Goodbye
Āloka, our teacher; what Buddhism can teach us about the world we have
I have not been able to write much
recently. I have been caught in the busy trappings of life; working, renovating
a kitchen and spending time with my family over the summer. So it seemed apt to
me to take some time to stop and reflect on the death of a very important
person and Buddhist teacher; Āloka David Smith.
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| Āloka David Smith 1946 - 2015 |
Āloka David Smith attained awareness
in 1981 and went on to found and lead the Dharmamind
Buddhist group. It is through a Dharmamind group in Nailsworth, Stroud, that I
came in to contact with Āloka and his teaching; I feel that I owe him a great
debt for his teachings. Āloka’s teaching focused on practicing Buddhism ‘in the
body’ and reintegrating the body and mind. Āloka advocated a practice that was
simple, yet so difficult, in it’s method of ‘just sitting in open awareness’
(with no breathing techniques etc in meditation) and achieving a connection
with your true awareness, or Buddha nature, through a process called ‘silent
illumination’.
Although I am an atheist, I would
also describe myself as a Buddhist and Buddhism is very important in shaping my
thoughts about how we should approach the world and how/why to ‘be green’.
I could get in to a long complex
debate about how you can be a ‘Buddhist Atheist’ but this isn’t really the
space to do that. It is simpler for me to say that most importantly Buddhism is
about ‘being in the here and now’ and it does not matter if there is a god or
not. Maybe there is and maybe there isn’t. In this context though, what really
matters is that you spend your time in the present moment wherever you can. I
see Buddhism as being very practical and worldly, whilst at the same time
giving a greater sense of interconnectivity with all living things. This interconnectivity,
the combination of all things, far outweighs our own significance… some sort of
essence that in order to encapsulate it in a word, you might call it ‘God’!
A
very brief and very
simple breakdown of Buddhism
Buddhism has been about for over
2,600 years and has since its inception purportedly delivered thousands of
individuals in to state of peace and wellbeing. The story goes that Siddhartha
Gautama, once a wealthy prince, found that he was always unhappy and
unsatisfied no matter what he did. Siddhartha Gautama, giving up his unsatisfying
worldly riches, went forth to try all manner of different religions and methods
to overcome his dissatisfaction.
Eventually Siddhartha Gautama
achieved enlightenment whilst sat meditating under a Bodhi tree and became ‘a
Buddha’. Notice he became ‘a Buddha’ not ‘the Buddha’. There are many
‘Buddha’s’ and the term means ‘someone who is perfectly enlightened’ or ‘at
peace’ could be another way of saying it. The Buddha then, is not a god, he is
more like a symbol of what is possible; a reminder to be ‘in the moment’ and to
follow the example set in the story.
More recently the same ideas have become
incredibly popular, but without the Buddhist trappings, in the form of ‘Mindfulness’.
To be mindful is to be in the present moment and it’s most basic level if you
are ‘in the present moment’ you can’t be worrying about the future or the past.
For this reason, practicing Mindfulness is seen as a great way of improving
mental health by combating the causes of depression and anxiety for example.
A central part of the teachings of Buddhism
and the skill of mindfulness is the practice of meditation. Meditation
essentially means being in the moment and often people will try to firm up this
skill by ‘sitting’ in meditation and focusing on the present moment; normally
by focusing on breathing or by saying some kind of prayer (mantra) in their
heads. The latest research in neuroscience is now demonstrating the importance
of meditation for mental wellbeing.
Celebrating
the life of Āloka David Smith
“All momentum lost,
I’ve
run aground,
I’ve
come to rest,
At
last I have come home”
A few weeks ago on 13th
August 2015 I travelled with my good friend Rob up to Birmingham to attend the
funeral of Āloka David Smith. In 2012 Rob and I had arrived late to the
‘Dharmamind’ Buddhist group which Āloka founded in 2007, but the group struck a
chord with the both of us at a time when I think we were both looking for
answers. At that time, when we were
beginning to hear Āloka’s teachings for the first time, it didn’t seem to
matter that we had come to the group 5 years after it’s founding; Āloka wasn’t
going anywhere we thought.
Death is an important teacher in
Buddhism; it reminds us of impermanence. Impermanence, Āloka explained in his
teachings, is an impersonal law and if we could fully embrace the truth of this
law we would see that all things are in a constant state of change. It is
because we fail to understand what impermanence is that we grasp at things,
experiences, people, possessions, money. If we faced the truth that these
things go in to change we wouldn’t grasp at them and as a result we wouldn’t
experience ‘suffering’ (dukkha, to use the Buddhist term).
Understanding ‘suffering’ brings us
to the most basic formulation of the teachings of Buddha; ‘The Four Noble
Truths’
- 1. All life is suffering, a struggle in which we cannot find happiness
- 2. The cause of suffering is craving or attachment. (To put it another way; it is failing to see that all things are impermanent)
- 3. The cessation of suffering comes with the cessation of craving and grasping
- 4. There is a way out of suffering, a path that every individual can take responsibility for.
