Buddha-Dharma-Sangha in the West. An Inquiry. Part Two of Two

Michael Schwammberger questions Christopher. Inter-view. January 2025.

Michael Schwammberger questions the perceptions and views of Christopher Titmuss of the development of the Buddha-Dharma -Sangha in the West.

Michael met Christopher on a retreat in Spain in October 1992. After that retreat, he and his partner Gwyneth moved to Totnes where they lived and practiced for four years. He arrived in Plum Village in 1996 inspired by Thay’s (Thich Nhat Hahn) book Peace is Every Step. Michael ordained as a novice monk in February 1997, receiving his full ordination and the 14 mindfulness trainings in 1998. He lived in Plum Village and the monasteries in the United States and travelled with Thay in his teaching tours. Michael took a sabbatical in 2011 and returned to lay life in 2012. He is now a lay Dharma teacher.

Ancient texts state the Buddha was born under a tree, died under a tree and came to full enlightenment under a tree. The Buddhist tradition reveres trees/forests. Thai Monks ordained a tree, 30 metres from the Bodhi Tree in Bodh Gaya, to remind us of the intimacy and preservation of trees and their support for human wellbeing and awakening.

The beautiful Dharma Hall in the Royal Thai Monastery in Bodh Gaya, India. Currently Radha Nicholson, a senior Dharma teacher based in Australia, offers her annual retreat in the monastery with Bryan T from USA and Suchitra from India giving assistance.

A transcription, edit and adaption of a 90-minute audio recording in January 2025 in Totnes, Devon, England.

Part Two of Two. A Summary

THEMES OF PART TWO

• Mindfulness in Everyday Life: Practice and action can thrive outside retreat settings, through a Sangha dedicated to a culture of change.

• Ethics and Action: Why it is irritating that certain Dharma teachers and committed Dharma students are indecisive about war.

• Beyond Optimism and Pessimism: Sustained wisdom and compassion, rather than hope or despair, are keys to addressing our relationship of present to future. Organising and plotting in Totnes coffee shops, homes and group meeting places.

• Cultural and Literary Inspiration: Learning from diverse cultures and art forms to develop a culture of awakening.

• Diverse Paths to Liberation: There are 84,000 ‘Dharma doors,’ to liberation including practices, experiences and insights.

• Awakening is Unpredictable: Transformation can arise unexpectedly, beyond our control or immediate understanding.

This dialogue offers an exploration of ethics, and the challenges of integrating Dharma practice into modern life. Dharma emphasises the importance of diverse paths to awakening and the need for compassionate action in the world.

MS: We are talking about the process of mindfulness, meditation and the power of observation. Does it require certain conditions for us to reflect, like the monastery or the retreat setting? It seems much easier in such an environment. Is there a depth of such processing of our states of mind in our society? We talk about how mental formations arise and the conditions which impact upon us. This needs a certain guidance. Our practice includes full application of mindfulness to bring insights.

CT: I have the privilege in the past five decades of teaching around the world and sharing the Dharma with a wide range of people. I'm exposed to Western culture, as well as other cultures, with a different background and history. I agree with you of the significant challenges we face in the West and elsewhere in offering teachings. We say something which upsets a person. That does not confirm we show a reactive, negative state of mind.

I encourage people to go to Asia. I view the Sangha as the great family. I also do not see it as an absolute necessity to promote ordination or spend retreat time in India, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Japan or elsewhere. There are wise and dedicated people in the Sangha. Some in the Sangha have been to India, Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and other parts of the East and others not. I find the clarity and the wisdom alongside dedication as touching, whether or not experienced travellers.

Such people give me the inspiration and the joy of serving the Dharma as deep as I can offer. I say to everybody, “Keep your practice going. Keep the listening alive. Explore and meditate on the four foundations of mindfulness - the body, including breath, feeling tones, states of mind and the Dharma, inner and outer world. The teachings and practices develop the power to see the emptiness of the ego, the emptiness of clinging to anyone or anything, and to live with wisdom and empathy.

Let me take one example as a metaphor for others. Aged around 60, a man came to sit a weekend retreat with me. We had a 1-1 during the weekend. He said he owned factories, adding “I'm rich. I'm the CEO of these factories.” Then he started crying. “The reason I'm crying is that I've got to this age of 60. I'm successful, but within I feel I've wasted my life. I focus my life on making money out of my business.

I said to him, “You're right. You blew it. You got to the age of 60 spending decades focusing on craving to make more money.”

The man looked up at me, mildly shocked.

He said, What am I going to do?

I replied, “Today, you commit yourself to the first day of change and remember every day to do the same.”

He responded, “But what do I do?

I said the first thing that arose in my mind. I replied, “Go to India.”

He said, “I’ve never been to India. I have had no interest in going to India.”

I said, “You asked me what to do. I said, go to India. When you are there, send me a postcard to let me know. Here is my card with my home address.”

About a month later, the postman delivered a card from Varanasi, “Dear Christopher, I’m in Varanasi in India. I got here somehow. This is the best thing I ever did. Thank you. Namaste.”

