Establishing a new Triratna centre is no easy feat whatever part of the world you are in. However, with a new language to learn, a new culture to immerse in, and a long history of Buddhism within the country Aryapala, Shraddharocini, and friends have faced challenges with starting Triratna Tokyo. As we near the end of the second year of FutureDharma’s three year grant towards Triratna Tokyo, we are delighted to share that the project is going from strength to strength.
Being an international city means that a significant percentage of the Sangha are not Japanese, or brought up in Japan. This cultural mix has allowed for Triratna to take shape and it’s principal characteristics of ecumenicalism and practice being primary has welcomed a committed core group.
This grant of £3000, committed over a three year period, is to support Aryapala primarily with travel costs and language lessons. For new sanghas such as this one it is vital to have an experienced Order Member who has a history of supporting new conditions. Aryapala found Triratna in 1995, he’s lived in community, worked in Team Based Right Livelihood and spent fourteen years living and working at Padmaloka, including time as Chair. Aryapala therefore has a lot of experience with supporting new Triratna situations.
This summer members of the growing Sangha gathered together for a weekend retreat in Atami two hours drive from Tokyo, a popular getaway destination surrounded by mountains and hot springs. Sraddhapa had travelled all the way from Taipei to lead it, with support from Susana (who was Tokyo’s first ever Mitra).
Eight sangha members joined the retreat including Hannah, a mitra originally from the Scottish sangha now living in Kyoto, Carma , a mitra from Barcelona who has asked for Ordination , Alicia from Taipei, and the rest made up of friends from the Tokyo sangha; including Lily who is from Japan.
“After the first Triratna retreat last year, I looked forward to the next one and I was grateful to attend this second one. I had some reflections from last year’s retreat, so I brought a book to keep myself calm. But, this year’s retreat was a silent retreat and Sraddhapa requested for us to not read, in order to practise releasing cravings. Because we just finished a chapter of “The Triratna System of Meditation” from Sraddhapa’s Dharma study group, I smoothly understood the arrangements of this year’s retreat. Silence was getting more and more comfortable as the time passed. My first waking meditation was surprisingly challenging. After a few practises I saw improvements and this experience became another chance to realise the beauty of practises.
Another surprise was connections with other participants. Without communication, things were running very smoothly. Also felt comfortable and connected with them. Like everyone was on the same page, looking in the same direction. The beauty of Sangha. To see culture differences was very interesting too. In Japan, vertical relationships are very common and attending this kind of function, participants will keep their ‘mouth shut and obey’. But, everyone was asking questions and sharing ideas. The beauty of Horizontal relationships.” ~ Lily, Tokyo Sangha
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