• We welcome news items from member organisations, and news from other sources of general interest to Buddhists.
• However, please note that submission of material does not guarantee publication.
• Copy should be submitted in a (text only) Word document attached to an e-mail addressed to
• One photographs may be included. If you wish to submit a photograph it should be in jpg format, resolution 72 pix/inch of maximum dimension 350 pix and attached to an email to stating clearly the article to which it refers. If the technicalities of this cause you a headache please email the webmaster for advice.

A meeting (Chaired by Mayor Councillor John Bateson) was held on 15th September 2009 at Kendal Fire Staion for religious representatives and local agencies. The meeting was organized by Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service Equality Officer Suzanne Pender and Westmorland General Hospital Chaplain Reverend Jayne Tyrer. Jacquetta Gomes and Duncan Fisher from BGKT helped.

The organizers are trying to make contact with representatives from other faiths and schools of Buddhism. If you think you can help, please contact  Rev Jayne Tyrer, the Chaplain at the Westmorland General Hospital on 01539 795419 or email jayne.tyrer@mbht.nhs.uk or you can contact the South Lakeland Interfaith Forum at slinterfaithforum@btinternet.com

Sacred texts and religious books were donated to Mayor Bateson for use by the citizens of Kendal and for use in the Kendal and Barrow Hospital Chaplaincies. The Mayor and Hospital Chaplain woudl be grateful for further donations of appropriate literature.

August 16th 2009

Dalai Lama "hopeful" China will change Tibet policy

The Tibetan spiritual leader says expect a change from China within five to ten years ~ read more here

THE VENERABLE CHAN MASTER SHENG-YEN A BRIEF OBITUARY
CHUAN-DENG JING-DI

By John Hurrell Crook

On February 3rd 2009 at 4:00pm Taiwan time, the Venerable Chan Master Sheng-yen, passed away peacefully at Dharma Drum Mountain Founder's Quarters in Taiwan thus bringing to an end the life of perhaps the most influential Chan (Zen) master of our generation. At centres all over the world, communities are mourning the loss of their Teacher -‘Shifu’. , Shifu’s health had been declining over the past 3 years. This rapid decline started from the time of the inauguration of the Dharma Drum Mountain World Centre for Buddhist Education, Taiwan, in late 2005, when Shifu received surgery to remove a non-functioning kidney, and the remaining kidney’s ability to function became very poor. Since then, he had been going through weekly dialysis and various other treatments, making his body very weak. Over the following two years, his health condition has had ups and downs, and remarkably, in mid to late 2008, Shifu had been noticeably stronger and able to give many lectures and attend many public events. However, in late December, a routine check-up at the hospital revealed a problem. Yet, Shifu kept on with his agenda. Shortly after, he was hospitalized and his health deteriorated rapidly. His condition looked grave. After a few days it took a turn for the better, and there was a visible improvement. Afterwards, Shifu continued to attend meetings and receive guests and also took a leave of absence from the hospital to visit the local Taipei monasteries and centres. Yet, soon his condition again deteriorated, fluctuating between good and bad. He returned to his home in the monastery that he had founded and passed away.

In 2006, Shifu published his autobiography in English carefully prepared by his closest disciples. Here we read of a man who, like His Holiness the Dalai Lama, always considered himself to be a simple monk but who has accomplished a remarkable renewal of Chinese Zen Buddhism in Chinese communities throughout the world and extended its teachings to the West.

His many books have augmented and corrected the earlier Western Zen understanding based on the previous contribution of Daisetz Susuki. Together with other masters such as Thich Nhat Hahn, Shinryu Suzuki and Jiyu Kennett, Shi fu has created a Zen renaissance world wide thereby continuing the work of that great reformer Master Hsu Yun of the twentieth century in China itself.

Sheng-yen was born in 1930 near the estuary of the Yangtze River. Floods destroyed his father’s lands and the family had to rely on a very small property and on fishing the river. This was a life of poverty soon to be made more difficult by the Japanese invasion of the area. As a boy, an old monk asked him whether he would like to be a monk. Although he had no idea what that meant, he grasped the opportunity and some time later went to school even while battles flamed around. Eventually he became a monk at a well-endowed monastery, Wolf Mountain, near Shanghai. Here he became enamoured with the Dharma with some insight into its significance. Soon however came more trouble and the eventual arrival of the communists. The monks, forced into poverty, kept going by offering funeral services in Shanghai. They received
no training. Finding the only way out, Sheng-yen eventually joined Chiang Kai Shek's nationalist army and was thus able to move to Taiwan.