I sometimes tell people what they need to do. I do not hang around waiting for them to decide or tell them the solution is within them like some spiritual teachers and psychotherapists. The man followed what I said. Bless him. He left his managers and staff to look after his factories. The Buddha would have bowed in appreciation for such a man willing to step outside his comfort zone.

MS: You've dealt with many people. Have you ever been surprised? Has anything ever struck you?

CT: You described people as complex. Some people irritate me. That’s for sure. There are Dharma teachers who support the wars of their government or support their government providing the armaments for another country to wage war. I find this distasteful, shocking and irritating.

First primary ethic in the Dharma states in clear terms. “I undertake the training not to engage in killing.” This ethic includes not giving support to others to kill. Ethics are indispensable for practicing and expressing acts of loving kindness (metta). Some Dharma teachers and seniors in the Dharma do not support this ethic. That means they regard this important ethic as only valid during the period of a retreat and domestic situations.

Other teachers don't have a view about war. They say, “Perhaps war is necessary. Perhaps it isn't.” The Buddha referred to such people as eel-wrigglers. They are indecisive, who cannot come to the conviction to speak about non-violence to resolve war through diplomacy, aid, communication, dialogue, ending the export of arms and countless other strategies. Such teachers and practitioners sit on the fence. They make a virtue out of it when they call eel wriggling/fence sitting as expressions of their equanimity.

What else strikes me? There are practitioners who attend an annual retreat for 10 or 20 years with no personal inquiry into violence, atrocities and war. They remain passive, believing they keep this primary ethic. Nothing happens within to ferment a radical change of view and action confirming empathy for the victims of conflict domestic, social and between nations. Genuine development and evolution of consciousness leads to compassion and insightful experiences. That confirms applying this ethic.

MS: Yes. Sometimes it is mysterious what arises.

CT: The Buddha said we cannot always see into the depths of our being, fail to notice the influences of karma and the consequences. This is like finding it hard to comprehend the element of space, of infinity, of the depths of meditation and more.

MS: The role of the teacher includes sowing of the seeds. It is important to trust the process so vital for awakening. Let's talk about watering the seeds in consciousness to experience the fruits without expectations.

CT: We are sometimes told that practices include having no expectations. That's another expectation placed on practitioners. In the sowing and watering of seeds, we can know the support practice gives to inquiry, to questioning of authority. Here is another travel story. One woman said to me: “I lived a safe life. I did nothing regarding taking a risk. I attend retreats, but I never travelled overseas because it felt unsafe. I am unsuccessful in my meditation practice, not even able to observe two successive breaths in my meditation. Nothing much seems to have changed within during my retreats.” she smiled.

Then she said, “I got back a few weeks ago after spending a month in China. I don't know what got into me to fly off to China. I know this trip has something to do with the meditation. The practice got me to China.”

I asked her, “How was the trip?”

She said, “It was the most wonderful experience of my whole life. It opened my eyes up. I feel so free. I didn't see the change in me coming. It was an enormous shock. Now I appreciate the power of mindfulness, the power of meditation.”

We may never understand what's going to wake us up. Let me make it clear. We can wake up without even travelling to our front door, let alone taking a flight.

MS: You have mentioned in the past ‘84 dharma doors.’ What is the dharma of transmission?

CT: Yes, I use the number 84. It also includes 84,000 – the number of infinity in the Buddhist tradition. This is rather similar to the colour blue as revealed in the blue sky or blue ocean. Blue is the colour of infinity in the Indian tradition. We sometimes say that an insight, a realization or understanding, came out of the blue. It means it came out of the infinite, out of the unconditioned. There are an-infinite number of doorways to awakening, doorways to liberation.

I just finished writing a 350-page book called Questioning. While putting the book together, the areas of questioning expanded more than the original 250-page project. The Buddha picked up a handful of leaves in the forest and commented on how few compared to the leaves in the forest. He added he teaches enough ways for an enlightened life even though he has direct knowledge of much, much more. I know what he means.

These doorways include the noble eightfold path, ethics, mindfulness, meditation, love, compassion, joy, equanimity insights, realizations, Sangha, reflection, outdoors, indoors. All the senses can serve as doors of the dharma, as well as the past, present, future, literature, elements, three jewels, arts, exercise to support awakening and liberation from the mundane. That's why the generous number of 84,000 applies.

MS: Can we talk about developing a culture of awakening? The culture seems more visible in the East. I remember going to Thay’s (Venerable Thich Nhat Hahn) monastery, where he lived as a novice in central Vietnam. It seemed like a map, a microcosm of the tradition reinforcing beneficial qualities from the youngest novice to the most senior Abbot. Alongside the range of stupas, I felt the generations of teachers, a long lineage of an interconnectedness, a web of quality of practice and culture. Is there a culture of awakening in the West? Do we need to create a culture of awakening, similar to Vietnam, where you receive so much nurturing through the monastic culture? These are doors of awakening.

