Being a spiritual seeker eventually led me to Engaged Buddhism. Here is the story of that journey in four parts.
My early spiritual experiences were of awe inspiring events. The first arose from being lost in a cave for a long time, accidentally stumbling out and seeing the sky and the birds as if for the first time. This was a sublime moment of significance beyond signification. I had similar kinds of experience by witnessing the uncontainable beauty of evening light in Wadi in the middle of the Sinai desert, and what appeared to be a paradox of silence; harmonic tones in the stillness of the desert. I have deeply appreciated such experiences and are clues of how ‘we are the way for the cosmos to know itself’ (Carl Sagan).
The dawning realisation that my force of will (ego) is quite distinct from my spiritual power
Much of my life has been dominated by what I wanted, what I believed I had been entitled to through sheer effort and work: more qualifications, more grants and publications. My life as an academic was a self-made project of continual achievement.
This achieving part of me has been insatiable and has had to be balanced by a more spiritual part that is able to connect to the present moment.
I first recognised this as a spiritual healer.
The most profound healing I have ever had was in the bush in middle of Brazil by a well-known trans-medium. Shortly after the healing, I became hugely spacious and part of the everything around me. In that moment I had transcended the boundaries of my physical body – I hadn’t lost my self awareness but felt integrated and spaciously one with everything around me. It was a blissfully peaceful non-dual state that for a while vanquished any shadow of a doubt presence beyond an ego sate.
Finding my spiritual home
If in Brazil, I’d accidentally felt this awesome interconnectedness by receiving a healing, in Plum Village, I discovered how inter-being could be realised through mindful walking mediation.
Walking meditation in the beautiful grounds of Plum Village I understood what it was like to be organism: a cell in the sangha body, which, in turn, is a cell the Buddha body. I dropped superiority, inferiority and equality complexes for a short while and in 2014 on a summer retreat led by Thich Nhat Hanh I arrived and found my true home.
The Order of Inter-Being and the Bodhisattva vow.
Iris Murdoch once said that ‘love is the difficult realisation that someone other than you is real.’ I have a deeper understanding of what she meant since becoming a Bodhisattva. This involves taking the bodhisattva vow and becoming someone who is not just concerned for the alleviation of their own suffering, but is there for the suffering of others because love for the other is as real as the love for yourself.
In 2022, I ordained in the order of Inter being (the OI). The OI has its roots in the social and political activism of the Vietnam war and was founded in 1966 by Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh. The OI is part of the fourfold sangha Plum Village Sangha – Monastics (male and female), retreatants who commit to the five mindfulness trainings (resonant to the five precepts in most Mahayana Buddhist traditions), and lay members who desire to explore and commit to Buddhism more deeply. The OI are lay members who make this extra commitment by committing their lives in accord to the fourteen mindfulness trainings – an extended version of the five mindfulness trainings which is best described as a global spiritual ethic and a platform for engaged Buddhism.
An altruistic aspiration to help all beings began quite early before I got interested in Buddhism. It started with me joining Simon Community in London in the late 80’s/early 90’s, where the homeless and carers shared lived space in an effort to create genuine inclusion. It also influenced my work as an energy healer at the Sanctuary of Healing near Langho between 2007-14. Later that morphed in work with non-humans, most notably as a natural ambassador volunteer with Morecambe Bay Partnership. Natural ambassadors are amateur conservationists who were tasked to use non-violent communication strategies to change people’s perceptions to wading bird disturbances in Morecambe bay. Much more recently it influenced setting up a mindful walking/sharing project during COVID, alongside people with addiction issues.
The bodhisattva vow came after my development of bodhicitta (an altruistic aspiration to help other beings), and still influences my present activism as a cat fosterer and a Buddhist Prison Chaplain.