I am writing this blog in response to a comment made by Peter, about something I wrote in my meditation blog about friendship. I felt that it was too important to leave the subject to just a comment.
The term kalyanamitta has been around in Buddhism for long time, and its use is often attributed to the Buddha. The most common translation is ‘spiritual friend’, although I have seen other translations. For me the term ‘admirable friendship’ sits better but I am sure there are objections to this term as well.
Probably the best know reference in the Pali Canon to kalyanamitta is from the Upaddha Sutta, from the Samyutta Nikaya.
“Don’t say that, Ananda. Don’t say that. Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually the whole of the holy life. When a monk has admirable people as friends, companions, and comrades, he can be expected to develop and pursue the noble eightfold path.”
Source: Upaddha Sutta, from the Samyutta Nikaya – Access to Insight
My understanding is that the term as it is used in traditional Buddhism describes the relationship between for example a Lama and a disciple or a senior monk and a junior monk. This to me seems to suggest an unequal relationship, between someone who is a teacher, therefore, having superior ‘spiritual’ knowledge and the other a student who learns from the former. This notion of kalyanamitta is also strongly emphasized in the Triratna Buddhist community (Formally known as the FWBO). I found this quote on one of their websites.
“Sangharakshita maintains that in practising Buddhism we need other people to learn from. Buddhism, he argues is best ‘caught’ not taught. He believes that our relationships with teachers and fellow practitioners must be characterised by honesty and clear communication. He also stresses the value of friendships with peers, in particular having at least one friend (not a lover) with whom we can be intimate and completely open.”
Although Sangarakshita has attempted to bring a traditional term into the modern world, it strikes me from the above that notion has moved very little away from the traditional definition. My experience of kalyanamitta while I was involved with the FWBO as they were called then, was that the whole thing seemed a little false. I suspect that is what happens when an organization attempts to formalize something, which is essentially a personal thing. The friends I choose and how I go about developing those friendships, will be probably different from the approach other people may take.
The whole idea of formal friendships I think is fraught with problems. From my understanding from the little I have read in the Pali Cannon I don’t see where this formal approach came from. These quotes seem to me to be about forming good relationships with people to have a shared vision and intended to be supportive of practice. I suspect that the more formal aspect may have been a later development after Buddhism became essentially monastic. For example there is this:
“There is the case where a monk has admirable people as friends, companions, & colleagues. This is the first prerequisite for the development of the wings to self-awakening.”
Source: Sambodhi Sutta: Self-awakening, Anguttara Nikaya – Access to Insight
And:
The friend who is a helpmate,
the friend in happiness and woe,
the friend who gives good counsel,
the friend who sympathises too —
these four as friends the wise behold
and cherish them devotedly
as does a mother her own child.”
Source: Sigalovada Sutta: The Discourse to Sigala, Digha Nikaya – Access to Insight
And:
“And what is meant by admirable friendship? There is the case where a lay person, in whatever town or village he may dwell, spends time with householders or householders’ sons, young or old, who are advanced in virtue. He talks with them, engages them in discussions. He emulates consummate conviction in those who are consummate in conviction, consummate virtue in those who are consummate in virtue, consummate generosity in those who are consummate in generosity, and consummate discernment in those who are consummate in discernment. This is called admirable friendship.”
Source: Dighajanu (Vyagghapajja) Sutta, Anguttara Nikaya – Access to Insight
I could go on. Some of the above were said to groups of monks and others to lay people. What ever the occasion and who ever the audience it seems to me that the message is the same, that is friendship is important.
The last quote I found of particular interest for two reasons, first as it seems to refer to a lay person to lay person relationship and secondly the method seems to be engaging in discussion.
