Friends of the Western Buddhist Order

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Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO) is a Buddhist movement founded by Sangharakshita in 1967 in the UK. It was followed by the foundation of the Western Buddhist Order (WBO) in 1968.

The Friends of the Western Buddhist Order is one of the main Buddhist movements in the UK. There are around eighty FWBO public centres and retreat centres in over twenty countries. These centres teach Meditation, Buddhism, Yoga, and other forms of personal development.

In India the FWBO is known as Trailokya Bauddha Mahasangha Sahayaka Gana (TBMSG), in Spanish speaking countries as Los Amigos de la Orden Budista de Occidente (AOBO), and in France as Les Amis de l'Ordre Bouddhiste Occidental (AOBO).

The FWBO's approach to teaching Buddhism is based on a recognition that there is an underlying unity in the Buddhist traditions as a whole. It seeks to find ways of living a genunine Buddhist life regardless of lifestyle, and to do so in ways suitable to the conditions of contemporary society.

Contents

[edit] The Western Buddhist Order

The WBO is a network of individuals who have made personal commitments to practice the Dharma and who have been witnessed to effectively go for refuge to the Three Jewels. Despite the name, the WBO is based not only in the West but is now a worldwide Buddhist movement. Membership of the order is limited by one main criterion, the ability to Go for Refuge to the Three Jewels; that is the Buddha, Dharma, and the Sangha. According to Sangharakshita, it is the act of Going For Refuge that makes one a Buddhist. Order members are known as Dharmacharis (masculine) or Dharmacharinis (feminine) and they are ordained on an equal basis, taking the same precepts at ordination. There are no higher ordinations, while a small number of order members take vows of celibacy and adopt a simpler life style, this is not accorded a higher status.

Sangharakshita rejected the traditional Buddhist structure of separating lay and monastic members and founded a new type of combined order, which emphasised commitment to Buddhist practice. This innovation was rationalised by reference to Reginald Ray's Buddhist Saints in India, which suggests that organised monasticism was a later development and the divide between lay and monastic members was originally considered less important. Others, basing their opinions on the traditions found in the Dhammapada, consider a clear distinction between lay or monastic life to be necessary. Consequently, few traditional monastic organisations are prepared to grant members of the WBO equal status. Although there is no divide between the those who permanently reside in spiritual retreats and those who visit, there is a distinction between ordained members of the WBO and novices. Novices are referred to as mitras, which is often translated as "friends", they are part of FWBO, but are not members of the WBO.

Order members undertake to observe a set of ten precepts (ethical training rules). These are different from monastic vows, but the set is mentioned in the Pali Canon (e.g. MN 41:8-14). Beyond this, a commitment to personal Dharma practice and to remain in communication with other members to the best of one's ability are the only requirements. Ordination confers no special status, nor any specific responsibilities, although many order members do choose to take on responsibilities for such things as teaching meditation, and the Buddhadharma. There are now around 1400 members of the order, in over 20 countries in Europe, India, Africa, Australasia, and elsewhere in Asia.

Mitras are people who consider themselves Buddhists, who make an effort to live in accordance with the five ethical precepts, and who feel that the FWBO is the appropriate spiritual community for them, at least for the time being.

[edit] Distinctive emphases of the FWBO

According to the FWBO, there are six characteristics that define the movement.

  1. The movement is ecumenical. The FWBO is not identified with any particular strand of Buddhism or Buddhist school, but draws inspiration from the whole array of existing schools, while at the same time not losing track of the fundamental teachings of the historical Buddha.
  2. The movement is unified. The FWBO ordains men and women on an equal footing - unlike most traditional Buddhist schools. The movement does regard single-sex activities as vital to spiritual growth, but men and women are considered equally able to practise and develop spiritually.
  3. The act of Going for Refuge is central. Going for Refuge to the Three Jewels (i.e., the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha), is considered to be what makes someone a Buddhist.
  4. Spiritual friendship. Spiritual friendship is friendship based on shared values, especially the Three Jewels. The FWBO teaches that spending time with friends who share the same ideals supports ethical living.
  5. Team based right-livelihood. Working together in teams, in the spirit of generosity and with a focus on ethics, is considered a transformative practice.
  6. Art. The arts are considered to broaden sympathies and to extend experience. The many forms of art also helps people to find an expression for their devotion, just like meditation, devotional rituals (pujas), and Dharma study might do.

