Ideas behind the Family Events at Amaravati Budhhist Monastery

This article is an attempt to put into words the approach to the summer camp used over the past few years. It is for reflection and is work in progress. One way of reading this, is to put 80 percent of your attention on yourself and 20 percent on the article.

The main focus of the family events (FE), is bringing attention/awareness to any activity we do, whether it’s quiet or loud, busy or still. The FE are opportunities to encourage the participants to be detectives, the main question being how does this activity affect us? The effect is not the focus but rather the knowing of how we are affected. This way we can understand what suffering is.The main tool for doing this is contemplation. To explain this, you could take the example of a mirror. You look in the mirror, you see yourself, you pull a face, get angry, be happy or whatever emotion you choose to express. The mirror is undisturbed by the emotion, it remains the same.  You don't see the mirror getting angry, happy or anything when you have your emotions. It just reflects back whatever comes before it (see LP winter retreat 2001 talks). There are some good explanation of about this, by various Sangha members (click here for some articles). Ajahn Sumdeho's book Intuitive Awareness discuss this in detail (Click here for PDF version 600k)

It is not so much what you do but how you do it. In Buddhist terminology it is understanding your intention. Are you intending to hurt somebody or are you just playing around? Is the result of that action good or bad? The important thing is to know this for yourself.  The five precepts are the minimum behaviour standards for the camp but again these are guidelines. If these are broken in a gross way, then we have to consider whether or not that person is supporting the rest of the people on that event, and so whether that person is allowed to stay or come again in the future.

Good and bad are relative concepts. What’s good for one person could be bad for another, so the five precepts act as our common basic agreement. From here on in then most things are negotiable, given the situation. So plates need to be washed, this is not negotiable, but how we do it is! So how do we negotiate?

First of all we need to know what we are feeling. The word feeling, used in this context is an overall condition involving emotions, images, sensations, tastes, etc. Secondly we need to know that it is okay for us to discuss our feelings, and then thirdly that our feelings will be taken seriously. The emphasis is then on being emotionally honest (this does not mean you have to verbalize your feelings). The person you are speaking to, also needs to able to listen.  So how do we listen? By noting how we feel, and being able to receive our own pain or joys. This will help us to receive somebody else’s. (click here for ways of developing this). We can then come from awareness in responding to that situation rather than our conditioning.

So how does all this fit in with the Buddhas teaching? Well if we go back to the mirror, the mirror as is suggested, is not affected by what’s going on. So in the same way awareness is not affected by how we are, even though our mind may be strongly affected.  Looking at the work of Ken Wilber in his book, No Boundary, he suggested that there are levels of being, ranging from the persona level to unity consciousness (click here for more details). What can be taken from this, is that each of these levels need some attention and overall they need to be integrated. So going back to the mirror again, it can be suggested that the highest level does not need that much work, the spiritual level, is just perfect. The other levels are conditioned. They are affected by our upbringing, culture and education, etc. It is the other levels that block us from seeing the spiritual level. Its like putting on a pair of dark glasses in front of the mirror, you can't see yourself very well.

How do we bring attention to these other levels, within the camp? The main way is to encourage people to the monastery in the first place, as it provides a safe place to explore and investigate. Then provide fun/virtuous activities that support development in these levels. Others ways of supporting the levels, is to find activities that meet the energy of a particular group on a particular level, for example movement, art, games, stories, for children.

Another important area is the element of play, just allowing time for the children to ‘hang out’ together, not filling the time with endless activities but allowing them to investigate what’s around them. As neither school nor society really values play, it is difficult then to just let things be - not doing anything. This also makes it difficult for people to think for themselves, to take responsibility for their emotions, as there is no time given, to developing the skills to do it. This then is another area where the camp can offer the space and possibly some skills to do this.

This does not mean a free for all, boundaries are there, the precepts are there. Its more a sense of an honest meeting. People receive one another, there are no mixed messages, there is a sense of openness about what can be discussed. Of course, the human realm is not perfect and compassion and unconditional love are needed to balance this out.

So the encouragement then is for the parents to look at the way they have been conditioned by school, culture, other religions and (dare I say Buddhism?) and try so see how this affects them and their response to their children. For the children it is to promote virtuous activities, trust in their own goodness and the development of boundaries that allow them to explore life whilst not hurting themselves.

Looking at virtuous activities: offering requisites to the Sangha, that is serving the Sangha food, can on the surface, just seem irrelevant. When used with a reflective mind this offers many opportunities. For the monastics it develops humility in accepting an offering. For the children it can be used as a reminder of their own self-worth, in that they have done a good act, that has been for somebody else.

In addition this article is suggesting a integrated approach that supports the many different levels of being human and empowering people in that. This then will support people in the realization of the ultimate truth.

Overall the camp can be put in the context of an experiment, and we can all try to learn from each other each time we do it. The important thing is not to see things in terms of rights or wrongs, but rather that there are choices that produce certain results and those results have an impact in certain way. With a reflective mind we can see how our choices and their results affects us. If our gut feeling is that a action was not that good and we can trust it, we can try to respond appropriately. What also benefits here is a reinforcement from the people around, to say that trusting your gut feeling is okay.

So what I have suggested is to use the camp as a laboratory to explore suffering and joy! Maybe then we can ask who does this suffering belong to?

 

If you have any feedback about this please contact me feedback

Further information can be found about Ken Wilbers work at

review of no-boundary http://twm.co.nz/kwilb_nob.html
http://www.kenwilber.com/
http://wilber.shambhala.com/
Basic concepts of Ken WIlber
The Evolution of Enlightment
A spirtuality that transform (an important article)