this is a paper I prepared for the fwbo chairs at their meeting at dhanakosa this january.

it outlines the history of madhyamaloka, and gives some idea of the proposed new sangharakshita library. I thought it might be of wider interest.

In March 06, fwbo Central recruited some new trustees; Parami, Ratnadharini and Ratnagosha joined Cittapala, Srimala, Sona and me. After the organisational changes of the last few years, one of the first things the new trustees had to do (after trying to balance the books) was to clarify the responsibilities of fwbo Central, and the role of Madhyamaloka in the future. Fwbo Central is essentially the organisational structure for the Madhyamaloka ‘project’. To plan the future, we realised that first we needed to understand our past: how Madhyamaloka had started, and what its intentions had been. That history lesson was instructive. It will be easier to understand our plans if I recap some of the history first.

Madhyamaloka

In 1993, Bhante appointed a group of thirteen senior order members, who made up the Preceptor’s College and Council. They had a wide range of responsibilities, which can perhaps be understood most simply as Bhante handing on his responsibilities to this group, to create a structure that would replace his distinctive role. A key element in Bhante's initial vision was that College and Council members would deepen their connection by living together. In 1995 Madhyamaloka was purchased. Along with its sister community in Park Hill, it brought a core group of public preceptors and college council members into day to day contact with Bhante. It provided Bhante with a home, and the College and Council with a meeting place. It housed the Order Office, the Order convenors, the overall Mitra convenors, Bhante’s library and archive, the Order library, and later became home to the Communications and Liaison offices.

Phase 2

From early in the project, a second phase to Madhyamaloka was planned: a library and ‘vihara’. This would be a home for Bhante’s archive, and would house a residential community with a more ‘spiritual’ emphasis on practice and teaching, and less on organisation. The closest we got to purchasing a property was around 2001/2, when we made an offer on a farm in the Welsh borders, which would have had space for Bhante and his library, and a men’s and a women’s community. The offer was declined, and we decided it was too big a financial stretch at that time to pursue this.

The college, the order and the movement.

In 2000 Bhante handed the last of his formal responsibilities to the preceptors’ college and council. Subhuti, as chairman, began a review of the College’s role. This resulted in the important clarifications of responsibility in 2003, put most succinctly as: ‘the order runs the order; the movement runs the movement’. This left the primary responsibilities of the college defined more clearly as training for ordination, the support of new order members after ordination, and training the growing number of preceptors. Madhyamaloka began to shed some of it’s movement focussed responsibilities. In particular, the College Council was dissolved, and responsibility for the appointment of presidents was passed over to the centres.

We suggested at the time that these changes, re-emphasising the autonomy of the Order, Centres and the College, would need to be balanced by other factors that supported unity, in our organisation and in our shared practice. For example, it was intended to create a meeting to bring the College, the movement and the order into dialogue with each other. In the atmosphere of the last few years, it was easy to decentralise; it was harder to take initiatives that supported coherence. I think we’re only now emerging from this period, and the rebuilding of coherence is an unfinished part of the changes set in motion in 03.

Tasks for the future

With the clarification of the College’s role, fwbo Central let go of its movement related responsibilities. At the same time, many of the first generation of residents moved on. However after the March 06 review, it seemed that some main responsibilities remained the same. We saw these as our distincitve responsibilities:

to support the work of the Preceptors College.

We had a responsibility for the unity and coherence of the movement, particularly to make sure that it was rooted in, and an expression of, Bhante’s approach to the Dharma.

We felt a strong responsibility to Bhante:

to house him, and for the ‘lineage’ of his teachings: to help ‘preserve, communicate and extend’ Bhante’s teaching.

Arising from those, we had some more specific tasks:

To house a community of experienced order members.

We saw this as integral to the initial vision of Madhyamaloka, ‘the coincidence of wills’ made possible by that intense engagement with each other.

To build the Sangharakshita Library.

Bhante had specifically asked us to set up the library, and had given us £600,000 specifically to do that.

From this discussion, some clear next steps began to emerge.

The Library and Vihara

Given that we must use those funds to build the library, we want to make sure that we do it in a way that is as useful as possible to the movement. Since we will have an expensive building, let’s use it as much as we can.

The most ambitious next step is a proposal to build the library and an associated ‘vihara’ This is close to the original intention for Madhyamaloka to have more of a practice and teaching role than an organisational one.

The library, as Bhante explained in a recent session with the chairs at Madhyamaloka is something that he thinks is important, and we want to honour his wish. The library project itself is modest; a home primarily for Bhante’s archives, for his books and artefacts. Bhante has given us funds specifically for this.

So, as well as housing the library, we are planning a facility that will have space for study, teaching, meditation and accommodation. This brings us back to the plan for the ‘vihara’.

One of the most direct and effective ways for us to build coherence is for our most experienced practitioners to do more Dharma teaching, We intend to develop a teaching programme over the next few years, concentrating on Bhante’s distinctive approach to the Dharma, and particularly aimed at order members. The Preceptors College – a group of senior order members, who have worked closely with Bhante and who have his confidence, who are in close communication with him, with each other and with the people they’ve ordained – can make a distinctive contribution to that. We will work closely with Dharmapala College, and we will also use the facility to develop the training of Preceptors, who are one of the most important influences on the next generation of the order.

Because of the library’s association with Bhante, we want it to be accessible to both wings of the movement, which means that it will not fit easily into the existing, single sex retreat centres. A new building near Madhyamaloka would be accesible. Mokshapriya has begun preparatory work on this project. The new building would, incidentally, be a good investment, and would significantly increase the value of the assets.

Other tasks

The library would fulfill a number of the core tasks of fwbo Central. It directly lets us house Bhante, his archive, and a community engaged with the project. It gives us another significant way to ‘preserve, extend and communicate’ Bhante’s teaching, which is one of the most important ways the College can contribute to the ‘unity and coherence’ of the movement. (We are also proposing that we set up some of the forums for discussion planned in 2003, bringing the college, the movement and the order into more effective dialogue, another way to support unity and coherence).

Some speculation for the future

In some ways Birmingham is not ideal for what we’re trying to do. A more rural setting would be better for meditation, and we have at least speculated about moving from Birmingham to the country. We’ve speculated about a facility that would include a teaching centre and the library, one that could grow to include a wide range of order and movement activities, including big retreats and the Order Conventions. It is also likely that in future the library will have a symbolic role, and it would be good to see the library as part of something that would be widely used by the movement.

However, for the time being, Bhante wants to stay where he is, and perhaps in other ways the time is not ripe for such a development. A new library building in Birmingham, and a teaching syllabus, based on Bhante and aimed at the order, seem like doable next steps.