Sangharakshita Facing Mount Kanchenjunga
E D I T E D B Y K A LYA N A P R A B H A
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Windhorse Publications 169 Mill Road Cambridge CB1 3AN UK info@windhorsepublications.com www.windhorsepublications.com Š Sangharakshita, 2018 The right of Sangharakshita to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Cover design by Dhammarati Cover images: Back flap Š Clear Vision Trust Picture Archive; front: Kanchenjunga 1936, by Nicholas Roerich, courtesy Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York. Typesetting and layout by Ruth Rudd Printed by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-911407-16-4 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-911407-15-7 (hardback
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contents
Foreword, Kalyanaprabha
ix
facing mount kanchenjunga List of Illustrations Maps 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
3
On My Own in Kalimpong 7 A New Gate Opens 23 Stepping Stones 40 The Spirit of the Hills 55 Widening Circles 82 Acceptance and Rejection 96 Burma Raja and the Devas 117 Repairing the Damage 137 Traditions and Individual Talents 148 Preparing to Receive the Sacred Relics 170 Pretexts and Processions 189 The Hermitage 216 Kindred Spirits 243 Contrasts in Kathmandu 263 A Big Setback 307 The Near and the Far 325
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17 18 19 20 21 22
The Enemy of the Church 345 Discovering Dharmapala 367 A Re-enshrinement and a Reunion 390 Discussions in Bombay and Deolali 402 A Fresh Beginning 426 New Arrivals in Kalimpong ‌ and Dhardo Rimpoche
441
dear dinoo Introduction, Kalyanaprabha
457
Letters
Appendix The Monk and the Prophet, Kalyanaprabha
Notes 621 Index 637 A Guide to The Complete Works of Sangharakshita
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491
599
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foreword
‘Stay here and work for the good of Buddhism’, Jagdish Kashyap said to the twenty-four year old Sangharakshita when he left him in Kalimpong in the eastern Himalayas. The first volume of Sangharakshita’s memoirs concludes, ‘I was left facing Mount Kanchenjunga.’ Now, in the second volume, which takes its title from those concluding words, we find out how the young śrāmaṇera or novice monk responded to the situation in which he found himself – or to which he had been led. The book’s title, subtitle, and opening words all give clues to the significance of the years recounted in its pages, beginning in March 1950 and taking us up to early 1953. First, the title. What is meant by ‘Facing Mount Kanchenjunga’? To understand that is to ask what did Kanchenjunga represent in the life, the inner life, of Sangharakshita? It is an image, a symbol – but what might it mean? There is a haiku that Sangharakshita wrote at this time called simply ‘Kanchenjunga’: One white wave of snow Towering against the blue Sky, with clouds below.
To me there is a reflection here of the intense spiritual aspiration that was his, an awareness both of the infinite, the blue of the sky, and the f o r e w o r d /
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purity and grandeur of the snows, even whilst from below clouds might dim their view. The subtitle is ‘An English Buddhist in the Eastern Himalayas’ – an interesting juxtaposition. What does an English Buddhist see and experience in a world so different to the one in which he grew up? Perhaps he sees with more acute sensitivities since all that is around him is new. Certainly Sangharakshita found his new environment inspiring and even ‘magical’. What was he to do there in Kalimpong? The answer is straightforward. He follows his teacher’s injunction to ‘stay here and work for the good of Buddhism’ – these are the words with which the present book begins and they tell us what the book is all about. But before exploring further what this meant in practice, let us look back to the first volume to remind ourselves from where the author had come. Like the poet Wordsworth’s Prelude, which is addressed to his friend Coleridge, and explains the forces that shaped him, so The Rainbow Road from Tooting Broadway to Kalimpong tells what were the experiences of childhood and youth that influenced the emergence of Sangharakshita. Most pivotal of them all was his encounter at the age of sixteen or seventeen with The Diamond Sūtra when he realized he was a Buddhist ‘and always had been’. The next eight years were crucial ones. His line of development was from ‘a sort of spiritual falling-in-love’ to something which had ‘more of the nature of a reasoned conviction that included understanding as well as emotion, clarity as well as passion’. Aged twenty-one, by now in India, he left behind all worldly things, or in traditional Buddhist language he went forth. Meditation, study, deep reflection, meetings with great spiritual masters, and eventual ordination as a Buddhist monk characterized those years. But now, here in Kalimpong, his teacher’s injunction ringing in his ears, ‘a new gate opens’. It is a gate of gold, he tells us, and it opens onto a new path – that of responding to the needs of others. But how best to respond to those needs, or, in the language of the Mahāyāna, how best to respond to the ‘cries of the world’? Members of the Buddhist order which, eighteen years later, he would go on to found, sometimes see themselves each as a hand of Avalokiteśvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion who, in his thousand-armed form, carries in each of his hands a different implement with which to respond to the suffering of humanity. Thus each Order member looks to his or her x / f o r e w o r d