While I think Sangharakshita may have a point that we need people that we can be honest, open with and with whom we can have a clear communication. However I do have concerns about his suggestion we learn our practice “from”, rather then how I would prefer to see it as being ‘along side with’ someone. What he seems to suggest is that the teacher has all the knowledge, where as for me the process is more an exploration about what it means to be human and live a human life, which to me seems to be a shared experience, with equal validity. That is not to say I don’t need teachers. I am prepared to listen, learn, and apply teachings, but how I apply them in my life is individual to myself. Some things may be useful to me, while others may not. Where I think friendship comes in is as an honest sounding board, or mirror to help reflect back to me, how I am doing. This not easy thing to do on both sides of the relationship. For me this needs to be done with great kindness. I need a friend to put aside their own views about me, and who really listens to me, who empathize with me. I need someone who stands on the side line supporting my endeavours rather the trying to push me in a direction that may not be right for me. For me a friend stand along side me in happiness and sorrow, without judging me, but also to give me unbiased advice when needed. I do try to support my friends in the same way.
In a recent discussion with Stephen Batchelor he talked about kalyanamitta as being like a kinship. He did not really explain what he meant but I thought it was an interesting idea. I also wondered if this concept could be useful in building a Secular Buddhist network?
18 comments on “The Role of Kalyanamitta in Secular Buddhism by Anantacitta Tunnell.”
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the word kinship you mention suggests to me a close bond. That’s who i would see it. It doesn’t suggest to me anything about the dynamic of the relationship in terms of power balance eg father son, teacher student. But of course there is that in kinship relationships so he might have meant that too.
The word that seems to cover it for me is mentor. I feel that what is meant is some sort of teacher student dynamic much more so than friendship amongst peers.
I’ve had mentors in the past. They are very useful relationships. Although there is the one who has had more experience than the other, it does not mean that the student is bound to teacher. In a mentor relationship, there is respect, independence, intimacy of a certain kind appropriate to whatever the subject is, friendship. These relationships happen in business, in the arts, in sport. I can’t see why it wouldn’t be appropriate in any sort of buddhism.
Thanks for this blog, Anantacitta, you’ve researched the kalyana mitta/mitra idea thoroughly and given lots of food for thought.
I sense that you may not find the doctrinal prescriptiveness of some of your findings on ‘admirable’ or ‘spiritual’ friendship very helpful, and if that’s true, I would tend to agree.
Various kalyana mitra formulations from the scriptures have been co-opted by the new(ish) Buddhist Chaplaincy Support Group as the basis of chaplaincy practice, and as a framework for ‘training’, with varying levels of success and usefulness as judged by intending and practising chaplains.
For one thing, the language feels archaic and unnatural; and then the framework suggests some kind of role-taking. Some people find this is at variance with their own experience of friendship, which is less about role-taking and role-performance and more about a dynamic relationship in which parity (equality) is key, and in which (perhaps) some of the boundaries of self and other are softened by a special kind of intimacy, special because in its openness there is no need for secrecy about anything, and no fear or embarrassment about disclosure.
In my own chaplaincy undertakings, I’m very aware of taking on a role, and have no doubts that patients and staff see chaplaincy as a role, and have expectations of how chaplains should conduct themselves, and what functions or purposes they are likely to discharge. Friendship isn’t one, I think. I wouldn’t set out to be unfriendly, of course.
But common attributes of friendship like harmless light-hearted talk and emotional and perhaps physical intimacy could be out of place in a chaplain where a more formal relationship is the norm. One bears in mind that for most chaplains and most religions, there is a Third Party to the transactions that take place, Almighty God.
Although Almighty God doesn’t figure with Buddhists, it’s my sense that Buddha and Dharma fill this solemn gap by default. Most of the defining characteristics you’ve set out in your blog are heavy with solemnity: “consummate conviction, virtue, generosity and discernment” being slightly ponderous examples; hard enough to understand let alone manifest in one’s own friendships. Not at all inviting, off-putting in fact.
