Centres across the world
- Parami
- Oct 21
- 4 min read
Dear friends
I’m still in Mexico, it’s my last full day. Tomorrow I head to the airport in the afternoon and, all being well, I’ll be home Wednesday evening. I’m looking forward to being home and sleeping in my own bed for a bit before heading to the college meeting at Adhisthana. Having said that, I have really enjoyed my time here. More at the bottom of this post for those who’d like a sense of what I have been up to.
First, though, some reflections on Buddhist centres. It’s always fascinating to me to be visiting other Triratna centres around the world. I’ve been lucky enough to visit many in many countries over the years. While there are often cultural differences in, perhaps, the length of classes, is there a tea break etc, fundamentally they are generally recognisable as Triratna centres. We chant the same Tiratnavandana, the same precepts, we do the same pujas (obviously in the local language) and have much the same Pathways of involvement for anyone who wants to take their practice and understanding of the Dharma deeper.
Here in Mexico I have been giving talks and participating in events in two of the centres: the big, original centre in La Roma district of Mexico City and the smaller but thriving centre in Cuernavaca. I wrote about the Cuernavaca centre in my last blog. La Roma is much bigger and there is a very large team running it. I think there are around 40 people on the extended team. There are three shrine rooms - one really large, one pretty large and a small one. They are multi purpose rooms as they are used for study and for yoga and tai chi as well as meditation and ritual. There is an amazingly busy schedule with people waiting for a class to end before they come into the next one. There are over 20 million inhabitants in Mexico City so the numbers are understandable but a bit overwhelming for me. I enjoy giving a talk to big numbers and I love meditating and doing puja in large numbers but I would find the sheer volume of people passing through every day hard to handle. Having said that, I am incredibly impressed by how smoothly it all happens and how positive an atmosphere there is.
Like Cuernavaca, La Roma is beautifully designed and the aesthetics are fabulous. As I said last time, I fully acknowledge my own lack of ability in this area and am just glad that we will have a kula looking at that aspect of Woodside Crescent. I can appreciate the finished product but definitely don’t have the imagination to create beauty. I hope that the aesthetics kula will soon be able to swing into action but, of course, till all the permits are granted and the structural changes are clarified, I guess they are in the waiting room... Let’s hope they are not waiting too long!
Folk here keep asking if we have opened the new centre yet. I explain the waiting game. It’s frustrating but it will definitely be worth the wait. It is going to be SO GOOD to be in our place again. And it is going to be GORGEOUS. I have no doubt about that.
The other day I was preparing a talk on the bodhisattva ideal for a mitra class here. I was given the title of From Aspiration to Action: the Bodhisattva Life (de la aspiración a la acción: la vida del Bodhisattva). While I was reading round the theme I found a great passage in Bhante’s Bodhisattva Ideal. I thought it would be good to share at this point in our transition to Woodside Crescent
“It’s all about vision. If one is to be inspired to build a Buddhist centre, to take that example, one will need to be given a vision of what one is creating. If one has a picture in one’s mind of beautiful Buddha images, spacious, peaceful rooms, and a wonderful community of people, even if what one is doing is plastering a ceiling or knocking down a wall, one will be inspired to do it. If someone just came along and said, ‘Knock down that wall,’ that would feel entirely different. If one is doing what one is doing for the sake of a positive goal, one can work much more happily. Indeed, it becomes pleasure all the way.”
How inspiring is that? I think it’s so important that we have that in mind when we finally start on the work in Woodside Crescent so it doesn’t just become a task but becomes a beautiful creation.
I said I would share some of what I have been doing over the last few weeks here in Mexico. I think the easiest is to share the link to the app I have been using to record the trip. It’s called Polar Steps and is available for Apple and for Android platforms. There are photos and a few blog like posts.
Follow me and my travels on Polarsteps
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