[edit] Activities

From the beginning there was an emphasis on teaching meditation in urban centers. Retreats in the countryside followed, as did lecture series on aspects of Buddhist thought and practice. Residential communities developed out of retreats, when people decided they wanted to live together, and team-based right-livelihood projects were started to fund activities. Eventually, permanent retreat centers were established.

Centers were established in countries outside the UK including New Zealand and Australia. The FWBO is now actively teaching Buddhism and meditation in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Spain, Belgium, France, The Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Estonia, Sweden, Finland, Norway, South Africa, Mexico, USA, Canada, Venezuela, India and Malaysia. [1]

More recently FWBO activities have diversified to include outdoor festivals, online meditation teaching, arts festivals, poetry and writing workshops, yoga, tai chi, karate, and pilgrimages to Buddhist holy sites in India. For many years the FWBO charity Karuna Trust has raised money for aid projects in India, including supporting the small school for Tibetan refugees established by Dhardo Rimpoche, and a range of projects to assist the Dalit or ex-Untouchable community.[2]

[edit] Practice

Because it draws on the whole of the Buddhist tradition there is a wide variety of practices current in the FWBO.

[edit] Meditation

Many meditation practices are current within the FWBO. Sangharakshita described meditation as having four phases. The first two are, calming or samatha practices and the last two are insight or vipassana practices.

  • Integration - The main practice at this stage is the Mindfulness of Breathing, which has the effect of "integrating the psyche" (improving mindfulness and concentration).
  • Positive Emotion - The second aspect of calm is developing positivity. The Brahmavihara meditations, especially the 'metta bhavana' or cultivation of loving kindness meditations, are the key practices for developing positive emotion.
  • Spiritual Death - The beginning of insight is to examine aspects of reality and to see how all things are impermanent, lacking an essential nature, and lead to dissatisfaction. A key Buddhist technique for developing this insight has always been the breaking of things into parts. In the Six Element practice the individual looks at their whole psychophysical organism in terms of earth, water, air, fire, space, and consciousness. Other techniques are contemplating impermance, especially of the body; contemplating suffering; and contemplating Shunyata. This leads to a spiritual death, as through insight into the nature of things, one's sense of oneself as a separate, isolated being is broken down. It is considered important to approach these meditation practices from a strong base of integration and positivity.
  • Spiritual Rebirth - With the development of insight, and the death of the limited ego-self a person is spiritually reborn. In the ultimate sense this is Bodhi or enlightenment. Practices which involve the visualization of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are the main practices used in the FWBO in this phase.

[edit] Other common meditation practices

  • Just sitting, a formless meditation with no focus where one just sits and nothing else. Just sitting can be a good practice to help assimilate experience from other meditation practices. The just sitting practice is akin to the practice of zazen in the Zen tradition.
  • Though not a practice, Pure Awareness has recently become popular. Here, there is no focus of meditation; whatever happens to appear is secondary and just allowed to happen. Primary is recognition of the basic space of nondual awareness-emptiness in which all phenomena arise. This is essentially a Tathagatagarbha view within just sitting.
  • Walking meditation is popular on retreats and in between series of several sitting sessions. The primary focus in this case is usually the physical movements of the body, or the soles of the feet (touch), but could also be whatever one might notice through the other senses while mindfully walking (sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and thoughts). This is an integrative practice.

[edit] Ritual

Worship or Puja can be thought of as a kind of theatre, in which one recites verse, performs physical acts such as mudra and prostrations, and uses imaginative imagery to evoke a particular experience. The experience is one which includes compassion for all living beings, and a desire to liberate them from suffering. The FWBO has a range of pujas but the most common one is composed of verses from the Bodhicaryavatara of Shantideva. It consists of seven stages: worship, salutation, going for refuge, confession of faults, rejoicing in merit, entreaty and supplication, and transference of merit & self-surrender.

