Haverigg and at other prisons as well as here was because we were celebrating Asalha Puja or as it’s sometimes known now, Dhamma Day. This is the anniversary of the Buddha’s First Sermon. The actual day was Monday, July 22nd with the Entry to the Vassa the following day but our celebration at The Forest Hermitage was on Sunday, July 21st and a very lovely day it was too.

And now for the very, merry month of May and to carry on from where I left off last month, I was out of action for a week or two, nothing serious, just some bug or other but it meant that despite at the last minute saying I would go to receive that honorary doctorate from Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University, at the very last minute I cancelled – a bit disappointing but never mind – and now I’ll have to wait until I go in January to receive it.

But not going to Thailand did enable me to fulfil another important and long standing engagement. Off and on, for years it seems, and encouraged by a former pupil, there has been the occasional contact between me and Wellington College with a view to my talking to their students and perhaps providing some Buddhist chaplaincy support. At last I had a date to speak there in chapel, it was agreed long before I knew about receiving the honorary doctorate and it was the same weekend. Had I gone to Thailand Ajahn Manapo would have stood in for me – and might well have done better than me – but not going meant I could do it. So I was there to give a ten minute address in chapel on Sunday evening, the 12th May and the following Thursday I was back, again in their magnificent chapel, to give a longer talk followed by questions, which was very stimulating and enjoyable. In case you don’t know, Wellington College is a large, well-endowed public school in Berkshire that used to be I believe for the sons of military officers but is now a modern co-ed establishment with a branch in China. It’s not far from Broadmoor, where I’m the Buddhist chaplain, and was founded by Queen Victoria at around the same time as Broadmoor in the mid nineteenth century and named after the great Duke of Wellington.

The Sangha presence here has been boosted for a while with the welcome arrival of Tahn Nyanavisuddhi who has come over from Amaravati to stay for a couple of months. When I was there at the end of last year for the memorial for John Coleman and at that time on my own here, he very kindly offered to come and help me out and even though Ajahn Manapo unexpectedly came back in February he still came but it is only until just before Vassa which he has to spend at Amaravati.

Usually in May falls the full moon of the ancient lunar month of Vesakha when we remember the Birth, Enlightenment and Final Passing of the Buddha. The Pali scriptures record that each of these events occurred on a Vesakha Full Moon with the Enlightenment, according to traditional dating having taken place 2,551 years ago when he was thirty-five. This year the Vesakha Full Moon was on May 24th and on several days before and after I was involved with Vesak celebrations in the prisons, at Chithurst and at The Forest Hermitage. I hadn’t been to Chithurst since June 1999 but this year I was invited to go for their Vesakha Puja day and give the Dhamma Desana, which I did. That was on May 19th and the week after it was our turn and a very good day we had too with an impressive turnout of students from Warwick Uni, friends old and new and particularly, as every Vesak, our old friends who for years have run the Liverpool Buddhist Society. More pictures are here.

Otherwise, everything carries on as normal.

And now for the very, merry month of May and to carry on from where I left off last month, I was out of action for a week or two, nothing serious, just some bug or other but it meant that despite at the last minute saying I would go to receive that honorary doctorate from Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University, at the very last minute I cancelled – a bit disappointing but never mind – and now I’ll have to wait until I go in January to receive it.

But not going to Thailand did enable me to fulfil another important and long standing engagement. Off and on, for years it seems, and encouraged by a former pupil, there has been the occasional contact between me and Wellington College with a view to my talking to their students and perhaps providing some Buddhist chaplaincy support. At last I had a date to speak there in chapel, it was agreed long before I knew about receiving the honorary doctorate and it was the same weekend. Had I gone to Thailand Ajahn Manapo would have stood in for me – and might well have done better than me – but not going meant I could do it. So I was there to give a ten minute address in chapel on Sunday evening, the 12th May and the following Thursday I was back, again in their magnificent chapel, to give a longer talk followed by questions, which was very stimulating and enjoyable. In case you don’t know, Wellington College is a large, well-endowed public school in Berkshire that used to be I believe for the sons of military officers but is now a modern co-ed establishment with a branch in China. It’s not far from Broadmoor, where I’m the Buddhist chaplain, and was founded by Queen Victoria at around the same time as Broadmoor in the mid nineteenth century and named after the great Duke of Wellington.

The Sangha presence here has been boosted for a while with the welcome arrival of Tahn Nyanavisuddhi who has come over from Amaravati to stay for a couple of months. When I was there at the end of last year for the memorial for John Coleman and at that time on my own here, he very kindly offered to come and help me out and even though Ajahn Manapo unexpectedly came back in February he still came but it is only until just before Vassa which he has to spend at Amaravati.