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own capacities and talents to see what he or she is best able to offer the world. There was no order of this kind which Sangharakshita could join (the bhikkhu sangha did not share any such common archetypal myth) but in his own way, entering through the golden gate, seeking to respond to the world’s predicament, he, too, draws on his particular talents and abilities – some of which he discovers as he goes along. His overriding response is to spread the Buddha’s Dharma – really the master current of his whole life. At the same time he is aware of the more immediate needs of the people around him. And so, as he sets out to fulfil his teacher’s injunction, we see his particular qualities or talents at work. There is his tremendous vision, the capacity to envision that which does not yet exist along with the ability to bring it into being – perhaps quite a rare combination. He describes the two ‘iridescent balls’ that hover above his head and which are called down into embodiment. The first is the Young Men’s Buddhist Association of Kalimpong and the second, Stepping-Stones, a monthly magazine of Himalayan religion, culture, and education whose first edition appears within a few months of his arrival in the town. In the Stepping-Stones editorials he is able to express something of the force and purity of his aspiration and the strength of his vision for the significance of the Buddha’s teaching for mankind. And surely it is this that communicates itself to some of the leading Buddhist writers of the time, Lama Govinda, Edward Conze, and others, who are soon contributing to its pages, even though the journal’s editor is so young and, at this stage, unknown. How does an English Buddhist get on in this town in the eastern Himalayas, this meeting place for individuals from so many different backgrounds? The local people include Newars, Lepchas, and others; most are Hindu or Buddhist, a few are Christian. There are the Europeans, including a number of eccentrics and oddballs, and there are the missionaries, some settled, some passing through. To people from all these backgrounds he offers the hand of friendship. All through the pages of this memoir are pen portraits, a few words describing appearance and habit that bring individuals alive before our eyes and give the memoir so much of its interest and even fascination. A quality that Sangharakshita discovers as he goes along is his ability to organize. The logistics surrounding the reception of the Sacred Relics of the Buddha’s two chief disciples, Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana, prove to be quite a challenge not just logistically but politically. If all is to proceed f o r e w o r d /
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smoothly he has to be one step ahead of local politics needing all the wisdom of the serpent whilst operating as far as he can with the gentleness of the dove. He has plenty of allies in the town but the uncompromising stance he takes on occasion, his willingness to speak out against that which he sees as wrong, including the bigotry he encounters among Christian missionaries, also make him one or two enemies. Although the story is mostly about what lay beyond the golden gate, that is, the path of responding to others, we are offered now and then a glimpse of the unfolding of Sangharakshita’s inner life, the personal struggles, the disappointments, as well as the inspirations, which are given fuller expression in his poems. Of one occasion he writes, On my return to the Hermitage with my three young friends I was silent and gloomy, some of Joe’s remarks having depressed me, and the following morning, feeling that no one understood me or sympathized with what I was trying to achieve, and that I had no earthly refuge, I composed a poem of seven eight-line stanzas entitled ‘Taking Refuge in the Buddha’.
One person who could understand, one in whom he found a kindred spirit, was the German-born Lama Govinda, writer, poet, and painter. They shared a sensibility which included an understanding of the basic unity of Buddhism and the value of art to the spiritual life. In fact, in the course of their first meetings they ‘ranged over practically the whole field of Buddhist thought and practice’ finding themselves in agreement to an astonishing degree. There are two others figures who stand out as exceptional individuals who come into the story. Towards the end of the memoir Sangharakshita ‘discovers’ Anagārika Dharmapala, the great Ceylonese dharmadūta. Although Dharmapala had by then been dead for almost twenty years, for Sangharakshita, to write about his life and work was to be moved and inspired by another kindred spirit. In the final pages of the memoir someone appears whose influence is to grow in the coming years and who will feature in the next volume: Dhardo Rimpoche.