These verses can be thought of evoking an image of the Buddha as being like a far-off mountain. First one glimpses the mountain-top peeking through some clouds; then the clouds clear and one has a stunning vision of the mountain; in that moment one knows that one must go to the mountain; but one realizes that one has many unnecessary burdens; having unburdened oneself one stocks up on energy; then one asks for directions; and finally one expresses gratitude and devotes any good that accrues to the benefit of all beings.

[edit] Retreats

Retreats [3] provide an opportunity for practitioners to focus on their practice with little or no interruption. Beginners' retreats are usually two or three days, while a regular program of one and two-week retreats is available to those with more experience. A typical retreat program would include several sessions of meditation, some Dharma study, and a puja or devotional ritual in the evenings. Afternoons are usually free for people to rest or meet together. More intensive retreats might have less study and more meditation.

[edit] Right livelihood

Early on in the history of the FWBO it became apparent that it needed to raise funds for various projects. This became especially apparent with the decision to purchase and renovate a disused fire station in Bethnal Green. At this time several small businesses were set up including a wholefood shop and a building team. These were run by collectives of people who almost immediately discovered that working together as a team seemed like a very good spiritual practice in itself. Right livelihood is listed in the Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path and consists essentially in applying Buddhist ethics to work. Right livelihood businesses contribute funds for the movement as well as providing environments for spiritual growth.

[edit] Communities

Another practice that emerged from the early milieu of the FWBO is residential spiritual communities. The first community was formed after a retreat when several of the participants decided they wanted to try to continue the retreat-style living. The most stable communities tended to be single sex and this has become the main paradigm for their communities ever since. Some of the most effective situations for Buddhist practice can occur when people live and work together. The support from fellow practitioners in a community is seen to be effective in helping its members make spiritual progress.

[edit] Diversity

As an international movement diversity is a distinguishing feature. While England remains the main base of the movement, the TBMSG is growing rapidly in India. Most Indian members come from the lowest strata of Indian society, from the castes that were formerly known as untouchables (even though untouchability was outlawed by the first Independent Indian government).

The FWBO claims a wide range of people involved, from academics to working-class trades, to artists, accountants, and doctors. The majority of people involved with the FWBO live conventional lives. A small number live in communities and work in right-livelihood businesses - a lifestyle which has come to be called 'semi-monastic'. The majority involved with the FWBO are people leading regular lifestyles who endeavour to integrate their Buddhist practice into the rest of their lives.

A group of people who are involved in the festival scene in the UK run a project called Buddhafield. Buddhafield both attends festivals such as the Glastonbury Festival where they teach meditation, and socially aware Buddhism. They run outdoor events under canvas and often attract large numbers.

[edit] The FWBO after Sangharakshita

In the 1990s Sangharakshita began handing over spiritual and administrative responsibility for the FWBO and WBO to a group of senior men and women disciples. This transfer was completed by 2000. Since then Sangharakshita's health has declined, but the movement continues to thrive.

Leadership was vested in the College of Public Preceptors, a group of men and women who take overall responsibility for ordaining new members. With over 1,000 members, and a continuing commitment to consensus decision-making, the order is now having to explore new ways of communicating on issues of concern to all. One such issue, which has highlighted the need for change, is the name of the order, which is now considered to be inappropriate since the movement is no longer a purely Western one. However, getting consensus from 1,000+ people is a difficult business and progress in making the change has been slow.

In 2003 the Public Preceptors, responding to feedback from the Order and the movement, but also following their own inclinations and pressures on their resources, decided to move away from having a formal relationship to the Order and movement, and to concentrate on what they see as their primary role in regard to the ordination of the new members of the Order. Many of the preceptors want to focus on teaching and Dharma practice. At the same time they have expanded the number of preceptors to introduce flexibility.