Usually in May falls the full moon of the ancient lunar month of Vesakha when we remember the Birth, Enlightenment and Final Passing of the Buddha. The Pali scriptures record that each of these events occurred on a Vesakha Full Moon with the Enlightenment, according to traditional dating having taken place 2,551 years ago when he was thirty-five. This year the Vesakha Full Moon was on May 24th and on several days before and after I was involved with Vesak celebrations in the prisons, at Chithurst and at The Forest Hermitage. I hadn’t been to Chithurst since June 1999 but this year I was invited to go for their Vesakha Puja day and give the Dhamma Desana, which I did. That was on May 19th and the week after it was our turn and a very good day we had too with an impressive turnout of students from Warwick Uni, friends old and new and particularly, as every Vesak, our old friends who for years have run the Liverpool Buddhist Society. More pictures are here.

Otherwise, everything carries on as normal.

Even seven hundred years ago such was the fame of April for its showers that Chaucer opened his Canterbury Tales with the memorable line, one of the few that I remember from my school days, ‘Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote.’ But this year there have been few sweet showers and the unseasonably cold weather has persisted so that at The Forest Hermitage, at the very end of the month, there’s hardly any blossom, the hedges are still not green and there’s been no sound of the cuckoo yet.

One of my main concerns at the end of last month and the beginning of this was with one of my tortoises. One day I discovered Speedy, the smaller and younger of the two, with something terribly wrong with his eye. It looked like something had given him real bash, it was swollen and bloody, so off he went to the vet. After a week or so of daily drops there was no improvement so then he had to have a minor operation for which he had to be anaesthetised. Still for a while there was no improvement but then all of a sudden his eye opened and he got better. I’m so pleased. He’s been with me nearly nineteen years and I love him dearly. Charlie, the other one who’s much bigger and older has been with me just twelve years and of course I love him too. Tortoises fascinate me and I do enjoy watching them. A recent improvement here has been to what I call the Tortoise Park where these two live. We’ve enlarged and improved the surround and reseeded it with grass and suitable weeds for them to graze and I’m ever so pleased with it.

April of course is when Songkran, the Thai and also the Burmese, Sri Lankan, Cambodian and Lao New Year falls. So we celebrated. First was at Khun Peter’s restaurant near Baker Street, when Ajahn Manapo accompanied me for my regular first Sunday of the month appearance there, this time to celebrate Songkran and to remember Khun Peter’s mother who had recently passed away. Next, the following Saturday, April 13th, we were at Khun Yod’s restaurant, YodSiam, in Nottingham. We do this every year but this year without Khun Yod who’s gone back to live in Thailand. We managed however and had a good time. As soon as we got back that afternoon it was all hands to setting up here for the following day. It was still cold but on the Sunday we did have some sun and a shower or two. The weather wasn’t good enough for the fairly liberal bathing of each other that usually characterises Songkran but we had an impressive turn out and another very good day. I was especially pleased that M.R. Adisorndej Sukhasvasti, the Minister from The Royal Thai Embassy was able to be with us.

The next thing I had to do that was a bit out of the ordinary was make an unexpected visit to Maidstone Prison to take a Memorial Service for a Buddhist prisoner who had recently died. On the way back I must say there were moments when I wondered whether the memorial for me might not be too far off. I knew the night before that I didn’t feel right and before we set off for Maidstone I reckoned I had some sort of flu–like thing hanging about me but I was all right on the way down and while I was there. The journey back was something else and I was jolly glad to get in and curl up in my kuti. And I’ve been poorly ever since, which is making it unlikely that I’ll be going to Thailand in May to receive an Honorary Doctorate from Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University. But we’ll see.

This March is going to be remembered for being very cold. We’ve had snow and night after night of freezing weather. It’s Easter and the snowdrops are still out and there are no daffodils. Summer time begins tonight but there’s been practically no sign of Spring yet.

Despite the cold we’ve carried on as normal with prison visits and some school visits and everything else we do here. The new sewage treatment plant is finally in and working and the ground around it has been roughly sculpted. It just needs a dressing of top soil now and some grass seed to ready it for the warmer weather that we still hope for.

On March 13th I went to Wat Santiwongsaram in Birmingham witn Ajahn Manapo to attend the latest meeting of the Theravada Buddhist Sangha in the UK (TBSUK). There was a good attendance from the Thais and from English that as well as Manapo and I also included Ajahn Amaro from Amaravati and Venerable Bodhidhamma of Satipanya Retreat. But there were no Burmese monks and only Ven. Seelawimala for the Sri Lankans. As usual our agenda included a discussion about the problems with Immigration and I reported that Lord Avebury had got a meeting for him and I with the Immigration Minister, Mark Harper, that so far had had to be postponed twice but would now take place a week the following Tuesday. Then we moved on to discuss the imprisonment of the Head Monk of Thames Vihara who has been convicted of sexually abusing a child and been sentenced to seven years in gaol. I argued vigorously for us not only to do something about this but be seen to be doing something. Of course we have no power to disrobe him or anything much except to declare him persona non grata and make abundantly clear that what he has done is despicable, utterly unacceptable and as well as illegal, a very serious offence in Vinaya. Thinking about what to do has led me to consider upgrading the status of TBSUK to something like that of a professional body that all Theravada temples and all Theravada monks should be registered with. In the meeting there was a certain amount of opposition to making a strong statement public because of a suggestion that he might appeal and win his appeal. While that could in theory happen, the rude and inescapable fact is that he has been tried in a British court of law and found guilty. Well, we did eventually agree to begin the process of upgrading TBSUK and we did agree that the short statement that I included in my blog last year could be used in temple newsletters and the like. Unfortunately we don’t yet have a national Buddhist newspaper or even blog so how far this will go I don’t know. The statement I wrote last year, by the way, was this: While we don’t want to jeopardize his appeal, nevertheless the Head Monk of the Thames Vihara has been found guilty of molesting a child and is in prison and we cannot ignore it. Whatever the rights and wrongs of this particular case we felt it important that we reassure our lay followers and supporters that behaviour of the kind of which he has been accused and convicted is totally unacceptable to us and as well as being against the law is a very serious breach of monastic discipline (Vinaya) from which neither age, seniority nor alleged attainment can absolve any bhikkhu.