I don’t understand what SB meant by kinship, unless he meant family. I owe pretty much everything in terms of my emergent humanity to (some) members of my family, with whom I have intimate relationships in which I discern a generous no-strings-attached warmth towards me and a wish to see me happy and free of suffering. Although I say “no-strings-attached” I realise that their own happiness is to a large extent tied up with mine. If I’m irritable, judgemental and bloody-minded it affects them, and they suffer, so it makes sense that they are supportive at such times, but it’s my sense that their concern for me goes beyond their own self-concern. That feels like friendship, or love. Maybe friendship is just another name for love.
How do you think the concept of kinship could me applied to secular Buddhism? Reverend Moon of the Universal Church marries his disciples to each other, quite arbitrarily and with a view to breaking down ethnic and nationalistic boundaries. Amongst the “Moonies”, marriage is the method and the model for spiritual attainment and the growth of spiritual communities worldwide. Maybe SBUK could set up a marriage agency with you at its helm? I gather Triratna had a different take on the relationship between the sexes, but maybe a veil should be drawn over that.
Anyway, you’ve certainly started off a creative line of enquiry!
Hi Anantacitta,
Thanks for this. This is an important topic and I’m glad to see you starting some discussion of it. But maybe you and I and others whose prior experience of traditional Buddhism has been of the FWBO/TBC will have a different take on this from those who have been involved with other organisations.
What I used to like about the emphasis on kalyanamitrata in the FWBO/TBC was that it was often seen as a more informal substitute for guru-disciple relationships. That seems to me generally the right direction to go on: adopting what was helpful about the guru-disciple relationship (i.e. the friendship, including at times the spiritual challenge), but not the power-dynamics. What I think has not worked in the FWBO/TBC system is that there is too much ambiguity about whether kalyanamitra relationships are still in any sense guru-disciple relationships, and too much continuing attachment to traditional models to allow new and better models to be cleanly built up from the beginning.
I think it is this ambiguity that lies behind the difficulties I certainly experienced with formal kalyana mitra relationships in the FWBO/TBC. I still have two kalyana mitras whom I committed to – and who committed to me – in lifetime spiritual friendship, but unfortunately one of these relationships has become rather strained since I left the Order. The problem is that the power dynamic of social expectation was still present in the expectations we both attached to the relationship, even though the ‘senior’ kalyana mitra who was supporting me was obviously in no sense my guru. It’s all to easy to go through the motions out of a sense of duty in such a relationship, and also not to admit even to oneself that that is what one is doing, because of an idealisation of what the relationship should be like.
So, I certainly wouldn’t suggest formal kalyana mitra relationships in a secular Buddhist context. But the wider idea of spiritual friendship seems quite right to me. I’d suggest that the underlying principle should be a balancing of reassurance and challenge (or, one might see it, compassion and wisdom). In that sense I’d say that some spiritual friendship is already going on on this site. Probably all those involved see some need to maintain a reassuring human aspect to the communication, as well as a challenging wisdom aspect. The key insight of the Buddha here, I think, is that friendship isn’t just about shared group-membership or the reassurance we get from group-membership. If it’s a spiritual practice it also needs to assist us in moving on from where we are now, sometimes by giving a helpful boot up the backside.
I’d see that as an aspect of the Middle Way. On the one hand we could have an over-idealised view of friendship, and on the other we could just be matey and too relaxed about it, and thus not make any progress together. On the one hand we could be too worried about offending each other, and on the other just reinforce each others’ bad habits by getting stuck in merely reassuring relationships. It’s a tricky balance and one that I often find difficult to strike: my personal tendency is often to be too challenging. However, there’s also an element of understanding in spiritual friendship, of making allowances for each others’ temperaments. I hope that we will be able to develop spiritual friendship in this broader sense in the secular Buddhist community, but that it will be clearly based on principles of balance rather than distorting appeals to tradition.
Hi All
Thanks for your kind and positive responses to my blog. I am very much hoping that this debate will continue, as I think it could be important in the development of Secular Buddhism.