Change has also been fuelled by allegations of sexual misconduct by Sangharakshita during the 1970s and early 1980s. He has not responded directly to these allegations, but they brought widespread debate within the FWBO. A small number of order members have resigned, but most have stayed on and take advantage of a more relaxed and flexible atmosphere, in which they feel free to question and update the way things have been done, and even to question Sangharakshita.

The WBO and FWBO are exploring ways to organise themselves and develop their work in a more decentralised way. Debates continue about how to ensure both coherence and flexibility, as well as spiritual depth in the order.

[edit] Chronology

1964 Sangharakshita returns to England after 20 years in India
1967 Founding of the FWBO
Aspects of Buddhist Psychology Lecture series
1968 Founding of the Western Buddhist Order
7 April: 12 men and women ordained Noble Eightfold Path Lecture series (later published as Vision & Transformation)
1969 Aspects of the Bodhisattva Ideal Lecture series
1971 Sangharakshita takes a year off, leaving order members to run things on their own.
1972 First single-sex retreats
1975 First ordinations in New Zealand.
Sukhavati project started — a derelict fire station is transformed into the London Buddhist Centre and a residential community. Out of this project would also come the first team-based right-livelihood businesses.
1976 Padmaloka Buddhist Retreat Centre purchased, Sangharakshita makes it his base.
1978 Indian wing of the FWBO founded. Known as the Trailokya Bauddha Mahasangha Sahayaka Gana (TBMSG)
1980 Formation of Aid for India, now known as the Karuna Trust, to raise funds for aid projects in India, particularly amongst the so called "ex-untouchable" Buddhists.
1990 Death of Dhardo Rimpoche, one of Sangharakshita's main teachers.
1992 Sangharakshita addresses the European Buddhist Union.
1997 The Guardian publishes an article critica of the FWBO.
1998 The FWBO issue their response to criticism in The Guardian article.
2000 Sangharakshita hands on the headship of the order to the College of Public Preceptors.
2002 The order reaches 1,000 members. Major changes announced in the "mitra system".
2003 A letter is published by an order member alleging unwelcome sexual advances and a cult-like situation at times in the past. The result is a wide ranging debate about the past of the FWBO, and questioning of attitudes, institutions and practices. Sangharakshita is seriously ill, his role in the movement is now minimal.
2004 The Council of the College of Public Preceptors (the effective leadership of the FWBO), an administrative body set up to support the leaders of the FWBO dissolves itself. Plans are in place to rapidly expand the number of Public preceptors and to move away from them being administrators towards their spiritual role as guardians of the order whose primary function is to ordain new members of the order. Administrative functions are decentralised to more accurately reflect the ethos of the movement, giving centres greater autonomy.

[edit] Criticism of the FWBO

Since its inception the FWBO has been a focus of controversy in the British Buddhist community, particularly regarding their non-traditional views and practices of Buddhism. Criticism in general has been focused on Sangharakshita and some other order members.

Sangharakshita's views have received much attention from critics. For example, in one of his writings he states:

The ‘couple’ is the enemy of the spiritual community. By couple, in this context, one means two people, usually of the opposite sex, who are neurotically dependent on each other and whose relationship, therefore, is one of mutual exploitation and mutual addiction. A couple consists, in fact, of two half-people, each of whom unconsciously invests part of his or her total being in the other: each is dependent on the other for the kind of psychological security that can be found, ultimately, only within oneself.'
(Sangharakshita, 1986, Alternative Traditions).

Similarly, to quote Subhuti, a senior order member, stated in a personal letter to order members:

Sexual interest on the part of a male Order member for a male mitra [novice] can create a connection which may allow kalyana mitrata spiritual friendship to develop. Some, of course, are predisposed to this attraction, others have deliberately chosen to change their sexual preferences in order to use sex as a medium of kalyana mitrata - and to stay clear of the dangers of male-female relationships without giving up sex.
(Subhuti, 1986)

It should though be noted that in the course of the discussion this internal document engendered, a consensus was reached within the Order that sexual activity in the context of a kalyana mitrata relationship was in fact deeply inadvisable. For the last 20 years of the FWBO's history, this kind of behaviour has been strongly discouraged, and the vast majority look upon the experiments of the 1970's and 80's as a mistake.

