I’m currently spending a month on self-retreat at the Buddhist Retreat Centre in Ixopo, Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa. It’s off the beaten Dhamma track of America, Europe and Asia, but that’s one of the reasons I come here. The Centre occupies about 300 acres of hill in the rural backcountry and is the most beautiful retreat centre I have come across in over 40 years of teaching. One admirable touch is the way that the centre honours the location, with its traditional thatch-roofed 'rondavels', and by offering work to local villagers - as well as through the support it gives to a social welfare organization working with AIDS orphans.
I’ve been coming here since 1985 to teach – they need some support, and I’m an 'off the track' kind of person – and since then that mission has grown to include two other centres Dharmagiri and Emoyeni (and there are other places that I don't cover). They're even further off the track. And that makes it interesting. Things are fresh, and for sure there's enough suffering in South Africa to satisfy anyone's need to teach the Dhamma. Crucially, there's also enough faith for people to come, listen and practise.
The quality of faith, as well as the material foundation of Buddha-Dhamma in South Africa, is on account of a few remarkable pioneers. In the case of the BRC, this means Louis van Loon who opened the place in the early 1980s. Louis was born in the Netherlands in 1935, but came out to South Africa after the Second World War on a migration scheme that offered free passage and 50 guilders to people to leave the Netherlands and seek their fortune overseas. Louis established himself as an award-winning architect. In the late 60’s he was working in Sri Lanka and became grievously sick, so sick that he didn’t know whether he was going to make it. Lying on a mattress soaked with his own sweat and in a semi-delirious state, he made a vow that if he could get through this illness, he'd dedicate his life to doing something for the peace and well-being of human beings. A vision arose of a hill rain-swept hill, that’s all. He recovered, returned to South Africa and with this vision in his mind felt he should start looking for property. Based in Durban, he started scanning newspapers for property, and found that there was an old farm going up for sale out in the backcountry. So he jumped in his car, picked up the estate agent and drove out there. It was pouring with rain as they drove up an overgrown and muddy dirt track and stopped at a barbed-wire fence. The estate agent pointed through the windscreen and said 'It's out there.’ Louis got out of the car, peered through the rain and dense mist and heard an inner voice say 'This is it. You've come home.''I’ll take it', he said.
That was 1969. For the next eleven years he put his own money and labour into clearing the land, building huts, a meditation hall, a stupa, accommodation, kitchen and so on to establish a Buddhist retreat centre. In a fundamentalist Calvinist culture, this itself was a leap. Then he started looking round for teachers and invited various monks and teachers .... In 1984, an invitation was made to our sangha, and Ajahn Anando, one of the original group who accompanied Luang Por Sumedho to the UK, was sent. He ended up extending his stay to help Louis sculpt a 5 metre high Buddha-image that now presides over the Centre. I came along in 1985 to install relics in the Buddha's head and consecrate the site. Now the BRC is an established Dhamma-refuge and an accredited wildlife sanctuary – but struggling to make ends meet. The world! While hostility, distraction and consumerism remain popular and rake in millions, it's often the case that Dhamma centres with their incalculable offerings and blessings barely get by .... However, Louis heading into his 89th year, is living his last years in contentment. Sadhu, Louis, anumodana!
To take another example: George Sharp was working in London as a commercial artist working in advertising. Stressed. Depressed. Drinking. More depressed. One day sitting in a subway train his eyes looked out the window and saw a poster saying 'Meditation' ... that led him to a small tenement house in Hampstead ( a 'Buddhist Vihara') and a thin man in robes sitting at a desk who looked up and said 'Yes?' George said, ‘I’d like to die please.’ The bhikkhu (his name was Kapilavaddho) said ‘I think we can help you. Come along this evening, I’m giving a talk.’ So George went along to a teaching on dependent origination that mostly went straight over his head – but at the end of it he said to Ven. Kapilavaddho that as far as he could understand it, what the bhikkhu was saying was that this self that’s causing so many problems doesn’t actually exist. ‘Yes’, said Ven. Kapilavaddho,'That’s about it.'