The path, as Buddhists would see it,
is the path that the Buddha took. But really if Buddha isn’t your thing I would
think you could simplify it by saying ‘be nice to all people and all things and
the way to do that starts with spending time in the present moment’.
It was this path that Āloka was so
skilled at teaching. Not just because of the incredible personal journey he had
taken, not simply because he was a very skilled meditator, not just because he
was very wise and thoughtful. But because Āloka was normal! He could be grumpy
and particular, he could have a joke and be a lot of fun and he could convey a
simple and profound teaching by using normal every day words.
Āloka died on 31st July
2015, on the blue moon, on a day known in South East Asia as ‘Guru Purnima’ or
‘Teachers Day’. On the Dharmamind facebook page, his group (Sangha) and
friends, left this message;
“Dear
Facebook Sangha,
Yesterday (July 31st) at 17.25 our teacher, Aloka David Smith,
passed away. I expected that when it came time to send this message, that I
would be full of sadness. But the manner of his passing was so gentle we almost
didn't notice it had happened. A slow quieting of breath over a ten minute period,
then no more movement. It was a teaching for us all about how to enter
stillness. So it did not feel sad.
There is no doubt he was in full awareness of what was
happening to him. In this regard he got his final wish - to die in full
awareness following 40 years of practice, and to fearlessly be present to the
dying process. Even death was time for practice for Aloka, and this was his
final teaching to us, and one of the most powerful. Aloka - "light".
Please bear him in mind in your meditations and pujas over the coming days.”
‘Even death was time to practice for
Āloka’. This should not be taken as something strict and severe. On the
contrary, in Buddhism to be in awareness, fully committed to the practice, is
to be in peace and not suffering.
How frequently do you come to the end of the
day and struggle to remember how it has passed? How often do you find yourself
bored, trying to distract yourself in some form or another, maybe through
reading (or writing!) or watching TV? How difficult do you find it to be still,
to be alone with yourself? Even for only a few minutes? Try it now.
How much time do you spend truly
living? Truly alive and in the moment? Awake to all that is happening?
Āloka’s funeral was a celebration of
his life and teachings. Āloka had written a letter which was read out so that
he could address us all from beyond the grave. He had planned his funeral and
the readings that would be given. Having embraced death fully aware of what he
was facing, Āloka committed himself to making it a continuation of his
teachings and making it an important lesson to us all.
If we want to be able to face death
as Āloka did we need to live in the ‘here and now’. We need to have full commitment
to being alive and having compassion. It is not easy to achieve and Āloka
demonstrated again and again that it requires full engagement in the face of
frequent ‘failure’. But so long as you are committed and trying, you cannot
fail.
When I think of all the things that are
happening in the world at the moment I only wish that I could have brought some
of our world leaders along to Āloka’s funeral. If I could have sat them beside
me and asked them to think about what is truly important in life. To consider
how we are all so interconnected. We do not live in isolation. That we will all
die, that all things go in to change, and that life is transient.
If we could get some of our world
leaders to consider these teachings would we have massive consumption of finite
natural resources that damages the planet? If presidents and prime ministers
considered these things would they worry about amassing wealth and power for
themselves? Would a little boy have washed up on the beach?
When you realise the true nature of
awareness, the true experience of life, the concern for all of the other
trappings fall away and you become committed to all other life; realising that
we are all one.
In his book ‘The World We Have; A
Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology’ The beautiful Zen master Thich Nhat
Hann wrote;
“It’s wonderful to realise that we are all in
a family, we are all children of the Earth. We should take care of each other
and we should take care of our environment, and this is possible with the practice
of being together as a large family. A positive change in individual awareness
will bring about a positive change in the collective awareness. Protecting the
planet must be given the first priority. I hope you will take the time to sit
down with each other, have tea with your friends and your family, and discuss
these things. [ ] Then make your decision and act to save our beautiful planet.
Changing your way of living will bring you a lot of joy right away and, with
your first mindful breath, healing will begin”
Goodbye Āloka David Smith. Thank you
for your commitment, your example. Thank you for the Dharma.
***
Sentient beings are as
limitless as the whole of space.
May they each effortlessly
realise the nature of their mind
And may every single being in
all the six realms,
Attain all together the Ground
of Primordial Perfection.
By the merit I have gathered
from all acts of virtue done in the this way,
May all the sufferings of every being disappear.
***
You can visit the Dharmamind
website, where you can purchase books by Āloka David Smith and find out about
the regular meetings around the UK and the monthly day retreat in Birmingham http://dharmamind.net/
1 comment:
Just read this - big thanks for sharing
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