[Buddha-l] Jinapanjaram

[Joy Vriens]

Erik,

> I hope the project will succeed, that would be very refreshing. I
> started a general Buddhist centre in the 80-ies, and saw that it fell
> apart in different groups after a few years, even before I left.

Yes, and if one listens to the Buddha or simply sees for oneself that
seems to be the usual fate for anything gathering. At the moment we
have three different permanent groups and that is functioning quite
well at the moment, since people mix and participate in the activities
of the others, which is not that common for different schools of
Tibetan Buddhism. But for that, we did have to separate from a Tibetan
lama, who was trying to impose his mark too much and who didn't
consider the visits of "non-Mahayana" Buddhists favourably. Apart from
that, we have very regular visits of a Cambodgian monk, the venerable
Bou Samyos, who is an extraordinary personality. He comes closest to
what I imagine a bodhisattva to be. So "Polytheism" looks like the key
to success.


> The problem is how to become selfsufficient and one method
> might be to give courses and treatments in stressmanagement and
> psychotherapy.

We do have the usual courses of yoga, qi kong for extra income. I
personally am less happy with an alternative form of psychotherapy
that one of the members offers and wouldn't welcome stressmanagement
either. Lifestyle is important and especially in Buddhism, which aims
to remove the causes of stress, rather than teaching tricks how to
better cope with stress. Forms of Buddhism that want to stick as
closely as possible to the hectic modern lifestyle (thus apparently
cautioning it) don't appeal to me. But that's me.

Joy