In Taiwan after the usual military training, square bashing and so on, Sheng-yen became an officer in the Intellegence Corps. Although he had no understanding of the telegraphic material he was handling, the military would not let him resign his commission lest he betray national secrets. He began developing his practice in his spare time and visiting monasteries. Eventually he was able to go back to civilian life. On one occasion in desperation he sought the help of old Master Ling-yuan in whose helpful presence he relieved his mind and experienced ‘seeing the nature ‘ for the first time. Gradually he became known and, through working on a Buddhist magazine, eventually he joined a monastery mastered by the eminent monk Dong-chu who had previously been the Abbot of the famous Jian Shan Si ,a monastery on a riverine island in China. Don-chu taught him through vigorous confrontation, giving him pointless tasks to do testing his resolve and will. It was much like the ferocious way in which the Tibetan Marpa had taught Milarepa.

Shifu eventually undertook a six year solitary retreat in the mountains beginning with a long period of repentance leading into study, learning Japanese and developing a determination to study Buddhism at a university in Japan, there being no place of advanced Buddhist learning in Taiwan. He obtained his Doctorate at Rissho University but also undertook gruelling retreats in Japanese sesshins where his learning was ridiculed in true Zen style. He developed the wish to take Zen to the West but had his doubts because he knew no English. “Ha-,” said his Master“ Do you think Zen is taught by words?” Shifu found a sponsor and began teaching in Toronto and New York. But his sponsor was disappointed. Shifu had less English than he expected and other disappointments between them flourished. Eventually his friend C.T. Shen arranged for him to live at the Temple of Great Enlightenment in the Bronx, New York. Although Sheng-yen had the qualities of a Master, the temple treated him as a mere novice monk giving him only basic cleaning work to do. Yet again, C.T Shen stepped in and had him made Abbot. Gradually a few, then more westerners began coming to the monastery. Although Sokei-an Sasaki had taught Westerners mainly from the Platform Sutra in New York from the 1930s, Shifu was the first Chan master to teach Westerners Chinese Buddhism on the east coast of the USA .The only other teacher doing so at that time was Master Hsuan Hua over in California.

Then he was called back to Taiwan. Master Dong-chu needed help and it took time
before the arrangement whereby Shifu alternated between residence in Taiwan and in New York was established. When Shifu first returned to New York he felt he needed to live near the monastery rather than with his sponsor some way away. He had then to finance his own subsistence but, since he had no money, he elected to become a wanderer, sleeping on the streets, “nodding with the homeless through the night in coffee shops, foraging through dumpsters for fruit and vegetables.” For a man in his fifties, living this way in a New York winter was a hard life. Shifu has always said that living in this way was a training invaluably testing his resolve, ingenuity and determination. In any case, as he pointed out, his life had always been like that and
the self-discipline imposed by Don-chu's fierce training now came to his aid. Yet again, C.T Shen came to his aid finding places where Sheng-yen could teach and hold retreats. Gradually a Chinese community with some Westerners formed around him and in time they bought a small building on Corona Avenue in Elmhurst in Queens.

Although the present Meditation Centre on Corona is not in the same building, his presence in that area was established for many years. A pattern developed. Through his writings in Chinese and in English translation, he became known and through his personal charisma, Shifu grew into an influential figure in both Taiwan and New York. In Taiwan, he headed the Chung Hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies and also inherited Dong-chu’s monastery outside the capital. Donations flowed in and, given the economic success of Taiwan, the sums contributed were large. Shifu was able to obtain a large mountainous estate on which gradually a magnificent monastery has been constructed; now an architectural showpiece and a functioning Chan Centre and monastery complete with a seminary developing full university status. In New York, he likewise obtained a large estate in the Catskill hills thereby creating a meditation centre in the woods additional to the little monastery in Queens. However, it must be said, that Shifu’s poor English and his frequent absence from New York did not allow as effective a development of Chan among US Westerners as among Chinese in Taiwan.