I agree with Robert on his thoughts on kalyanamitta / mitra in the FWBO/TRC. We have a similar experience of this. I too had a sense of it being a little forced. When I was working towards ordination there was some expectation that the Mitra (a pre-ordination stage) would form spiritual friendships with two order members. There was a limited number of order members prepared to undertake the role. I did eventually get two of them to take me on. For various reasons we did not meet up much and after I was ordained they petered out. After ordination my preceptor sort of took over, but that too faulted after I left the order. I am not saying that it was their entire fault, it take two to tango.
It seems from Peter’s response there are similar issues in the Chaplaincy.
Robert is quite correct when he says that it is about commitment, and I suggest that this comes about gradually, building up layer upon layer. I am wondering how this process can be started? Friendships I suspect can have a variety of meanings from girl/boyfriend to the mate you go fishing with. In case anybody is wondering I don’t go fishing but if I did it may be like the Zen master who fished without a hook so he could experience fishing but not harm the fish. What has always struck me about that story was if he was indeed experiencing fishing. It would seem to me that the point of fishing is to out smart the fish by catching it. I suspect many people experience friendship in a similar way, a kind of bland shadow of friendship. Most of the meaningful friendships I have developed have been through Buddhism, from a shared interest in developing oneself as a human being. Though we may not always be in touch we share something. My relationship with my sister is also relevant here. She lives in the northeast of Scotland about 500 miles away. We talk on the telephone and email occasionally, seeing each other about once a year, but what you may not know is that she is my adopted sister. Yet we have strong sense that the other is there and don’t feel the need to have lots of contact. Our connection comes from us being brought up together and having a shared experience. It could be said that we have a kinship but not by blood. Here are two definitions I found that Andrea may find interesting.
“Kinship: the relationship between members of the same family, or a feeling of being close or similar to other people or things.” Cambridge Dictionary Online.
“Kinship…term in anthropology, which is usually considered to refer to the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of most humans in most societies, although its exact meanings even within this discipline are often debated”. Wikipedia.
For me mentor suggests a relationship between someone with experience and one with less, the former supports the latter to achieve some goal. While I think these forms of relationships are very valuable they, are quite rare and most often between two people. Although, one can mentor several people if one has the energy and time.
What interests me is how Secular Buddhism can develop strong supportive relationships that develop organically (Loosely termed). I wondered if the term kinship may serve as a starting point. It seems to me that friendships develop out of some form of commonality; yet most of us have never met and it is likely some of us never will. I would love to come to Northern Territories, Australia, but I suspect that would be improbable. So what is the glue that will hold us together? Don’t we have the beginnings of connections already in the form of a strong interest in developing a new form of Buddhism? Could it be said we have the initial stages of a “web of social relationships”? I am hoping so.
Warm Wishes
Anantacitta
Hi Anantacitta
I think you are right in suggesting that we have here the initial stages of a “web of social relationships” or dare I say, a “community”. I recently heard SB talking about the philosopher Martin Buber who in one of his books talks about the difference between a collective and a community.
“A collective is where everybody is forced to believe the same thing and behave in the same way, in other words to become part of a cult. What’s characteristic of cults is that everybody holds exactly the same views and if you challenge those views or if you depart from them, you are kicked out.
A community by contrast is a network of friendships and relationships that are held together by each individual’s respect for the individuality of each other and that allows each life within that community to flourish”
I think this definition of community ties in with what is for me one of the the key insights of Buddhism and what the contributors to this site appear to embrace, namely that of autonomy. There has been to my mind very little of “you should think like this” or the taking up of dogmatic positions. Robert’s example of an appropriately supportive friendship that tries to find a balance between reassurance and challenge in order to help each other to “individuate” also makes sense in this context and which I have found prevalent and helpful on this site. Here’s another quote from SB which I think relates to this:
“There is sometimes the sense that if you emphasise self-reliance, that you are somehow giving in to individualism. But I think self-reliance is not about being a separate cut off individual, it’s actually learning to support others in becoming self-reliant and also allowing one’s relationship with them to support your own sense of where your life is to go and how you wish it to flourish. I don’t see any contradiction between the idea of individualism and community. In fact, I can’t imagine one without the other.”
