Last Wednesday I had to attend a meeting of the Prison Service’s Chaplaincy Council and Regional Chaplains at a very nice Christian conference and retreat centre called St Katherine’s near the famous dock of the same name in the East End of London. Being not far from the Isle of Dogs, afterwards it took only a few minutes to nip through the tunnel and arrive at the big electronically operated gates that bar the entrance to a huge block of well appointed flats on the north bank of the river just along from Canary Wharf and close to where Brunel’s SS Great Western was built. Never having worked out how to operate these gates I did as I always do and slipped through behind someone who did and then made my way up to the seventh floor where my old friend and mentor from far-off student days was waiting to greet me.

Christopher Fettes was one of an extraordinary group of teachers who I found myself being taught and inspired by when at the tender age of seventeen I entered the Central School of Speech and Drama at Swiss Cottage to train as an actor. The head of my course was John Blatchley and when he had been forming his team and sought to recruit the maverick Stanislavsky teacher Harold Lang, Harold had made his acceptance conditional on Yat Malmgren being included, and with Yat came Christopher Fettes. Central at that time ran various courses and the whole place was presided over by a tall, elderly, ram-rod straight woman called Gwyneth Thurburn, who eventually, jealous of our devotion to Yat, dismissed him. John, Harold and Christopher then all resigned. By that time I was just ending my second year. When we heard the news we were devastated and resolved to try and persuade John, Yat, Harold and Christopher to somehow give us our final year. They agreed and less than three months later Drama Centre, London opened its doors in the halls of an old Methodist church at Chalk Farm.

Yat was unquestionably a great artist and a wonderful teacher and it was he and his work on the psychology of movement that made that place special. He died in 2002 at the age of 86 and there is very little on record, especially on the web, about him and his work. Fortunately Christopher has recently completed a book on Yat’s work and has agreed to my putting something on the web, so I hope this brief account and these photographs of Yat that Christopher gave me on Wednesday will be the beginning of a more complete and suitable tribute to a very remarkable man to whom I shall forever be indebted. These photos are of Yat towards the end of his life and as a young man.

I had better add that Yat’s work and example profoundly influenced me in the direction that I follow today. I remember in the flat at 1, Belsize Avenue forty-five years ago finding and looking at a book on Buddhism. Then in a letter that he wrote to me shortly after Yat’s death, Christopher said, “As I’m sure you recollect, Buddhism had affected him (Yat) profoundly at various stages in his career; never more so than towards the close of his life, when he had lost the school and with it an active career as a teacher. … Our school was about craftsmanship and its relation to art on the one hand, to life on the other; about the possible meaning and purpose of art itself. All that, it may well be said, has little or nothing to do with the world of ‘show business’. But practically everyone in the crematorium that afternoon was to some degree exercised by such ultimate questions. That they owe to Yat, who was one of those rare beings who clearly exemplify what they teach. You could put out your hand and touch goodness and integrity.”

On Sunday, September 13th, we held our annual celebration at the Buddha Grove in Spring Hill Prison. This was the first and by far the finest and most ambitious of the various Buddha groves and gardens that have been created in a number of English prisons. Some unfortunately have not lasted very long and have been dismantled or damaged but this at Spring Hill was built to last and has been in place since 1992, when on a bitterly cold night at the end of October, a large gathering that included the then Director General of the Prison Service assembled for its opening and dedication. Having sampled the soup that the prisoners made to warm everyone up, the Thai people that evening asked if in future they might be allowed to do the food and so ever since our celebration has included a marvellous Thai vegetarian meal for all the prisoners and guests as well as the Buddhist prisoners in the adjacent Grendon Prison. This year our Thai friends and supporters cooked for four hundred.

On Sunday, just as he was seventeen years ago when we opened the Buddha Grove, our Patron of Angulimala, Lord Avebury, was there to grace the occasion with his inspiring example of selfless service and dedication to the relief of those who are oppressed and in trouble and as usual offered us some wise words to reflect upon.

We were fortunate too to have the support and presence of monks from the Thai Buddhapadipa Temple in Wimbledon, the Oxford Vihara, the Kings Bromley Temple, Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey and of course the Forest Hermitage. And we were delighted that Professor Richard Gombrich was also able to be with us.

In in my speech I once again told how the Buddha Grove came to be built. Then as I try never to miss an opportunity to tell the story of Angulimala, after whom our Buddhist Prison Chaplaincy is named, I related how this awful mass murderer was tamed and converted by the Buddha, not by violence but by persuasion and especially by example. This amazing story reminds us that whatever terrible things someone might do or have done, it is not only that that they do and that that they’re capable of. People can and do and will change and everyone bears within them the seeds of an Enlightened being.

It was a marvellous occasion and I am so grateful to Peter Bennett, the Governor, to the prison staff, to the inmates, to everyone who worked so hard and who went to so much trouble and especially to Khun Yod and all the Thais who gave of their time and expertise and who worked so generously all afternoon in that kitchen. Anumodana!