Intrigued, George became a committed meditator and supporter, and soon was the Secretary of the Trust that supported the Vihara. Ven. Kapilavaddho was already in his 70s, rather frail, and pretty soon disrobed. But after meditating all night, George came to the resolution that he would somehow dedicate his life to fulfilling what Ven. Kapilavaddho had envisioned: the establishment of a native monastic sangha in Britain. People said it couldn’t be done ... But after a few more auspicious events ( an American bhikkhu called Sumedho happened by, a woodland in West Sussex was donated, and George spent the Trust's funds on purchasing a derelict house on first glance – in the rain as usual) ... And so Cittaviveka, the first forest monastery in the West, was born.
Many pioneers – explorers and inventors – fail; many give and lose their lives. But in terms of the human spirit, it’s the risk-taking jump in the dark with nothing more than wholesome intention and resolve that is kept alive and strengthened. This is how Dhamma was established in the world: the Awakened One, who had not yet even formulated a teaching, picked up his bowl and began a walk through the suffering world that meant offering teachings until his dying breath some 45 years later. Most of us who have Gone Forth, especially into cultures where Buddhism isn't established, draw inspiration from that example and attempt to follow it.
The mindful exert themselves. They are not attached to any home; like swans that abandon the lake, they leave home after home behind. (Dhammapada 91).
As in the example of Louis or George, or a hundred other pioneers of the spirit, the leap of faith is not limited to samanas. It is an aspect of heart that is innate in human beings; and this is why the pioneer, the one Gone Forth, attracts those with a little dust in their eyes. But the Buddha as pioneer, added a further string to his bow: with no office, secretariat, or infrastructure, he established management among a group of anarchic wandering recluses. That is, despite personally moving through the labyrinth of the human mind, despite presenting teachings that would direct a varied range of people to do the same (for over 2,500 years and across the world), he said that his work was not complete until he had encouraged the growth of the 'Four-Fold Assembly' (male and female renunciants and householders) to supervise his Dhamma-Vinaya. Yes, the Dhamma-Vinaya was to be the teacher after the Buddha's passing, but the well-practising community was to be the custodian of the Dhamma-Vinaya.
Management and pioneering don't generally fit together very well. Pioneers are strong, sometimes stubborn, individuals; management requires co-operation and moderation of ideals to fit reality. But the Buddha was, as usual, one-pointed in this respect. After his passing there was to be no leader, no patriarch or king, just collective management. Any sangha was conjoined to meet frequently, begin the meeting in harmony, conduct business in harmony and conclude in harmony. Ethical standards were always the number one priority. Complaints and invitations from the householders, and points of conflict and controversy among the samanas were to be addressed – but measured against the standard of 'not abolishing what has been laid down and not creating new rules.' Proposed adaptations that depend on a majority agreement can take a great deal of patience.
However, when one reflects on other ways in which human collectives are managed, this Buddhist standard remains a pioneering example. Management requires authority, authority handles power, and power is a heady drug. In the political arena, a powerful leader may be elected, or it may be one of these staged elections – but basically ... if you want to be a leader you need megabucks and all kinds of connections with a corporate world to fund and support you (who will expect your favour), and it helps if you have a massive ego, and are prepared to tell comforting lies. Much the same can be said for the business world - it's OK to undercut and crush smaller businesses, and deal in products that are detrimental to the environment and even to the people who purchase them. Ethics are not on the agenda. Such management leads to the desert, or even the graveyard, of the human spirit.
Management is powerful. Therefore the authority that accrues to the monastic Sangha is to be carefully oriented around a strong ethical and renunciant core. Inner strength is needed because the teachings attracts human energy, and that exposes the Sangha to worldly pressure. The Buddha numbered kings and merchants among his followers, and they supported monasteries. So, throughout history, wealth and power have washed over the Sangha – and swept away those who have been corrupted by it. Yet without well-established monasteries, how would the teachings have reached the lay community? How would texts been standardised and transmitted? For sure, corruption has occurred, and probably always will where wealth and renown accrue; hence the Buddha's exhortation on proper management details personal responsibility: ‘as long as they do not fall prey to desires which arise in them and lead to rebirth … ; as long as they are devoted to forest lodgings …; as long as they preserve their personal mindfulness... [the Sangha] may be expected to grow and not decline.'
