Born in 566 BC, in Lumbini, Nepal, Siddhartha Gautama, was born into a privileged upbringing. He was son of the king, blessed with many riches and comforts and was destined to take the throne. Aged 29, after spending his life entirely inside the grounds of the palace, he ventured outside the royal courtyard, and saw pains of the world: sickness, death and suffering. This disturbed him so much he set out into the world on a journey to seek wisdom. As a holy man he spent over six years on a path of meditation and ascetic practices. He was intent on finding the meaning of life and so looked deep inside himself; one day he sat at the Bodhi tree and after 40 days, on the full moon in May, Siddhartha finally attained enlightenment. He had realised true freedom.
And so Buddhism was born. From there on in Siddhartha, was known as the Buddha and spent the rest of his life until his death aged 80 spreading his teachings.
Fast-forward over 2,500 years and the remnants of the Buddha’s schoolings are very much still existent. Today, many types of Buddhism exist and while some vary in techniques, all share the same goals and beliefs.
“It helps understand how the mind works internal and external, why we are here, what we can best do with our lives and then fundamentally understand suffering. That’s the bottom line – why do we suffer? Where do we find happiness of a lasting kind and not just temporary? Because happiness sort of gets snatched away from us.”
Words spoken by Tibetan Buddhism monk, Geshe Graham Woodhouse, who took little persuasion to talk to me. I was happily invited into his home in a leafy Sheffield suburb to hear his views and beliefs.
Sheffield man Geshe Graham, has spent a mammoth 16 years in studying in India, at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Dharamsala, with exiled monks, completing the “Geshe ,” program, which is the monks equivalent of four PhD’s. And strikingly he is only one of only six western people to have ever completed this ancient course.
The makeup of the Geshe program is the study of five key topics, which help the student understand how to reach “enlightenment”; it is a guide to understanding the path to enlightenment, which can aid the student to realise it.
Typical days on the programme are spent studying from engraved wooden blocks, before the student conducts Tibetan style debate with fellow students in the school's courtyard.
Debate is a key factor in Tibetan monk’s training, and is a way of stretching the mind, increasing mental sharpness, developing methodical capability, and achieving internal clarity.
“It’s quite an entertaining way of studying” says Geshe Graham, “ it’s not just going into a library and studying, though you had to do that as well. But when it came to a response you had to be able to argue and answer questions and ask questions to see if the other persons actually understood and not just think he’s understood. It’s not people letting their hair down when they’re young, it’s people shaving their head and trying to build up these qualities of good behaviour and turning away from things like the negative minds of anger and attachment, selfishness, pride and so forth.”
Graham’s institute of study with banished monks is an example of the effects felt after the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, which saw thousands of Tibetans flee the country. Chinas’ then leader Chairman Mao had a strong communist ethos which starkly opposed Buddhism. And thus cruelly destroyed nearly all of Tibets’ 9,000 monasteries and took control of the country.
“In India these types of Tibetan institutions have flourished in exile to a certain extent, but there in exile you see, so they’re in a foreign country and the completely wrong climate for Tibet.” Geshe Graham explains, “They’re doing their best in exile to keep that going and they deserve all the help that they can get.”
This exodus helps explain how Tibetan Buddhism doors were opened up on our own doorsteps. The noninterventionist nature of the 60s and early 70s, saw young free willed youth, set out overland to India and Nepal on the hippy-trail for a budget travel experience and for some spiritual enlightenment
So what could lead a western man so far from his cultural upbringing? I pose the question to Geshe Graham, who in his twenties qualified as a teacher from Sheffield University, then left the UK to tutor in Africa and the Middle East, before finding appeal in the Tibetan monks’ way of life in India.
“You look at civilisation and all the wars that have been fought and you wonder where does society lie – why can’t men organise themselves in a way such that we do look after each other? What are the flaws? The Buddha comes along and provides an analysis that beats all forms of other truths. And gives the truth of suffering which we can all understand.”
Geshe Graham's forthcoming book Tsongkhapa's Praise for Dependent Relativity, out in October, is a transcription and explanation of an ancient script by famous Tibetan lama Tsong Khapa on the subject of emptiness.
http://www.wisdom-books.com/ProductDetail.asp?PID=23041
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