On Tuesday, March 26th, with Luke driving, I went to London accompanied by our Thai nun here, Sister Khema, for the meeting with Mark Harper, the Immigration Minister. We were met at the Peer’s Entrance of the House of Lords by Lord Avebury and had time for a chat with him before proceeding through a maze of corridors to emerge eventually in Westminster Hall. Then down on the left, just past where the new stained glass window that was presented to the Queen last year is displayed, Lord Avebury led us through another door into a corridor of meeting rooms where Mark Harper was waiting for us flanked by three civil servants. It turned out to be a surprisingly useful meeting and when it was over and we went for a cup of tea we felt pretty pleased with our afternoon’s work. We didn’t get all we wanted but we got some and I’ll be reporting on this later after an exchange of correspondence. Afterwards Sister and I called at the Thai Embassy to brief the Minister, M.R. Adisorndej Sukhasvasti, and let him know how our meeting had gone.

Two days later I was in London again. This time it was prison stuff and I was attending a little conference about the National Prison Radio, a radio station run by prisoners for prisoners. It was a good afternoon with some interesting and entertaining presentations, notably an interview with Jonathon Aitken. He was very amusing and admitted that his imprisonment had been a great learning experience, so much so that when he got out and had to fill in his Whose Who form, for Education he put Eton, Oxford and HMP Belmarsh! The conference was held in the most amazing place, the home of The Magic Circle. That’s an association of professional and amateur magicians founded in 1908 and now with about 1500 members that includes many famous names including the Prince of Wales. Its HQ is down a grubby side street just off the Euston Road. It looks like an old warehouse, until you step through the door when you suddenly find yourself transported into a world of magic and illusion. There’s a pretty little theatre and a fascinating museum. I don’t know which I enjoyed more, the conference or the place.

The big event in February was Magha Puja which we celebrated on Sunday, the 24th. It was an impressive turnout that included a lot of Thai students from Warwick Uni and we were especially honoured by the presence of the Thai Ambassador with his wife and son. It was also a special occasion because just a few days before Ajahn Manapo had returned from sixteen months in Thailand and so it was a day too to warmly welcome him back.

The photo includes the Ambassador and his wife with Ajahn Manapo in the background.

In January I had almost three weeks away, when I went first to Cambodia with Ajahn Manapo, Joob, Palm and Ant for a quick tour of Angkor Wat.

Then we crossed back into the NE of Thailand in time for the Ajahn Chah Memorial day at Wat Nong Pah Pong and a few days at Wat Pah Nanachat.

Then it was down to Bangkok to give a talk at Sevanakarn building in Wat Patumkongka where I also met my old friend Sathienpong Wannapok as well as Matthew Richards and his wife Pen.

And that was followed by a few days looking at the sea,

before returning to Bangkok to give another talk and pay my respects to Somdet at Wat Sraket and then dashing to Ajahn Jundee’s impressive wat for Patimokkha just hours before getting the plane back to chilly London.

At Amaravati’s Royal Kathina.

A Kathina is the ceremony that may take place where suitable conditions are in place during the month that follows the Vassa and involves the presentation of robe cloth or a robe to the Sangha that then offers the robe sewn from the cloth or the robe to one deserving monk. A Royal Kathina is when the robe is offered by a monarch. This year in England a Royal Kathina was offered by His Majesty the King of Thailand in Devon on Sunday, November 18th and another a week later at Amaravati. During each ceremony a blessing is recited for the King and that is supposed to be done by a monk with the rank and title of a Chao Khun, which is why I was invited to both occasions. I had never before been to Hartridge Monastery, often referred to as the Devon Vihara, and so after the ceremony which was held in a local village hall I was pleased to spend an enjoyable hour there as well. Both occasions were well attended and raised impressive amounts of money, at Hartridge for the extension they are planning to build there, and at Amaravati to help meet the huge expense of running such a large and popular temple. I was well received at both and thoroughly enjoyed both occasions, and I was pleased to be of some service.

At the Devon Royal Kathina.