Like you, I feel this supportive and challenging environment is a space which is conducive to the development of something potentially new and interesting. Once again, thanks for setting it up.
I’m sorry I haven’t replied earlier on this. I do agree very strongly with Aanantacitta that there is a worrying ambiguity about whether the kalyanamitra relationship is basically ‘vertical’ (i.e. based on the guru / disciple model) or ‘horizontal’ (i.e. one of mutuality in which we learn from each other’s differences within a framewrok of care, respect and ethical / spiritual seriousness. Both models have their inherent problems of course, but for me the latter is always the more fruitful emphasis, since it seems to pre-figure the sort of social relationships (and, indeed, institutions) that I see as generally desirable.
Thanks for posting this important issue.
Richard
I think notions of ‘community’, kinship and ‘spiritual friendship’ developing from this site are rather far-fetched and over-optimistic, although the hope of something coming from it may trump a lifetime’s experience. Anantacitta’s (and Robert Ellis’s) experience seems to support this view: managed and contrived relationships like mentorship, preceptorship, supervision and so on are manifestations of corporate theory about growth, development and learning: long on jargon, heavily laden with disillusion and unrealistic expectation.
Robert Ellis has said something about the insubstantiality and awkwardness of virtual conversations, stripped of context or visual cues, or significant experience of our being in each others’ living, breathing, sensate presence. Even if we were to meet, and share a meal together (perhaps breakfast after sleeping under the same roof), we should still be virtual strangers, though we should have begun to form real albeit embryonic relationships. But kinship? Even Anantacitta’s qualifies his kinship relationship with his adoptive sister as ‘non-blood’.
No, I see no realistic likelihood of an idealised ‘spiritual friendship’ developing based on our tenuous sharing of wobbly patterns of belief or unbelief, and – although I value what few friendships (and professional relationships) I have as a source of support and challenge in specific areas of my life – the only people who know me and care for me where and when it matters are members of my immediate family, and their support and challenge is wider and deeper than my perceived need for it, and outside my ‘comfort zone’. It is the better, perhaps, because it is non-Buddhist: my family are sceptical (to say the least) about my allegiance to Buddhism, and don’t share what little confidence I have in Buddhism as the ultimate solution to, or panacea for, my various tribulations, let alone the ills of the world.
Most seasoned (elderly) dharma-practitioners I know (I know a few world-wide) are as sceptical as I, and their views on institutional Buddhism, secuilar or otherwise, as as mordant as mine. I’m glad to find!
My impression – for what it’s worth, and it’s sincerely held – is that this SBUK site is just about as good as its ever going to get, and it would be wise to enjoy it for what it currently offers while it lasts, and not to hold one’s breath until it becomes the new Buddhist Jerusalem.
Hi Peter,
I enjoyed your deflation of idealism here, but also feel it might be a bit of a straw man. Nobody’s yet offered a vision of a new Buddhist Jerusalem here, but they have expressed aspirations to build something up, which I think are fair enough. If we see ‘spiritual friendship’ as something we can develop incrementally, and don’t nail ourselves to formal relationships in a premature or unrealistic way, then we don’t have to fall into the over-idealised delusions of corporate theory.
I think there is still a difference of aspiration between spiritual friendship and ordinary friendship. We might start off with a relationship, at whatever level, motivated mainly what we can get out of it (the fishing that Anantacitta discusses, perhaps), but then push that relationship incrementally to address more conditions in ourselves or each other. That will involve making allowances both for how we see that person and the limitations of the medium that we are communicating through, and trying to move beyond those limitations.
You are right about the straw man, and he is – if not totally unstrung – at least a bit dishevelled, for which I thank you again.