It was during this period that I first went to New York to 'sit' in intensive retreat with
Shifu. He became interested in my own work in Britain and in the little centre I had created in Wales. After I had attended several retreats, he came over to Wales in 1989 and led the first of four retreats in Britain. My work with him developed into a close understanding and Shifu made me the first of his Western Dharma Heirs in 1993. I helped him lead retreats elsewhere, guest mastering for him in Berlin for example, but he was also developing retreats in Poland, Switzerland, Russia etc. This was a time therefore of increasing international involvement. As his name became known, he represented Chinese Buddhism at numerous conferences; in an important public dialogue with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, thereby healing a breach with Tibetan Buddhism that had lasted for centuries; and finally attended conferences of world religious leaders under the auspices of the United Nations.

Chan Master Sheng-yen had become an international figure. In his addresses to conferences, his approach was always one of complete sanity, carefully attuned to the world situation and presenting the Dharma in ways his fellow religious leaders could understand and to a degree accept.

For me, writing this, what I recall are his more personal traits. On retreats, he could be a hard taskmaster but always understood the limits to which he could drive the participants. It became clear that this approach was deeply compassionate. As he had been taught by Master Don-chu, confrontation with the ego is essential if wisdom is to sprout. In interview, he could appear as a warm friend, as a critical schoolmaster, as a father, or present a remote even chilling distance after which one spent hours struggling to understand. Sometimes there was a depth present that left one groping to follow after him. His death, to all those who had the great good fortune to be taught by him is a tragic loss but also an inspiration. His wisdom lives on in books, tapes and video and in institutions. It is now the task of his Dharma descendants to take up the roles he has left for us to occupy.

John Crook is the
Teacher of the Western Chan Fellowship.

Tony Blair Faith Foundation

I attended a meeting at the Tony Blair Faith Foundation offices in London last week. Representatives from Christian, Jewish and Moslem communities were present. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the Faiths Act Fellowships programme that the foundation are setting up and to see how those present could communicate this to their relevant faith groups. 

Some 30 fellowships are being offered to young people for one year, 10 from the US, 10 from Canada and 10 from the UK. The appointed fellows will be from a range of faiths and will work together on a project to end Malaria. 

The process to identify suitable young people starts now and applications are invited from all faith groups. This looks like an excellent opportunity to gain experience of working together on a worthwhile international
project. 

Full details can be found at http://tonyblairfaithfoundation.org/ 

Report filed by Activities Committee member Chris Ward 7th October 2008

H.H.Dalai Lama may not be well.

He has cancelled his schedule for the next three weeks.
If this is the case and any of you would like to make prayers for H.H. then you could do the long life prayer below. Many of you have made a special connection with him in Nottingham if you received the Vajrasattva so please offer your prayers. He is such a precious presence in the world.

LONG LIFE PRAYER FOR H.H. DALAI LAMA

GANG RI RA WEH KOR WAE SHING K'AM DE
In this paradise surrounded by the snowy mountains

P'EN TANG DEH WA MA LU JUNG WEA NEH
You are the source of all good and all happiness.

CHENREZIG WANG TEN DZIN GYA TSO YI
All powerful Chenrezig Tendzin Gyatso,

SHAB PEH SI T'AE BAR DU TEN GYUR CHIG
May you stay immovable until the possibilities of becoming are exhausted

From the Buddhist Group of Kendal

Ajahn Amaro Abbot of Abhayagiri (Forest Sangha) Buddhist Monastery (California) and Nick Scott (plant ecologist) recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of their 1983 walk between Chithurst Monastery in West Sussex and Harnham Monastery in Northumberland. They retraced their steps and met people they had met in 1983, including at the Buddhist Group of Kendal (Theravada).

The first walk is described in the book Tudong: the Long Road North (1984).

More information from www.abhayagiri.org

Interfaith Network Annual Conference, 30th June 2008

This year’s annual conference was held in the Glazier’s Hall beneath London Bridge. NBO’s delegates were Revd Modgala and Yann Lovelock, who have compiled this report. Also attending was Ven. Seelawimala, the new Primate of the Sri Lankan Sangha in Britain, who was so impressed by the glasswork on display that he made enquiries about the possibility of a stained glass Buddha for the Chiswick Vihara.

