CHAPTER 3 The Culture of the Friends of Western Buddhist Order

In this chapter, we shall focus on the Friends of Western Buddhist Order (FWBO),1 specifically its centre in East : the London Buddhist Centre (LBC), on which both the projects focused. We want to examine its strategies to promote diversity in its membership, and how these strategies elucidate the dominant discourses on the subject of race, sexuality, and gender. This sets an important context for the exploration, in the following chapter, of the lived experiences of people of colour and LGBTQI2 people in its midst. We argue, based on the findings of the studies, that although the LBC has had a longstanding concern with outreach to people of colour and LGBTQI people, there is an apparently hegemonic discourse of unmarked whiteness and het- eronormativity within it—and the wider FWBO—that positions black and people of colour as the ‘rest’ outside the West (Hall, 1992b). This discourse is one of a ‘universalist’ racism (Taguieff, 2001) that argues ‘racelessness’ and requires people of colour to negotiate a white, middle-class and to some extent masculinist norm during the course of their involvement in this movement. Similar dynamics of ‘Othering’ and boundary-making are also evident in the implicitly but stubbornly heteronormative nature of such spaces. Indeed, het- eronormativity as a cultural ideology and a set of institutional practices that systematically legitimise and hegemonise heterosexuality (e.g. Hockey, Meah & Robinson, 2007; Jackson, 2006; Jackson & Scott, 2010; Yip & Page, 2013) has far- reaching implications on not only sexual and gender, but also social, relations. We describe the background history of the FWBO and LBC and set out its key practices, its approach to social engagement in the movement’s early days,

1 FWBO was re-named Triratna Buddhist Community in May 2010 (Vajragupta, 2010). We decided to continue to use the old name to reflect the timing of the research undertaken. 2 We use the acronym LGBTQI to represent lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people. However, we understand that these are contingent, overlapping and interrelated categories. LGBTQI is used here as an overarching category, recognising that this is flawed but expedi- ent for our purposes of discussing sexual and gender differences. We recognise and explore diversity between this category, but also note how commonality and collectivity under ban- ners such as ‘lesbian and gay’, LGBT and LGBTQI can be used to create belonging, agitate around inequities, and be used to find safe, welcoming spiritual spaces.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi ��.��63/9789004232808_004 70 CHAPTER 3 the Movement’s key ideas and vision about relationships to the Buddhist tradi- tion generally, conversion to , , subjectivity, social action, cul- ture and aesthetics as expounded by its founder Urgyen Sangharakshita. Then we consider how these ideas have been responded to on the ground by dis- cussing the ways in which this resultant discourse is being interpreted by key members of the London Buddhist Centre’s (LBC’s) Council3 and how this dis- course manifests in the teaching given to the public at the LBC’s classes for newcomers to .

Friends of the Western Buddhist Order

The FWBO, with over 75 public centres and retreats and several businesses in the UK, was founded in 1967 as the Friends of the Western Sangha (becom- ing the FWBO a year later) by Sangharakshita (1925– ), a white Englishman. Sangharakshita had been ordained as a Buddhist monk in the Theravāda tra- dition and had lived for many years in north-eastern . He studied with teachers from a variety of Buddhist traditions and in this way developed an understanding of Buddhism that was not exclusively defined by the dogmas of any one school. At the invitation of the English Sangha Trust, Sangharakshita returned from India to in 1964 and settled in the Hampstead Buddhist Vihara. He saw considerable potential for the development of Buddhism in Britain. The English Sangha Trust believed that only traditional Theravāda monasticism, which Sangharakshita had strongly criticised while he was in India, constituted sangha. In contrast, the (another major Buddhist organisa- tion in the UK at that time) was seen by some critics to promote Buddhism as a spiritual pastime rather than a fully committed engagement with the . Sangharakshita’s approach to Buddhism met with disapproval from both groups. In 1966, while paying a farewell visit to India, Sangharakshita was informed by the English Sangha Trust that he would no longer be welcome at the Hampstead Vihara. As Stephen Batchelor (1994) puts it: ‘Some of his uncon- ventional ideas and behaviour had proved unacceptable to the English Sangha Trust’ (ibid.: 333). Sangharakshita, however, chose to see this as an opportunity to develop a new Buddhist movement in Britain as the start of a project to develop a new form of Buddhism for a modern society that was ­‘secularized,

3 The Council is the board of Order members that are trustees for the LBC which is a registered charity.