At the end of your essay ‘on incrementality’ (on the moral objectivity website) you wrote these encouraging words:
“I believe that it is not a distant enlightenment, nor a sudden breakthrough, that provides liberation, but rather the practical ability to apply incrementality both conceptually and experientially. For most of all we need to be able to develop confidence that we can actually make progress, and address the conditions around us, whatever they are. In both of these, incrementality is indispensable.”
Your sound practical advice to me takes up my thinking and gives it gentle shake. In so doing you’ve made me more confident about the merits of incrementality, and more confident about my own capabilities in applying it.
Hi Peter
I think that there may be opportunity at a local level to form friendships based on shares values and practice. I was keen to see local groups develop where people could meet, practice together and through this contact, friendships may develop. However for some there may not be the opportunity currently. I am hoping to look at developing regional, national and possibly even international events at some stage. In the interim the site may provide a meeting point where we can share ideas but is that enough? It may be for some but for others there may be a wish for a stronger connection. This is why I was interested in the concept of kinship in the anthropological definition given above. Even though we may be far away from each other there may be a bond of some sort which could form the bases of the future development of Secular Buddhism in the UK and across the world. I am aware these developments will need careful to avoid the pit falls of becoming overly organized, but possibly some organization may be necessary, so long as it remains true to the principles of Secular Buddhism.
With warm wishes
Anantacitta
I chuckled when I read Anantacitta’s take on the Zen master who ‘experienced fishing’ by compassionately not using a hook. As Anantacitta asked, “Was he really fishing? Surely real fishing is outsmarting the fish?” That’s hitting the nail on the head, Anantacitta. Something of a senior social worker’s skill in sniffing out a fishy story, perhaps?
Anantacitta is like the little boy in ‘The Emperor’s new clothes’ who asked why the emperor was parading ‘in the altogether’ when everyone else was colluding in the fiction that he was wearing sumptuous robes. I reckon Buddhism is a lot like that in respect of the reported sayings – and the reported doings – of the masters.
I recollect going to an Alpha course about ten years or so ago. You’ll know the one – it’s advertised as a chance to ask the profound questions about Christianity that you always wanted to ask, but were too polite to ask. As if!
When we had all settled down and agreed that nothing was off-limits, I asked why, if Jesus was fully human as well as fully God, and if his life had been just like ours/mine, why were there no mentions of his experience as a family man, as a lover and husband, as a parent of kids, and all the rest. After a highly embarrassing pause, the Alpha course instructor said that the Bible could be the only source of answers, and if there was no answer in the Bible, the question couldn’t be asked. Simple!
Is it possible that we are constrained in the same way by Buddhist teachings/teachers? If so many Buddhists believe in reincarnation, how come there’s precious little evidence of former lives? What prevents everyone from knowing directly that, “Yes, I was born with a cleft lip and palate/spina bifida/lethal chromosomal abnormality because I was a butcher/torturer/soldier in my past life, or because I spent hours as a boy with a catapult killing cats”. A clear recollection of such misdeeds in a former life would pretty soon straighten out the world, might it not?
Of course, it could be argued that that’s too easy, and life has to be hard and uncompromising because that’s good for us, and it wouldn’t be good if life wasn’t a struggle, liking fighting your way out of a padlocked sports-bag wearing handcuffs. A similar argument might be made for scrapping all education: “No, you kids are going to have to find everything out for yourselves from scratch. No books, no teachers, no schools, no nothing. You’re on your own. But there’s a tree over there. If you sit down under it and watch your breath, you’ll catch on eventually.”
So I do hope more contributors will follow Anantacitta’s example and begin to say “Boo!” to a few more dhammic geese. In a proper spirit of spiritual friendship, of course. Goes without saying!