[edit] The Guardian

In 1997, a British newspaper, The Guardian published an article titled "The Dark Side of Enlightenment". The article alleged serious cases of sexual abuse in the FWBO centre in Croydon, with one person later committing suicide. Moreover, the article also cited allegation of sexual manipulation of younger male order members by Sangharakshita.

The FWBO issued an official response to the article, stating that FWBO centers are largely autonomous, and to a large extent set their own agendas and standards and that Sangharakshita himself was largely responsible for bringing this episode to an end. It was widely known that Sangharakshita had been having sexual relationships with order members and he has always insisted that they relationships were consensual, supportive and not manipulative.

The official response from FWBO to the allegations made in the Guardian article is available at [4]. The text also touches on some of the other issues laid out in the above paragraphs.

[edit] Drugs

Sangharakshita has admitted to having experimented with drugs on two occasions in 1969 and 1970, believing that since he was so often asked for his opinion on the topic he should be able to speak from experience. His own retrospective account of these experiences is stated in '1970 - A Retrospect' at [5].

[edit] Yashomitra's Experience

In March 2003 an order member called Yashomitra wrote a personal account of his sexual relationship with Sangharakshita and published this in Shabda, the internal newsletter of Western Buddhist Order. Yashomitra's article can be found at http://www.fwbo-files.com/yashomitra.htm. In the article, he described how he was manipulated in having sex with Sangharakshita. He went on to state that "[t]he FWBO did seek to undermine heterosexual relationships and family life. It did teach that homosexuality was superior to heterosexuality. Members were 'converted' to homosexuality through coercive psychological means. Coercion of any sort was not anathema within the FWBO." Yashomitra resigned from the order shortly after the publication of the article.

[edit] False Wearing of Robes

Another allegation made by the FWBO-Files is that Sangharakshita wore the robes of a celibate Buddhist monk while on tour in India in the 1980's, and that he did so with the intention of deceiving Indian members of the TBMSG into believing that he was still a celibate monk. This episode led to a number of mitras (friends) denoucing him by and rejecting the TBMSG en masse in 1999. A letter signed by the 88 Indian mitras, all from the Mumbai (Bombay) area stated:

"...while claiming to be a properly ordained Buddhist monk, a Bhikshu, you showed no respect for the devout feelings Buddhists associated with the robe by indulging in sexual misconduct, experimenting with drugs and teaching the 'neutrality' of sexual activities. In our opinion, this final act of yours was nothing more than an attempt to cover up your misbehaviour as a monk while still holding onto the power and prestige which the yellow robe along with the epithets Bhikshu and Mahasthavir held in the eyes of the common people. Thus you have cheated us. Why didn't you tell us right from the beginning that you weren't a monk? Why didn't you feel ashamed appearing before us in the yellow robe between 1979 and 1993? How can this falsehood be considered spiritual, nay, even common human behaviour? Yet you and your disciples talk of being a spiritual movement, a misnomer which amounts to a denigration of the truly spiritual." [6]

Further to this allegation made by FWBO-Files, the anti-FWBO website, is that the Indian government no longer grants Sangharakshita an entry visa, although no substantiation for this allegation is given.

The site also cite rumour that Scientology is trying to infiltrate FWBO. [7].

[edit] External links

[edit] FWBO sites

[edit] Outside views of the FWBO

[edit] Critical views of the FWBO

  • FWBO-Files - Anti-FWBO site set up by Verdex, includes the text of the anonymous critique 'The FWBO files', and the Guardian article.
  • ex-FWBO - Part of ex-cult Resource Centre.

Both the above sites provide information critical of the FWBO, and duplicate each other to some extent, though both sites also provide information not available on the other site.

[edit] References

  • Sangharakshita (1986), Alternative Traditions. FWBO/Windhorse. pp. 178-181.
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