The View from Adhisthana

This week I am down at Adhisthana in Herefordshire. The gardens are looking fantastic, the sun is shining (24 degrees yesterday - just saying!) and it almost feels like a holiday.  Almost! With 6 other Order Members, I am exploring themes from a talk that Bhante Sangharakshita gave in 1984: Buddhism, World Peace and Nuclear War. I was at the talk when he gave it and I was bowled over by it. The themes are still as relevant today as they were 40 years ago, perhaps even more so. 

It is sobering but very helpful to explore themes together like our concerns for the environment, our horror over war situations in the world, animal cruelty involved in the production of meat and in the dairy industry. In another talk given in the early 70s Bhante outlined 4 things we can do to help us deal with current world issues (evolution or extinction: a buddhist view of current world issues): find a method of personal development; find or join a community of people who share your values; withdraw your support from all anti-spiritual forces, all forces or groups that weaken the ideal of individuality and fourthly, exert whatever influence for good i.e. influence in the direction of Individuality that you can in those groups of which, unavoidably, you happen to be a member.

These four things are very important to me - in fact I led an online bilingual retreat on these themes. I think, as an individual and as a community, there is much to offer in these. I hope that these can be present in our community and in our new centre in Woodside Crescent.

On the theme of Woodside, things continue to move along with necessary works being done and planning applications sent in to appropriate departments.  Of course the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly so it is hard to know for definite when we might inhabit our new centre.  Meanwhile Moksadhi with Sarah are offering opportunities to come and participate in the vision of the new place:

We are offering two workshops which will be run by Sarah and Moksadhi from the Design Kula. The first of these workshops will be to gather ideas about how we use the space, how it might look and feel. We'll use the eight qualities named in the 2022 vision statement as a basis for this exploration:

"Generosity, inclusion, accessibility, sustainability, collaboration, visibility, simplicity and beauty are all values we wish to express in our next steps for the Glasgow Buddhist Centre"

The second workshop will run a month later where we'll present a proposal based on the information gathered at the first workshop for you to feedback on. The GBC council will then make the final decision on the design and use of the space. From there, the design and accessibility kulas will work with the aesthetics kula to implement the design. We'll be calling on volunteers for help along the way.

More information and dates are on the What's On page. I was very inspired by those values when the original vision statement was composed - after a consultation period beautifully designed and held by Kuladharini and Pasadini. I continue to be inspired by them and dearly wish that we can bring them into being. Here at Adhisthana as we look at the issues facing our world they seem more than ever necessary.