Latest news from the Preceptors' College

 Moksananda writes with news of the recent meeting of Triratna’s College of Public Preceptors, saying “A little later than normal, here is a brief report on our last meeting. We met in November 2010 at Madhyamaloka. Subhuti was with us for the first few days and shared his thoughts coming out of recent conversations he has had with Bhante on the Imagination. We covered similar material to his talks in Cambridge and at the LBC, and which he has written up in his paper ‘Re-Imagining the Buddha’. Amongst other things we spent some time exploring the implications for Sadhana practice, which is something that Subhuti particularly draws out.

“We also discussed meditation, especially with regard to the ordination process. In the Order we now seem to be arriving at a renewed understanding of meditation and we would like to build on that in our communication with others. We began by simply identifying areas of meditation we think need more discussion or clarification and how we could proceed. We want to make sure that meditation continues to go hand-in-hand with the teaching of the Dharma at Centres, and not become divorced from ethics and wisdom. We’re suggesting that a working group on meditation come out of the planned International Assembly meeting. We would like Order members representing the three strands of the Order, the Movement and the College to come together to look at coordination in meditation and to talk through the issues.

“We are also keen to continue to work with private preceptors, not only in the area of clarifying meditation but also with regards ordination and post-ordination training generally. Private preceptors are in important kalyanamitrata relationships with Order members and their role is essential to the spiritual dynamism of our community. We have a number of training retreats planned for private preceptors next year, and would like to have a large retreat with public and private preceptors in 2012.

“We also talked about the ordination process in India. The men and women’s process there are seriously under-resourced in terms of preceptors and it seems essential that consultation processes for new preceptors, especially public, are started. We agreed to do so, at the same time aware that there are different points of view in India about what is needed for the ordination process to develop. We see consultation regarding new preceptors as a means of also discussing and clarifying such issues.

“Another area to which we gave some time was the area of sexual ethics within kalyanamitra relationships in our community, including the whole range of such relationships: preceptor/preceptee, retreat leaders, class leaders. We recognised that this is a complex and sensitive issue and one that needs further thought and discussion.

“A number of further points were on our agenda, which we gave more or less time to. These included changes to FWBO Central - now renamed the Triratna Preceptors College Trust - which holds central assets of the movement such as Madhyamaloka. There is a plan for a change in the structure of FWBO Central ensuring that the College is legally responsible for the assets it is morally responsible for.

“College funding was also on the agenda, and we decided to partially support a professional fund-raiser, who will also be working for the European Chairs’ Assembly. We also had an update on the Sangharakshita Land Project, discussed 7-year reviews (with a number of us coming up for review in 2011/12), and looked at our policy on Order names and concerns that the scholars have raised about ensuring their grammatical correctness.

“We also, of course, had time together in our kulas, or small groups. These are the working units for deciding on ordinations, on private preceptor consultation and reviews, and gives a smaller context for each of us to share our work and concerns. There are 5 kulas at present. Men and women in the ordination process, and Order members themselves, may not be aware of which public preceptors are working together in this way, so I thought it might be useful to list the kulas:

- India: Chandrasil, Suvajra, Karunamaya, Srimala and Subhuti
- two men’s Kulas: Manjuvajra, Padmavajra, Satyaraja, Saddhaloka, Surata and Moksananda in one, and Dhammarati, Sona, Nagabodhi, Buddhadasa, Mahamati, Kamalashila in the other.
- a women’s kula: Dhammadinna, Dayanandi, Parami, Maitreyi, Ratnadharini, Sanghadevi, Padmasuri, Mallika, Vajragita
- a South pacific women’s kula: Varadevi, Dharmanandi, Megha, Ratnadharini, Parami and Sanghadevi.
Some public preceptors may be in more than one Kula if they have overlapping responsibilities.

“Our next meeting will be in March 2011 at Padmaloka. You can also follow us via our blog, available at http://preceptorscollege.blogspot.com.

Preceptors College elect Chair and deputies

Parami, a member of Triratna’s Preceptors’ College, writes to say -

ELECTION OF CHAIR AND DEPUTY CHAIRS OF COLLEGE OF PUBLIC PRECEPTORS

"I am delighted to announce that at the November meeting of the College of Public Preceptors, Dhammarati was elected as Chair for another 5 year period. Padmasuri and Saddhaloka were elected as deputy chairs. An Indian deputy chair will be elected at a later date. There will be a report from the meeting available in January".

Dharmacharini Anagarika Parami

The College of Public Preceptors is a body of some thirty senior members of the Triratna Buddhist Order, all of whom are actively working to help men and women around the world prepare for ordination. Their website is at www.preceptorscollege.org and you can read short biographies of many of the College at www.preceptorscollege.org/about/who.php

Moksananda writes with news of the recent meeting of Triratna's College of Public Preceptors at Taraloka .  The College is a body of senior members of the Order, responsible for overseeing ordinations, helping men and women move towards joining, and performing the public ordination themselves.