Hi Anantacitta/all
The quotation ‘wise friendship’ is the whole of the holy life’ has always held appeal for me – and I like the emphasis that Buddhism places on the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. I’ve enjoyed reading the quotations about friendship from the Pali Canon, particularly the one about an admirable friend giving good counsel, cherishing us and being there for us in happiness and woe. In my own life there are certainly friends (with little knowledge of Buddhism) who I seek out when times are hard, as I can above all rely on them to be kind – without adding to it – or trying to ‘fix it’ – and as some others have pointed out – to be a little challenging if required.
For many years I have attended silent retreats at Gaia House, which I find invaluable, yet the downside is that I leave without having made much connection with the people I have been sitting with in silence – sometimes in brief snatched conversations before the taxi arrives I gain an appreciation of someone else’s struggles and wish we had more time to share our insights/experiences and then I’m gone, on the train back to Wales. Whilst I’m eternally grateful for my teachers, I recognise how helpful friendships with ‘peers’ are. I think we have a tendency to idealise teachers – not necessarily a bad thing, but not always helpful.
When I consider my reasons for communicating on this site, I guess my main motivation is to connect with others who share an interest in applying Buddhist thought and practice to everyday life, without feeling the need to adhere to particular beliefs – and without religious authority figures. As I’m sure I’ve said before it’s a new way of communicating for me – in public – and in writing – yet whilst I miss the chance to meet face to face, when I have had the energy to get involved in discussions, I’ve enjoyed clarifying my thoughts/understandings – with the help of others.
With regard to your comments Peter, I think my expectations about the connections that might – or might not – develop through becoming a member of this site are fairly modest. Whilst I think it is inevitable that the people we are most likely to turn to in times of tribulation are those with whom we have long-term, close and caring relationships, I can imagine that if I’m still (alive!) active on this site when I’m in my 70s – i.e. in 20 years time I may have forged some connections that help to support the creation of a friendly community based on the Guiding Principles, as suggested on the ‘About’ page.
Perhaps I could sum this up by saying that my life has provided me with a strong appreciation of suffering and I look for encouragement wherever I think I might find it – in Buddhist thought and practice, in all kinds of friendships, reading widely and of course in Radio 4…
Nina, i recall you having said that you had a group of meditators already. Or am i mixing you up with someone else. I found myself nodding at your description of your mixing with others on a buddhist retreat. Its a definite failing of retreats and a strength of buddhist centres.
Although the buddhist centre i go to is far away and i don’t really mix it with most of what goes on there, just before my teacher went away i was starting to feel out little group was really just starting to gel. We all exchanged emails so that we could catch up with each other from time to time if we wanted.
Hi Andrea – your recollection is accurate – around 8 years ago I started a sitting group in my house (loosely associated with Gaia House). We meet twice a month – I find the group an invaluable way of remembering – and supporting my intention to live more skilfully. I hope that your intention to stay in touch and support each other through emails works out. As I intimated above I think learning to live with ease in the midst of conditions is a huge challenge – and we ‘need’ all the help we can get (one of the things I like about Alain de Botton is his acknowledgement that we usually forget by the afternoon what seemed so vitally important in the morning – and thus on-going/structured reminders – which religious institutions seem to understand – are most welcome….)
Well said, Nina, and I agree with all you say. You may also agree that the connection made by sitting silently with others in meditation can perhaps be wider, deeper, more supportive and also more challenging than the conventional connection established through talking and sharing experiences that way. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course.
I worked for several years (as a nurse) with people who had no verbal language (they had never developed the faculty) and they limited understanding of ours (the staff who attended them). Sometimes a palpable tension grew in our small community, and – because those verbally mute people couldn’t describe their experience to us – it was largely through intuitive ‘guesswork’ that we puzzled out from their apparantly frustrated, angry or fearful behaviour what might be wrong.
In those circumstances we often found it helpful to stop verbalising amongst ourselves and to refrain from using language to present ourselves to the clients. So for an hour or so we were completely silent, communicating amongst ourselves only by nods, gestures and facial expressions.