The general theme of the conference was “Face to Face and Heart to Heart”, a variation on the title of the consultation paper on interfaith dialogue (Face to Face and Side by Side), and anticipating the launch of the resulting Government Interfaith Strategy on 21 July. Below are notes on the morning and early afternoon presentations.

• Talk 1: Valuing Dialogue – Harriet Crabtree, Director, Inter Faith Network
  News of work done in various groups encouraging dialogue so as to understand differences and disagreements while also finding common ground. Aims are to have equivalent and just dialogue to build a positive, respectful society. There have been new initiatives at all levels and explorations of different forms of partnership. IFN’s “Soundings” initiative will look at patterns of involvement and at groups not in membership, including non-religious belief groups. This will address anxieties about inequalities in dialogue in the changing social and legal landscape (a theme also addressed in the AGM).
• Talk 2: Dimensions of Dialogue – Dr Nawal K Prinja, Vishwa Hindu Parishad; IFN Co-Chair
  Dr Prinja spoke about how flawed media accounts of faith matters are so we need more direct dialogue. Hinduism stresses unity within diversity. “Issues need to be tackled with sensitivity” so that we can live with eternal and natural laws. The current ongoing Hindu-Jewish dialogue is inspired by how the Jewish community provided a role model of how to integrate into the social, economic and political system without losing their own religious/social identities.
• Talk 3 David Gifford - CEO Council of Christians and Jews
  Second oldest interfaith initiative in the UK. Dialogue is about learning and building relationships. The journey is the most important so it’s best not to jump in at the deep-end and not to have a one-sided agenda. Remember we all come from a particular perspective, so start where we are. And guard against being too cerebral.
• Talk 4 Sughra Ahmed - Advisor, Women in Faith; Research Fellow, Islamic Foundation
  The Women in Faith Network aims to encourage predominantly young Muslim women to engage in interfaith activities via a broad-ranging course. There were challenges both in confidence and practicalities like child care and safety. Found a need to go slow and think long term. Also to have practical support and encouragement of participants: a major key is to make them feel important and to feed the growing faith that they can do the work.
• Talk 5 Dialogue on the menu - Stella Opoku-Owusu, IFN Project Officer
  This pre-lunch talk focused on how different interfaith group initiatives used food as a focus to bring people of all ages together via picnics, community meals, family twinning, formal settings and classroom learning.
• Talk 6 Young People and Dialogue – “Shared Futures project”
  Susan Moss introduced the project, which brings together pupils from single faith schools and engages them in many different forms of interaction as well as training teachers in how to handle situations and building friendships between teachers so they could help and advise each other. Two participants, Jasdeep Singh Degun and Ushna Moghal, showed slides and talked with great enthusiasm about the work of the Yorkshire & Humber Youth Interfaith Council. They looked at issues of faith and identity, justice and discrimination, that they learnt about from living with people of other faiths. They were doing this “for the benefit of all our communities”.

Workshops followed on a range of issues, facilitated by various members of the Executive. Themes here included The Art of Dialogue; Dialogue in Public Life; Reasons for (and against) Engaging in Dialogue; Faith Communities and Dialogue; Young People and Dialogue; From Joint Action to Understanding; A Practical Dialogue on the Environment. Each of these chose one over-riding conclusion to bring to the plenary session. A fuller report of all points raised will be sent to members later.

During the late afternoon AGM, some 15 new local interfaith groups were voted into membership. Among the 38 members voted onto the Executive were Ven. Seelawimala and Yann Lovelock as Buddhist representatives. It was reported that discussion concerning the widening of faith affiliation had been ongoing in the Executive during 2008 and the Director had also talked to the UK Pagan Alliance, which had been pushing for admission. IFN’s lawyers had been consulted about the implications of the new equalities legislation and it seemed that a wholesale rewriting of some parts of the constitution may be necessary. Meanwhile a mechanism for admission of new members requiring 75% agreement by the Network’s voting membership at an AGM was passed without opposition. 

