Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 S E C O N D M O O N 06There are also large-scale meetings: a hundred years or so after the deathof the Buddha, a Sangha Council met at Vaishali to come to a agreementover some matters of discipline, and this, which has subsequently beencalled “The Second Buddhist Council,” continued a tradition of largescalemeetings on such matters that has gone on ever since (the Sixthwas in 1954). So despite the fact that gaining support from establishedsecular powers throughout Asia has rendered the Sangha vulnerable tothe corruptions of wealth and power, wherever there is a teaching anda training in accordance with the “seven principles,” a Sangha communitymanifests in an authentic way.The Vinaya training was something that I was particularly consciousof and grateful for, having spent the first couple of years as a bhikkhuwith very little understanding of Sangha life. Ajahn Sumedho, whom Isubsequently met by chance in Northern Thailand, had on the otherhand received a superb spiritual education from the forest master VenerableAjahn Chah, and it showed in terms of patience, kindness, andthe ability to let go—things much easier said than done. Our paths hadcrossed again when I returned to England and found him carrying outthe traditional bhikkhu training in a town house in London. Strangelyenough the Vinaya made even more sense there; outside of a Buddhistculture, if you don’t fully understand the aims of the training, life as abhikkhu seems a meaningless anachronism. You lose perspective onwhat the symbol of the renunciant stands for and brings into theworld. Most bhikkhus who have not cultivated the discipline reflectivelygo off the rails or disrobe when coming to the West, and I gotpretty close myself. If it had not been for Ajahn Sumedho’s example,I would never have developed the scope of my practise beyond that ofmeditation exercises. But the Buddha taught a complete way of life.The Vinaya’s steady light had made it possible to live this uncertain lifeas a pilgrimage; now it was guiding us around the Buddha’s land: thescrupulousness, the renunciation, and the fellowship that it engenderedwere the reason and the means whereby I came to be here. Vinaya1 5 2