Almost invariably the earlier tension subsided. A sense of solidarity and parity grew amongst us, and it was as if a stream of wordless meaning and knowing flowed through us. The atmosphere became light, clear and sensitive, although it did take people used to chatting and commenting a long time to get used to this unusual way of working, and to acknowledge its value.
Perhaps this was a value that the silent retreats were meant to teach: that silence needn’t isolate us from each other, it can connect us profoundly, but in an unaccustomed way, a healing way, a way to a different kind of knowing. This is just a tentative suggestion, by the way, I’ve no experience of silent retreat.
It’s idle of me to speculate on what social institutions will survive until 2032, and how interpersonal communication will take place then, if any of us are around to see it. From my own vantage point of 74 years, I can attest to a gradual but remorseless degradation of relationships over time: friends and family members die, and a process of dis-engagement seems to take place quite naturally, so that friendships and affiliations (even ties if kinship) become somehow ever more slender, without losing a certain resilience. Even my own relationship with my self is weakening, so that I look back on myself across the years with something like affectionate disbelief, and a little mercy.
One draws on one’s own inner resources, such as they are, and they seem to become more slender, more insubstantial somehow, and fewer too. But always enough to see us through perfectly well, even those who never heard a word of Buddhism spoken, or read a book, or discovered what religion stands for, if it stands for anything.
Best wishes to you and all readers.
Hi Peter
Thanks for your thoughtful response and good wishes – much appreciated.
Your account of how refraining from speech and sitting in silence with people without language, helps to dissipate tension, is moving and thought-provoking. I think on many occasions less speech and more silence would be helpful – talking often seems to be about ‘fixing’ things – trying to achieve some longed for yet unattainable certainty. I find silent retreats precious as they provide space for the wilder waves of the mind to settle (keep meaning to read Sara Maitland’s book about silence), and it would be great to be in a position where both silence and speech are easily accessible, for it not to be a question of one or the other. At times the counsel and affection of wise friends is invaluable.
Your description of relating to the remorseless passing of time and the loss of family, friends, and your own self, with some affection, resilience and a natural disengagement is reassuring. As I get older, I find myself speculating about how I will relate to the inevitable losses of life and wondering whether my adventures in Buddhism will lead to greater ease/acceptance, or at the very least to, as you write, see me through ‘perfectly well’…
Thanks for your own kindly comments, Nina, much appreciated too.
I mustn’t generalise my own experience of getting older to everyone else’s. But in bearing witness to my own, I’ve found that I speculate less, talk less (a bit less anyway) and acknowledge I’m wrong more as I get older. It’s nothing to do with anything I do or have done, or at least I don’t think it is. I don’t really think it’s much to do with Buddhist practice either – although I realise I’m speculating like mad now, so I’ll stop!
It just sort of happens. Maybe it’s like when sap stops reaching the leaves, and they begin to crinkle in readiness for autumn. Part of the natural cycle. I realise I’m dying: life is slowly withdrawing to move elsewhere. How wonderful!
Peter
Hi Peter – I appreciate your speculations – they chime in with my own – given that I’ve been involved to some extent or another with Buddhist thought and practice for almost half my life, I can’t help but wonder sometimes how much it has influenced my outlook and actions – of ‘body, speech and mind’ – in the end I’ve decided it’s impossible to tell, since all that I have thought/said/done/experienced inevitability informs who I am now… Maybe your growing ‘renunciation/restraint’ is a fruit of your practice – I certainly see a huge variety of responses to ‘aging, sickness and death’ – both genuinely awe inspiring acceptance and scarily painful resistance. I hope – as you eloquently describe it – that as I get older, I am able to appreciate the wonder of the natural cycle of life – I guess in truth that sense may come and go – just as moments of calm come and go in meditation, yet I suspect that experiencing a moment of genuine acceptance – even if only for a moment can have a profoundly transformative effect…