It’s clear that their gatherings are far more than simply a meeting - Moksananda concludes his report by saying

“A report on the recent meeting of the College of Public Preceptors' sounds so prosaic, doesn't it? Couldn't I be allowed to call them 'Dispatches from the Edge of the World', or 'Glimmers of a Glacier'?  Or maybe just this once, ‘Birdcall from the Realm of Tara’?”

He goes on to explain the idea that the meeting might best be called 'Glimmers of a Glacier', saying “some of us watched 'Encounters at the End of the World' by Werner Herzog. The documentary is about people who spend half the year living in the Antarctic, mainly eccentric scientists and travellers who like to discuss such things as the beginnings of evolution or cosmic energies that permeate all things. A pretty wacky, but somehow very inspired and positive bunch of men and women. In some ways, not unlike a few of the public preceptors I thought…”

Among many other things they discussed the principles for making communication and decision-making within the Order and movement more effective; also  mitra study (and the need to perhaps strengthen some elements in the course), the Sangharakshita land project (the visions behind it and how it's going), the changing of the name of the Order and movement to Triratna, young people and how we can encourage them in the ordination process, and preceptor reviews.  India was on the agenda, as was fundraising and the need to find a more effective and long-term means of finding funding for the work of the College. 

You can read his report on the College blog here http://preceptorscollege.blogspot.com/2010/04/report-on-recent-meeting-of-college-of.html.

Preceptors College reports on plans for 2010

Moksananda from the Preceptors' College writes with news of their plans for 2010 - including an appeal to support a part-time Secretary to the College.

The Preceptors' College are the body of senior men and women responsible for all ordinations into the Western Buddhist Order - collectively looking after the ordination requests of over 1500 men and women - not including as many again in India! So they need and deserve a bit of our support!

He says -

“ Most preceptors, public and private, just donate their time; they’re not supported to be preceptors. To be able to connect to thousands of men and women around the world, we do however need to support the chair and a part-time administrator of the college. This year we would also like to begin to provide the chair of the college with part-time secretarial support.

“We also help to bring public preceptors from India and Australasia to our meetings in the UK. It is an important link that keeps our Order and movement spiritually unified.

“To do all this we need to find £20,000 per annum. It’s not a lot, but we need to raise it. We have no ongoing funding apart from what we can raise from men and women who have asked for ordination and a few Order members who generously support us.

“If you have asked for ordination and live in Europe you should be receiving a letter from me soon, asking for your support in 2010. However, I thought I'd post something here too. Just in case there is anyone else out there who would like to contribute!

“Your financial support will make a real difference to how well we can do this work.

“In 2009 we set out to raise £15,000, and finally raised a total of £12,257. That's fantastic! I have written to nearly all our supporters thanking them for supporting us in 2009. There are a few, however, who I have not been able to track down. If that's you, then please be assured that all of us in the College really want to thank everyone who donated, whether by standing order or one-off donations. People contributed from the UK, Europe, and from Australia and New Zealand too. We have the beginnings of a worldwide community to support the work of the college.

“This year we hope we can build on that growing support and reach our new target of £20,000 - this is so that we can support a part-time secretary for Dhammarati, the College’s Chair. Please, help us to help those who wish to commit themselves to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and be Ordained into the Western Buddhist Order.

“You can find more about our work, including details of who is supported, and information on how to contribute, on our website www.preceptorscollege.org. Alternatively, skip straight to our JustGiving page at www.justgiving.com/publicpreceptorscollege2010!

“Many thanks.

Moksananda

Public Preceptors' meeting - report now out

The College of Public Preceptors is the body of senior members of the Western Buddhist Order charged with overseeing ordinations into the Order.

It currently has about 30 members, most of whom meet twice a year to discuss everything connected with their work – in practice, a very wide range of topics indeed!

They are keen to communicate what they can of their discussions to a wider audience, and have recently posted an account of November’s meeting on their blog. They say -

"We’d like our thinking to be more widely and easily available in the movement. At present our main way of communicating our thoughts and discussions is through retreats, talks and seminars and we'd like to make some of this material more widely available. For the time being we plan to do this through the college website and blog and will hopefully be adding more material over the coming months".

Among other things, the discussions addressed the appointment of Parami as a second International Order Convenor; Order Members and mitras going to other Buddhist teachers; the structure of the Preceptors’ College; training for Preceptors; fundraising for the College; and issues surrounding the topic of domestic violence. Finally some time was spent with Padmavajra in study of some teachings of Geshe Drom, Atisha's main disciple, from 'The Door of Liberation'.

A major topic, in addition to the above, was coherence in the Order and movement. they say -

"A regular topic of discussion in the College is that of maintaining the balance between diversity and unity in our work together, and how we can help the movement and Order to do likewise. This time we particularly focused on the aspect of coherence and wanted to look at the college's role in contributing to coherence and unity in the movement as a whole. Bhante has said recently that he thinks coherence in the movement is threefold: doctrinal, practice based and social...."

Their main website is at www.preceptorscollege.org , which gives a broad outline to their work - plus a 'who's who' of the College.