NEW DIRECTOR FOR THE INTER FAITH NETWORK

Since it was founded in 1987, the Inter Faith Network UK has had Brian Pearce as its Director. He has now announced that he will be retiring in September and the Executive has taken the decision to promote the present Deputy Director, Harriet Crabtree, to his place.

Harriet Crabtree grew up in Yorkshire and Sussex and read theology at the University of London. During the 1980s she lived in the United States, where she went as a Fulbright scholar. She did her masters degree and doctorate in theology at Harvard Divinity School, living and working as a lecturer for a number of years at the Centre for the Study of World Religions.
In 1990 she returned to the UK to become IFN’s Deputy Director. Soon after this, her doctoral thesis was published as The Christian Life: Traditional Metaphors and Contemporary Theology (Fortress Press, Minneapolis1991) and she edited (with John Horton) Toleration and Integrity in a Multi-Faith Society (University of York, 1992). During 2003, Dr Crabtree was also responsible for the research and writing on the local inter faith project which resulted in the two publications - Local Inter Faith Activity in the UK: A Survey and Partnership for the Common Good: Inter Faith Structures and Local Government.

As part of her work she represented IFN on the 'Lambeth Group' which advised Government and others on the religious aspects of the Millennium celebrations and helped create the Shared Act of Reflection and Commitment by the Faith Communities of the UK which took place at the Houses of Parliament on 3 January 2000, an event at which Dr Vajiragnana represented Buddhists as IFN’s Co-Vicechair.

In 2002 Dr Crabtree worked on behalf of the Network to advise on the religious aspects of the Golden Jubilee and, with the Golden Jubilee Office, to arrange the Golden Jubilee Young People's Forum which brought 80 young people of different faiths together at St James' Palace in June 2003 to discuss faith and service to the community. Currently she is one of the Commissioners preparing a report for the Government on Cohesion and Integration.

An Anglican, she is a member of a number of initiatives, such as the Christian Socialist Movement and the Fawcett Society, which campaign for social justice.

The Interfaith Network was founded with the co-operation and support of the late Ven. Vajiragnana, who also held office on its Executive and as its Co-Vice Chair. Our own Network of Buddhist Organisations has been a member of IFN for the last decade and its Interfaith Co-ordinator is elected to the IFN Executive as its Buddhist representative.

It is our pleasure, therefore, to congratulate Harriet on her promotion and to wish her success as IFN’s new Director when she takes over this autumn.

VENERABLE MYOKYO-NI, 1921-2007

Born Irmgard Schloegl in Austria, she obtained a PhD in Natural Sciences from Graz University before joining the Zen Group at the Buddhist Society under Christmas Humphreys in 1950.

In 1960 she went to Japan and trained at Daitoku-ji monastery for twelve years under Sesso Roshi and, after his death, under his successor Sojun Kannun Roshi. In 1966 she returned to England for nine months, during which time she started a small Zazen Group at the Buddhist Society which continued until she returned permanently in 1972. The Zen Group grew in size until the Zen Centre was formally established in 1979. During this period she was living at Humphreys' residence, which was later bequeathed to the Zen Centre, eventually being inaugurated as Shobo-an, the main administrative location and training temple of the Zen Centre.

In 1984, she was ordained by Soko Morinaga Roshi, who had been head monk at Daitoku-ji during her time there. The ordination took place at Chithurst Forest Monastery at the invitation of Ajahn Sumedho, and she was given the name Myokyo-ni. She was the author of a number of books on Zen and Buddhism, including a translation of The Zen Teaching of Rinzai (Linji).

In his letter of condolence on behalf of NBO, Jamie Cresswell wrote

“Ven. Myokyo-ni was one of those pioneering women connected with the Buddhist Society who went to practice in Japan at a time when Buddhism was barely established as a practised religion in the UK. It was thanks to her, and the very few like her, that future generations found the vision to translate their interest in the faith into practice and even to dedicate their lives wholly to it by entering an order. The benefit of this example has therefore spread far wider than Zen practitioners. Either directly or indirectly, the majority of those practising Buddhism in this country today have been influenced by it .We are in her debt and remember her life with gratitude and respect.”