• Facing Mount Kanchenjunga is not the only work included in this volume of Sangharakshita’s Complete Works. Dear Dinoo is unique xii / f o r e w o r d
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among his published works as a collection of letters, written during the years 1955–1974, that is to say, beginning soon after the period covered by Facing Mount Kanchenjunga and extending to the beginnings of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (about which Sangharakshita writes to Dinoo from England). A memoir is a life recalled by the maturer man looking back. Letters are a response in the present to a particular person. These letters afford us a very personal, even intimate glimpse of a friendship. Dinoo Dubash came from a Parsi background. She lived in Bombay (Mumbai) where she ran a Montessori nursery school. She was an accomplished amateur artist, and had an interest in meditation. She met Sangharakshita on the occasion of one of his lectures. At the end, inspired and uplifted, she rushed up to meet him and invited him to tea. And so there sprung up between the Buddhist monk and the Montessori teacher a rather unusual friendship. In his letters we see Sangharakshita responding to his friend in many different ways so that he writes now as tour guide, as he helps Dinoo with her itinerary for a planned visit to Kalimpong, now as spiritual friend discussing matters of spiritual import. He sympathizes with her struggles and, knowing one or two of her foibles, sometimes allows himself a gentle tease. He also confides. It is to Dinoo that he writes about his momentous experiences at the time of the death of Dr Ambedkar. Dinoo introduced Sangharakshita to Dr Mehta, former naturopathic physician to Gandhi. Dr Mehta had more recently founded what he called the Society of Servants of God. Dinoo was keen that the two men should meet. Meet they did, and they, too, became friends. (Dr Mehta, and his ‘Scripts’ – which he claimed came directly from God – feature in the next volume of memoirs.) The Appendix to Dear Dinoo, entitled ‘The Monk and the Prophet’, recounts more about the fascinating life of Dr Mehta, and explores the relationship between the two men. The letters to Dinoo are presented here with a full set of notes providing more of the context and explaining references that might otherwise remain obscure. The Introduction tells more about Dinoo and her life, and her friendship with Sangharakshita. It also includes a section on the theme ‘Sangharakshita, women, and friendship’ and looks at the lives of two other women friends of his from those years: the poet Clare Cameron, and Kazini Elisa-Maria Dorje-Khangsarpa of Chakhung, both known to Dinoo. f o r e w o r d /
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But who wrote that Introduction, the notes, and the Appendix to Dear Dinoo? I must confess, it was myself! In the spring of 2010 I had no thought that I would ever work with Sangharakshita, nor become one of his literary editors. I was living abroad but difficult circumstances had led me to the conclusion that my best option was to return to England – though what I would do when I got there I did not know. Then came a message: ‘Bhante (that is, Sangharakshita) has some work for you.’ By this time I was living in Birmingham, near to where Sangharakshita then lived. Off I went to find out what that work might be. I came back with a blue file full of letters. And so began our happy collaboration. It drew from me far more than I realized was there in terms of writing and research, and has been one of the great joys of my life. When it came to publishing the book Sangharakshita’s usual publish ers, Windhorse Publications, were unable to take on the project due to financial constraints. I was disappointed, but a day or two after receiving this news Sangharakshita turned up in the library where I was working and said with a twinkle in his eye that he had had an idea. We would publish it ourselves. And so Ibis Publications was born – its name a reference both to the well-known British publishers, Penguin (who also brought out Puffin and Pelican books) and to Thoth, the ibis-headed Egyptian god of wisdom. Dear Dinoo sold rather more copies than was expected, aided by the launch which took place on 10 December 2011 at the Birmingham Buddhist Centre. I gave a twenty minute introduction and it was hoped that, if he was well enough, Sangharakshita, then already 86 years old, would say a few words. As it turned out the few words turned into ten, twenty, forty, nearly fifty minutes of an inspired talk. He took his audience first to Bombay with his recollections of Dinoo and her times but then he surprised us with a survey, a magnificent sweep over the whole history of the letter, from the clay tablets of Babylon to the shortest letter of all – the cheque (which gave him the opportunity for exposing with hard-hitting irony the empty shell of banking) – before returning to the personal letters of some of the famous including Byron, Coleridge, and Philip Larkin. It was a memorable talk; it was also, as it turned out, the last public talk that Sangharakshita has given (to date) – completing – if it is the last – a whole lifetime of Dharma talks and lectures. In the course of preparing the Introduction and Appendix for Dear Dinoo I tried to find out a little more about both her, and about Dr xiv / f o r e w o r d
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Mehta. I was grateful to be able to interview Dharmacāri Lokamitra about his memories of Dinoo in her later years, and Dharmacāri Suvajra for his memories of Dr Mehta and Sundri Vaswani. Ms Nazneen Dubash, Dinoo’s niece and principal of the Casa Montessori in Mumbai, although she did not know her aunt very well, was able to furnish me with a little more information, and Ms Zarin Malva, Director of Mumbai’s rti Montessori Training Course, spoke to me on the telephone, recalling her time working with Dinoo at the Casa Montessori in the 1960s. For the rest I drew on published material, as well as some internet sources, as documented in the notes. But most of all I drew on the interviews I had with Sangharakshita during the latter part of 2010 and the early months of 2011.
• I hope these words may have highlighted for you, the reader, some of the significance of these two works. They have much merit from a purely literary point of view – one can enjoy them just as literature. But for all those who share a spiritual aspiration, Facing Mount Kanchenjunga and Dear Dinoo have much to say that can inspire, encourage, and show the way. Kalyanaprabha Great Malvern 17 July 2017
f o r e w o r d /
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