Management that prioritizes ethics, cooperation and faith over convenience, progress and gains takes an ongoing pioneering effort. But the spirit finds its way. How the Dhamma community responded to the lockdown phase of the Covid era. How teachers and institutions just started reaching out to offer support, talks, even retreats online, all at no fee. Most, if not all, of them went into financial crisis, some barely made it, some, like BRC, are still trying to get back to financial health. We just get by, and that seems about right.
In my situation at Cittaviveka, I'd heard of online teaching, but felt that this was not for me. How can I teach a screen? If no-one is there, where do I get the signs from the listener that guides what and how to teach? But first the Abbot asked me...and then a devoted upāsikā in Singapore reached out with her Zoom room – and within three days I was online. And haven't looked back. The culmination of a series of online sessions were the global retreats, whereby upāsikās and upāsakas across the planet, mostly having never even met before, joined together to form a support network. This tackled the problem of time differences through a group of volunteers in Singapore and Malaysia offering the room and the technical nous, and a cluster of people up in Ireland and America keeping the whole thing together, even loading recorded talks onto a Google Drive folder so that those who could not be present could tune in when they woke up in their own location. The first of these retreats gathered 540 people into a Dhamma-occasion; three more followed. It was exhausting, heartful and wonderful: great Dhamma practice, great management.
Although the world is more highly managed than ever before, it's remote management and remote service. If you go to Pietermaritzburg, Kwa-Zulu Natal or Pittsburgh, Ohio you see the same franchises, the same shopping malls and the same styles of clothing. Place doesn't count. Looking for a service, one is directed to a website which promises support if you download this and subscribe to that... after which you may well-receive a message such as 'Support not available for this product, a newer model can be purchased here',' or 'No-one is available to receive your call, please try again.' Who knows the conditions under which those goods were produced? How about the pay the workers received? Who knows? The message and reality is that 'No one is here.' Meanwhile state control, and surveillance by parties unknown and unaccountable promise security. But megatons of bombs, missile and drones have not provided that; just an increase in the use of bombs, missiles and drones and the perpetuation of the astounding belief that this strategy is inevitable, necessary and conducive to peace. People take to the streets in protest, but no-one's listening. They're not here..
So in such a cynical, confused and deceitful age, the pioneering spirit means keeping the human spirit alive. It doesn’t mean not having a place to live; it does mean abandoning fixed securities and the longing for certainty that hobbles initiative. It's about being prepared to step out of the socially constructed identity to ask the big questions that mortality and the miracle of being alive present. ‘Where are we going, and how?’
The BRC arranged for a taxi to collect me at Durban airport; there is no public transport. The Zulu driver opened the back door for me to get in, but I chose the front seat. It's his country; I make myself available. He looked life-worn and tired, but after a few minutes of silence, opened the conversation. His name was Prince. As he spelled out in his own earthy terms, things aren't good. A growing number of people are disillusioned with the ANC (the ruling party. 'They're just looking after themselves, not the country. It was better before (in the apartheid era)'. I've heard this before, but it's still difficult to swallow. Recently Durban had no water supply for four days. On highways busy with trucks, we pass by the usual high-density clusters of tin-roofed single story huts. No roads in the settlement, just footpaths. Kids running around, laundry flapping on the fences. Prince asks about me, and I talk about life in the monastery: everything shared, guests come to stay, no fees. No lying, no fighting. 'Come and live here,' says Prince, 'More people should live like you.'
It's all familiar and sad; another pioneering movement that lost its way. We take a back road, then a dirt track and get to the BRC. The Centre has maintained its ethos through apartheid, the bloody conflicts between Inkatha and ANC, and the AIDS epidemic, and is still managing as South African infrastructure and optimism sag under corporate criminality. We climb out of the car and I give Prince a hug; he responds with a big smile. Sometimes it seems that's all one can do. It's good to be here.
*See Buddhist Retreat Centre for details.