CT: There is a relationship in the transmission from East to West. You gave an excellent example. You had firsthand experiences of the culture and transmission. The guardian angels of the best of the Dharma have often lived in monasteries. People can go there anytime, receive the nourishment, the benefits and insights. Such environments contribute to being awake, staying awake, and, for some, a return to society, to engage in service to people and the environment. This process has continued for over 2500 years.

The Buddha’s Sangha constitutes one of the world’s oldest institutions remaining relatively stable through all changes – social/religious upheavals, epidemics, famine, revolutions, wars and more.

We do not know how much time humanity has left on this earth. We need to get our act together. Retreat centres, monasteries, ashrams and wellbeing centres have an important place since they offer a diversity of doors. These approaches, religious, spiritual and secular, require much nourishment and ongoing support. Totnes, the small town of 9800 residents where I live, serves as an as a fine example of spiritual exploration and diversity.

I counted between 150 to 200 posters on creating change for the inner life and the outer world. There is a dedication in the town to open doors to develop deep values for individuals and society, including governments and corporations.

We have 27 coffee shops in this town. There's a lot of organising, planning and plotting going on over a cup of coffee in the High Street and elsewhere in the town. St. Mary's Anglican Church, built in the 15^th century, offers a diversity of teachings on spiritual/religious traditions.

Between the 12th and the 16th century, lepers walked from the small leper colony to the church – the track runs past the bottom of my garden. Lepers who could walk placed crippled lepers in wheelbarrows to go to the church, where they sat outside to listen to the service. They could not enter owing to their infectious disease.

Far too many people feel helpless today with anxiety, long Covid, depression, dementia, loneliness, cancer and more. Society has replaced wheelbarrows with wheel chair access vehicles. The sense of helplessness has not changed much.

The town got together in 2006, having recognised oil serves as the bloodline of the West since everything depends upon it. Named Transition Town Totnes, groups of residents developed a practical model for sustainability which all residents could apply. Aspects were explored and often adopted by 800 to 1000 towns and cities worldwide. Much of the discussions took place in our local coffee shops, homes and meeting rooms and halls, with organisers finding doorways to a large vision of life. Grassroots movements, inner and outer, shares a revolutionary outlook.

MS: Are you optimistic about the future?

CT: No. I'm not optimistic about the future. I am not pessimistic either. Such views arise under the influence of feelings, perceptions, thoughts or images projected into the future out of the present and past.

An optimistic view can encourage a determination to make an impact with compassion, enthusiasm and conviction. That same optimistic viewpoint can swing over in time to a pessimistic view of doubt, heaviness and despair. Anger might replace the view. The energy of anger might fuel change but won’t last long or becomes destructive. Anger acts like momentary fireflies.

We need a sustained power, wisdom and clarity to keep going. I don't concern myself with positive or negative views about the future, about being pessimistic or optimistic.

I also have an allergy to the word hope. Let me contribute to the welfare of present and future generations. Let our relationship to the future be simple and clear. “I wish this to happen, but it may not.” We do not need to depend on optimism, positivity and hope for wise action.

MS: Would you like to mention, as we conclude, an author who has inspired you or poetry that inspires you.

CT: In my home, I have around 1500 books. About 25% connect with the Buddha Dharma, from the early texts to contemporary commentaries, plus another 150 books of poetry and the rest, including novels, on other themes of interest. I wrote a list on my blog of my favourite 10 spiritual books, including the books of Krishnamurti, Etty Hillesum and others. I love Shakespeare, who showed the poor and middle classes in his plays the appalling corruption, brutal violence and extreme narcissism among the rich and powerful.

I'm in the phase of learning about the traditional culture of Japan. I watch Japanese television documentaries with English subtitles. This is an authentic learning experience. I went to see twice Perfect Days, a movie on the life of a toilet cleaner who approaches his work with a depth of mindfulness. We can learn from the arts, novels and non-fiction. You can see the influence of Japanese culture from the Buddhist tradition. Mindfulness gives nourishment and insight to develop in society. We can learn a lot from the cultures of the East.

MS: Thank you very much. One amusing anecdote. When I first met you, I sometimes questioned myself if you were actually human. I felt you didn’t suffer from the normal human issues. I wondered if you were extraterrestrial. It was an interesting observation for me to meet someone who wasn't conditioned, suffered or had the typical human ailments impinging.

Thank you for your time today. I would say 1000s of people entered the practice and found a real path. For many of us, we never imagined such a possibility existed.

CT: A deep thank you for taking the time to come for this lovely exchange. I am happy as well to have spoken about the large picture of the Sangha and the precious factors, inner and outer, for transformation. Perhaps our dialogue today can offer inspiration and insight to listeners and readers.

People can then say, “What do I need to address with myself? What can I offer? What can I share with others? “This confirms abiding in the big picture of 84,000 doorways.

Thank you, Michael, for raising important questions for the Sangha.

Christopher has completed a manuscript titled The Buddha in the West. The text explores themes in this interview and more. He plans to publish in 2025.

May all beings live with wisdom

May all beings live with compassion

May all beings live a liberated way of life.