[Buddha-l] Jinapanjaram

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Op 16-05-10 16:19, Joy Vriens schreef:
> The way the most important Buddhist centres have developed in France
> was mainly through buying property, building a temple, stupas, housing
> etc. Many of those centres seem to have financial problems. I believe
> in small scale projects, where it's easier to feel concerned. That
> being said, at the same time I see that we have approximately twenty
> different Buddhist groups in Marseille, One Laotian/Cambodgian
> community, two Vietnamese communities. Many of the groups have their
> own place, with rent, plumbing and heating as you write, and their own
> circle of Buddhists. Among friends we made a plan to try and have one
> place for all Buddhists. A place where ceremonies could be held,
> teachings be given, where classes could be given in pali, sanskrit,
> tibetan, chinese, where sutta and sutra studies could be organised
> that would allow us to have access to different views on the same
> sutras. Meditation classes with access to different (?) forms of
> meditation. And for exchanges. If the project goes through it will
> only be possible because of the particularly open position of the
> monks leading the Laotian/Cambodgian and Vietnamese communities. Both
> have given their initial agreement for a confederation to start with.
> We have all the same teacher, the Buddha they say. What I see as one
> of the greatest advantages is that this bigger identity, simply
> "Buddhist" could help us/some of us to overcome a smaller  Buddhist
> identity/atta that only causes kilesa.
>
>    
I hope the project will succeed, that would be very refreshing. I 
started a general Buddhist centre in the 80-ies, and saw that it fell 
apart in different groups after a few years, even before I left. Some 
years ago a friend of mine was involved in buying shared real estate for 
all Buddhist groups in Rotterdam, but the project kept stuck on the 
meeting tabel. Encouraging examples of similar projects are the School 
of Life in London (with Alain de Botton) and the free university of 
Michel Onfray.
Begging for food is an Indian hobby. In most big cities nowadays it are 
junkeys who are begging and giving them alms is little more than 
financing their habit. I think the Chinese model is more convenient for 
our times. The problem is how to become selfsufficient and one method 
might be to give courses and treatments in stressmanagement and 
psychotherapy. This means that Buddhist centres must be more open to 
society in general, something the world fleeing tradtional sangha has 
allways avoided. Traditional sangha counts on status, social capital, 
for its income, now it's time to use cultural capital, special skills 
and expertise. There's an army of unqualified quacks around whole make a 
living from self invented meditations and therapy, so it must be possible.
I saw on the BBC a documentary about a vicar who tries to live without 
money, but it looks more like another attempt to get his name in the 
Guinness Book of Records than a serious reform, see 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/7687158/Rev-Peter-Owen-Jones-Taking-financial-advice-from-St-Francis-of-Assisi.html 
.

erik