We’ve just had a busy Angulimala weekend with the latest quarterly workshop for members of Angulimala’s team of Buddhist prison chaplains on Saturday and the annual celebration at the Buddha grove in Spring Hill Prison on Sunday.

At the workshop we had a short and successful AGM in the morning and then in the afternoon Martin Stephens from NOMS Interventions and Substance Misuse Group spoke to us about the courses that many prisoners have to complete. A very lively and useful exchange followed and our chaplains were able to express their concerns and criticisms of some of these programmes that do not sit well with Buddhist principles and practice.

A fortnight ago we had an early meal and then Tahn Manapo and I were driven down to London, to Richmond to be precise, where in an hotel on Richmond Hill we conducted the naming ceremony for little Thea-Marie, the late John Garrie’s great granddaughter. Then following the naming, Tamsen, John’s granddaughter, was invited to be the little girl’s parent-guide.

In the picture, standing to the right of Tahn Manapo, is Graham, John’s grandson and the father of the child; then, sitting on the floor, is Graham’s mother and John’s daughter, Gail; then next but one is Tamsen, Gail’s daughter and John’s granddaughter; finally, seated with her back to the camera is Calleigh-Marie, Thea’s mother.

John Garrie had been amongst the first Buddhists I ever met when sometime towards the end of 1966 I stumbled into the Hampstead Buddhist Vihara on Haverstock Hill. As I was then, he was also an actor but older than me and already well established in his Buddhist practice. At that time I didn’t get to know him terribly well but when in 1977 after almost six years in Thailand I returned to London and to the Hampstead Vihara with Ajahn Chah, who should appear on the doorstep but John. By then he had begun to establish himself as a Dhamma and meditation teacher in his own right and with a growing body of students had established the Sati Society. He rapidly hit it off well with Ajahn Chah and soon we were seeing quite a lot of him. Later on, after Ajahn Chah had returned to Thailand, he invited me for a few days to his Summer Session at a decaying private school that he had hired for the purpose in Sussex and even later on when I had moved to the Isle of Wight he came and stayed a few days with me there. John had been an admirer of Ananda Bodhi and so when the Burmese monk who had ordained Ananda Bodhi in Rangoon came here to build the pagoda in our garden John and his students came over to lend a hand. Particularly now, at this time I think of him because tomorrow is our annual celebration at the Springhill Buddha Grove and it was after such an occasion in 1998 that I saw him last, in hospital and just two days before he died. I liked John immensely and got on well with him and so I was so delighted to be asked to conduct this ceremony and to meet his great granddaughter, her mother and John’s grandson, his granddaughter and to see again his daughter, Gail.

Yesterday, Saturday, we had the honour of a visit from the Buddhist Television Network from South Korea. They have been visiting various Buddhist places, first on the Continent and now in England, filming for a documentary on the development of Buddhism in Europe.

The Buddhist Television Newtwork (BTN) was established in Seoul in 1994 and began nationwide broadcasting in South Korea in 1995. In 2005 they began broadcasting in the US as well as extending their broadcasting hours to a full day in Korea. In 2006 they expanded their US broadcasting to a full day and this year began Internet broadcasting.

They were with us for about four and a half hours and in that time, after some lunch, they filmed an interview with me, then filmed various parts of the Forest Hermitage, before going across to Bhavana Dhamma to film a day retreat that was in progress over there. It was quite a small team of three, the producer, a cameraman, and a very competent young woman called Emi, who was the Director of the Production Team and also the interpreter for the other two.

I can’t now remember all the questions that they put to me in the interview but I do remember that it began with them asking how I had become interested in Buddhism and how and why I became a monk. Then they had observed that Buddhism in Europe, unlike in the East, was largely lay led and they asked me what I thought about that, which led me to express my concerns and reasons for founding TBSUK. They asked me a bit about what I teach and I told them that as well as meditation I encourage the observance of the Five Precepts.  And I told them how sorry I am that amongst some Buddhists I’ve become almost notorious for advocating abstinence from alcohol and drugs as a proper interpretation of the fifth, especially when we have a world-wide drugs and alcohol problem causing untold harm and misery to millions and costing an unimaginable fortune that could be solved at a stroke by proper observance of the fifth precept. All right, not everyone is going to do it but at least the Buddhists could.

The sun shone and when we went over to Bhavana Dhamma the garden there was so beautiful with earnest meditators silently padding up and down their meditation paths.

It was a lovely afternoon and I was so pleased to be able to welcome the Korean Buddhist Television Network to The Forest Hermitage.

The Theravada Buddhist Sangha in the UK (TBSUK) is committed to two meetings a year, one in March and the second in August and both this year have been in Birmingham. The March meeting was at the Burmese Birmingham Buddhist Vihara and this week, on Wednesday, August 12th, our second meeting of the year was at the Sri Lankan Maha Vihara.

Representing eleven temples there were present Thai, Sri Lankan, Burmese and British monks, sixteen in all with one Nepalese.

