a very good meeting of private preceptors, at padmaloka.

about 40 people attended. the main theme of the weekend was meditation. padmavajra gave a presentation on the 'five great stages of spiritual life', and in the shrine room, padmasuri, prakasha and vessantara taught the 'old' versions of the green tara, vajrasattva and manjusri saddhanas.

on sunday afternoon padmavajra and i presented some of the points that had arisen at the college meeting a week ago, including some points that bhante had wanted to make to us, and which he felt strongly enough about to make the journey from birmingham to the brecon beacons where we were meeting. his main point was about the 'balance of the private and the public ordinations'.

some extracts from my notes are below. let me make the usual disclaimer. bhante expresses himself extraordinarily carefully. these are my much sketchier, unchecked notes of him speaking.

the private and public ordinations

when one is ordained there's the private ordination, when you make your individual commitment to the three jewels

having done that, find others equally committed, so become a member of an order

an order member is not just an order member in just a purely individual or personal sense.

by virtue of your private and public ordination, and especially by virtue of the public ordination, you belong to an order.

and the chapter i see as the order in miniature, because you can't have contact with all members of the order.

but if you are a member of a chapter, that chapter becomes your working order, where you meet regularly, and meet just as order members, not in any other capacity.

where you can  strengthen one one another's faith and so on.

so as an order member, there's your personal individual spiritual life, and there's your collective spiritual life.

these two need to be held in balance.

one of the things that is happening at present, within the order at large, is that there is a tendency for them to get out of balance,

and that the public ordination is getting neglected at the expense of the private ordination.

ties up with all sorts of trends in wider society.

big voluntary organisations are finding it difficult to get volunteers and to keep up their activities.

a report about housing says that more and more people are choosing to live on their own, and the government will have to provide more accommodation for single people, who don't want to live with others, who just want a small flat.

in the case of the political parties in england, membership has absolutely slumped.

various reasons for that, but one of them is part of this trend towards the individual and the personal, and away from the collective.

i think within the movement, perhaps we're a bit affected by that.

it seems even within the order, some people are choosing to withdraw into a private life, whether it's on their own, or with a partner, and not to take part in centre activities, and even not to belong to a chapter. i see this as quite dangerous, and as leading to an imbalance between the significance of the private ordination, and the significance of the public ordination.

i've been wondering whether, in the preparation for ordination, and in the course of the ordination retreats, more needs to be said that when you are ordained,

you are a member of an order.

you haven't just proclaimed yourself as a buddhist; you're a buddhist who belongs to a particular order, and who has therefore a connection to other members of that order.

the private and public ordinations are part of a single ordination ceremony.

it's possible to keep in touch nowadays by email, but physical contact is also important. i don't want to make up hard and fast rules, but it is a very odd order member who never wants to have any contact with other order members.

in buddha's day even the forest the renunciates were bhikkhus, and would meet for their pratimoksa.

there's a vinaya passage, a rule to the effect that a bhikkhu is meditating in the forest, and makes a resolution that he will not emerge from his meditation in response  to any external call.

but the rule adds this qualification: 'unless there is a call from the sangha.'

i consider this quite important: even the monk who is meditating in the forest had to give priority to that rather than continuing their meditation.

i don't think traditional buddhism envisages a situation where an individual is indefinitely cut off from other bhikkhus, except for definite periods, for obvious reasons.

in the vinaya, asked to give encouragement and support to those who are starting to doubt the validity of the life to which they have committed.

that point is made by he buddha on many occasions, people do have their ups and downs

and when you are 'up', you may well help someone who is going through it. but in a few years the situation may be reversed; he's giving you a helping hand.

if someone is having doubts about the order, we must certainly not cut off contact. it can only be due to a lack of faith, and by associating with those  who have faith, much more likely to revive their faith.

it should be borne in mind, people go through phases. don't judge someone in general terms on the basis of what's been happening over a year or two. one must always hope even a nominal  order member will become more  active. one shouldn't write off anyone too quickly or easily. if you do think someone is a danger of becoming a more nominal order member,  get in touch, and find out what is happening with them, especially if they are living near you. people do have phases of doubt. it's natural, and in some ways to be expected.

in a way, the public ordination is a bit impersonal.

the public preceptors may not be someone you know very well, even in an extreme case, someone you've never even met before.

they are, as it were, representing the order. so the public ordination is a  more  impersonal thing than the private ordination, which is very personal.

and of course it seems in our current cultural climate, the emphasis is on the personal, rather than the impersonal. the two have to be balanced.

relation to private preceptor

i've sometimes heard people speaking about their relationship with their prospective or actual private preceptor, almost in romantic terms.

there's a lot of emphasis on choosing someone whom you like, who you feel naturally attracted to, rather than someone whose spiritual qualities you admire.

making  another connection, in india there's the caste system, and under the caste system, you didn't choose your life partner, it was arranged.

i have read some indian sociologists who said that the only area of important relationship where you could choose was your choice of a guru.

therefore, some of these almost romantic emotions that in the west seem to be focussed on the partner, tend to be focussed on the guru.

in hinduism  this emphasis is very strong, this relationship between you an the guru is very strong. in hinduism there's no idea of  spiritual community.

generalising widely, not to say wildly, i'm wondering if  this emphasis that seems to be falling on the relationship with the private preceptor, and the lack of interest in sangha activities, suggests to me almost that we're slipping into a hindu, rather than a buddhist, spiritual model.

a model in which the relationship with the guru, or  the private preceptor, is the important one, and the membership of the sangha is getting more and more neglected.

in the theravada, there are teachers and students, but it is not such an emotional relationship.

it is warm and deep, but it doesn't have that 'romantic' overtone, for want of a better word.

work in an old folks home,  or something like that can certainly be an expression of the altruistic dimension of your going for refuge. but that doesn't mean that you don't need also to have contact with fellow order members, in order to sustain that altruistic attitude out of which you're engaging in those activities.

the more difficult the work, the more you need contact with order members who can help you sustain  your inspiration.

you can always go further if you are in contact with others following the same path.

why the chapter meeting is important. you need to be in close contact with others following the same path as yourself.

we are living in a world in which it is not easy to be a buddhist, and we need all the support we can get. or sooner or later your spiritual life is going to be impoverished.

in the case of the public preceptor it is the near enemy which is the danger; in the case of the public preceptor it is the far enemy which is the danger.

in the case of the private preceptor, the risk is that you gravitate to that person just because you like them, and it becomes a romantic relationship almost.

in the case of the public preceptor, the risk is that he or she can seem a bit remote, and they can seem a bit threatening, judgmental.

what to look for in a private preceptor?

one who is know to keep up a regular spiritual practice of some kind; who has never  been in serious disharmony with any other order members., who has a good knowledge of the dharma.

to begin with, it must be someone you respect. it is important to put the emphasis on someone you respect, not on someone you like.

like is far too subjective. respect is more objective.

it is possible to like, you always like someone you respect, but you will not necessarily respect someone you like. it can be summed up in this way: look for an order member you can respect, and leave the liking to look after itself. if  you get to know them, liking will start to develop.

we need to keep up those things we regard as central, and that is one effect of the public preceptors, private preceptors, the ordination process.

we need a common ordination process everywhere. and then you will have a unified order.

it also means there needs to be a certain degree of integration among the different centres. that's where people make their first contact, where they practice the dharma.

so it is very important that the preceptors have some input into what is going on at the centres, so that no-one arrives on a going for refuge retreat unprepared.