We were given a very warm welcome by the head of the Maha Vihara, Venerable Kassapa and once the formalities were over we had a good discussion that ranged over a number of matters. One of course that comes up at every meeting is the new Points Based Immigration System (PBS). Some temples reported long delays in the processing of their applications to be Registered Sponsors and inevitably that has meant complications for some monks needing to renew their visas. There was also still confusion about some of the details of the system and concern that the Government still intends to have an English language requirement for Tier 5.

The next meeting will be at the Burmese Temple in Wembley at 3 pm on March 10th, 2010.

On Wednesday Maureen started her car without realising it was still in reverse, in a flash it sprang backwards and connected rather violently with a substantial railing. Luckily no one was injured but the car is a write-off. Never mind, another lesson in impermanence and suffering.

Below is the damaged railing and another car in the lay-by where Maureen’s was just before it sprang backwards and rearranged both the railing and the back of the car.

All those years ago at Drama Centre I remember the basic rule was Respect for the Work. And that included respect for and care of the workplace. I can’t be sure now but I think it was Stanislavsky, the great Russian director, who talked about the discipline of sweeping the stage before you began rehearsal.

That dictum, to sweep the stage, came back to me the other day in a prison as I waited in a dirty room for my group to arrive. There’d been no time for the chapel orderly to clean up for us so remembering ‘to sweep the stage’ I looked around for the hoover. In the event the men came in before I’d done anything and so they got the job and with it a little practical instruction in respecting their workplace.

Then last week, on Wednesday, in the middle of the seven-day retreat he was teaching, Tahn Manapo had his weekly group as usual and asked me to fill in for him and sit with his retreatants at Bhavana Dhamma. So I dutifully plodded over there in the rain and did as I was asked. Needing to get myself ready for the wet return journey I asked the retreatants to leave the Shrine Room building before me and then it was that I observed some of them just getting up and leaving their cushions and stools where they’d sat. Well I’ve seen meditation and shrine rooms before resembling abandoned campsites where meditators have gone for their breaks and stood up and left, letting the blankets they’d draped themselves with fall from their shoulders and leaving their stools, their cushions and everything else just where they were and I don’t approve. That is not how you respect your meditation work and the place where you do it. So I had those cushions and stools collected up and put away.

Here too it’s ‘Respect for the Work’, and the workplace.

A few weeks ago we had too much rubbish for our wheely bins and had to put out some in an old fashioned dustbin. When the bloke who collects the rubbish arrived to empty them Maureen just happened to be there and hear the polite refusal to even touch our dustbin. Apparently it was more than the chap’s job was worth because if an agent in an unmarked car snapped him laying a finger on our old dustbin he would be sacked. So when he’d emptied the wheely bins this strapping fellow stood there and watched while seventy-nine year old Maureen emptied the dustbin into a wheely bin which he could then empty into his dustcart or whatever you call it now!

All conditioned things are impermanent, including pretty little Jack Russells. Last Wednesday in the middle of a busy week – I was in and out of six prisons in five days and attended a Burmese memorial in London on Saturday – my little Tommy Trouble died. It was just six and a half weeks since he had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure and eleven years and four months since he had come into my life on March 17th, 1998. He was a frightened little chap then and not at all used to people. The slightest thing would alarm him. I couldn’t even raise my voice to call him, if I did he would run away. I’d got him because Oscar, my big Doberman was so upset at the loss of Toby, the first dog I had here, and I couldn’t bear to see Oscar so depressed. But Tommy was clearly in Oscar’s eyes no replacement for the friend he’d worshipped. Poor Tommy, he was such a pretty little fellow but clearly had had not the best of beginnings. He soon got the measure of me and later had no fear of me whatsoever and whether it suited me or not would do as he pleased. He so much wanted to be accepted and loved and yet he could be so difficult. He had various nicknames, Tommy Trouble was one and another was Ajahn Tommy because he could be such a teacher of patience. As Oscar aged and shortly before he died I acquired Ben and then Ben and Tommy would play together. It often seemed that Tommy would egg Ben on to pull something down that was well out of his reach and then the pair of them could rip it up. I would come back to find all kinds of mayhem but the worst was when Ben had taken the discarded and full hoover bag out of the flip-top bin and they had had a whale of a time trashing it! He gave me some frights too. Once, late at night, I was walking him and Oscar in the long grass by the river and Tommy was having to keep up by sort of bunny-hopping through the grass. The trouble was he couldn’t see where he was going and all of a sudden with a loud plop he landed in the river at the bottom of a steep bank. Fortunately I was just able to reach him with my stick and hook him up the bank to where I could grab him. I’ve often wondered how I would have felt if he’d been swept away and I’d had to come back without him. He was a very independent little chap and life without him is already quite different. In the lead up to his passing he obviously wasn’t well but for the most part he didn’t seem too uncomfortable and I’m glad to say he didn’t appear to suffer overmuch.

So thanks Tommy and have a good rebirth.

This was the last picture I took of him, lying in the sun the morning of the day he died.