BODHI Times 48 US
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BodhiBenevolent Organisation for the DevelopmentTimes of Health & Insight Est 1989 No 48, June 2015 bodhius.org Visiting the legacy, glimpsing the future by Aryadharma Karunadeepa (with green scarf), her team, and Colin Butler (3rd from right) Photo: Aryadharma Colin and I travelled to India on January 28th, 2015, for We visited Sankissa and the YBS in part to explore a tour of about 11 days, visiting and reviewing some of the social dimensions of Suresh Bauddh’s ambitious BODHI’s good work, and the lives and welfare of some project of transformation, as a potential place for of its partners. This summary is adapted from http:// future funding from BODHI. The talk that was being www.bodhius.org/blog, where there are many pictures given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama was an excellent opportunity to see what the YBS was capable of – a It was Colin’s first trip to India in 18 months, and his first massive undertaking of at least 3000 attendees, many since his loss of Susan. There was no chance of travelling of whom also needed accommodation and food. Also, out while Susan was ill, of course. The trip also became Colin hoped to personally meet His Holiness (the an opportunity for the Indian BODHI partners to share patron of BODHI) an opportunity not had since 1990. their own grief at Susan’s death. Many good memories of that correspondence were recalled, and the compassion The YBS have a definite social bent- there is some free and personal concern she expressed in her frequent healthcare offered on site by visiting doctors as well emails. The trip had a memorial aspect to it, which I felt as basic first aid training. They also do teeth cleaning: privileged to be a part of, having never met Susan myself. the patients were lining up for a free public teeth- clean administered by a gleeful volunteer in gloves. I was struck by the strength of and pride of the There are plans for a free hospital, a library and study “depressed classes”. For example, I was impressed by the center, as well as a monastery. Many young people are confidence of a self-assured woman in jeans, a member training as monks in various schools of Buddhism. of the Youth Buddhist Society (YBS), who showed Suresh Bauddh himself said that probably 95% of the us to our rooms in Sankissa. Karunadee pa’s team in audience at the talks were Hindu. So the YBS struck Pune included one young woman who works long me as eclectic, socially minded, with a strong emphasis extended hours and, we are told, is working towards a on the equality of different spiritual traditions. Colin law degree. An ex-untouchable couple selling postcards did meet the Dalai Lama, and got a hug (a hug from and souvenirs in the street in Sankissa tell us with an emanation of Avalokiteshvara!) Colin was able to pride that their sons and daughters have engineering tell His Holiness about Susan’s death. His Holiness gave degrees, one or two having attained Masters degrees. his blessings, and recalled BODHI, Susan and Colin. ••• We work in developing countries with local partners on innovative projects to help health, education, the environment, and human rights ••• Bodhi Times 48, pg. 1 Susanta Chakma came to meet us when we arrived in groups for women. BODHI particularly funds their Delhi and drove us through the snarl of traffic. Susanta projects with the slum children. These are study classes runs Sneha, an NGO which helps to fund 3 schools in in at least 2 slums around Pune and supplementary Arunachal Pradesh, where many Chakma were given feeding of under-nourished children (including eggs asylum by Prime Minister Nehru, after their displacement supplied by the Indian egg board). One of the rooms for from South-eastern Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) in study classes in the slum is very inadequate, being very the late 1960s. BODHI has been helping to fund Sneha low-ceilinged and damp, and regularly flooded in the since soon after Colin and Susanta’s first meeting, in rainy season, because of poor drainage and low floor. 2005. Susanta took us back to his small flat where he Karunadeepa’s spiritual practice seemed to consist lives with 2 sisters, his pregnant wife, and a nephew, and of gathering a group of like-minded workers where he was able to give us his latest news of his projects. and inspiring them to be proud and strong, to Our final leg of the journey was to Pune, near Mumbai raise their people out of poverty and inequity. in Maharashtra, where an existing project with On planes and trains and juddering buses, Colin and Karunadeepa was planned to be expanded in Susan’s I discussed Buddhist practice, life and everything. memory. Karunadeepa is part of the Triratna Buddhist One of the points he kept returning to was that you Community, the Australian branch of the tradition can’t just sit on a cushion in a monastery; you have into which I was ordained in May, 2014. Karunadeepa’s to do something. I experienced how this motivation projects, under the title of “Bhujan Hitay Pune Project”, to help is both his practice and his drive. I have been include vocational courses (eg sewing and computer very impressed and inspired by this, so I can say teaching), help with creches, pre-schools, classes after that I am a beneficiary of BODHI’s projects, too. school (for children raised in slums) and self-help Notes from a conversation with Hemant Raj Kafle, principal of a private school in Nepal, and founder of an NGO called Climate Care Campaign: “Namaste .. we are trying to work on climate change. Despite no science training, I think a lot about environment, human population pressure and climate change. I have taught students on these subjects. Few people in Nepal take my concerns seriously – some even laugh. I want to do something on it.” We agreed one thing we could do is publish an essay by his students on the BODHI website. We also discussed it would be good if he could establish links with other climate activists in Nepal, a country of course with many problems, including the earthquakes and a lot of soul-destroying corruption. We need your help BODHI 2743 Portobello Drive Your generous support allows us to continue helping the Torrance, CA 90505-7309 voiceless, the dispossessed and the forgotten. All donations are Tel: 310-539-2224 tax-deductible for US tax-payers, and are welcomed by check &, PayPal: see http://www.bodhius.org/how-to-help.html Directors: Prof Colin Butler BMed, PhD Dr Marty Rubin MD Thank you: Scott Trimingham Alex Beaton, CA Advisory Board: Tom Bliss, CA Shelley Anderson The Netherlands Jay Decker, NY Prof. Solomon Benatar South Africa Dr Hillel Koren, SC Dr. Bob Brown Australia Sr. Mila de Gimeno The Philippines Susan Mattoon CA Prof. John Guillebaud Oxford, U.K. Mamie, Merle and Melinda McGee, CA Dh. Lokamitra Pune, India Victoria Scott, CA Dr. Maurice King Leeds, U.K. Prof. Christopher Queen Boston, U.S. Prof Elise de Vido, NY Prof. David Rapport Canada Sulak Sivaraksa Thailand Community Advisers: Dr Shanti Raman, Kabita Chakma, Founding Patron: Kulottam Chakma His Holiness XIV Dalai Lama We greatly value your support and keep our Medical Director: Prof Colin Butler mailing list confidential Co-founder: Susan Woldenberg Butler Email: [email protected] Bodhi Times 48, pg.2 From the Medical Director Image: “Pyramid of the Capitalist System” The strengthening fortress world West Africa. The most obvious pathway is the favoring of “vertical” single-disease focussed health strategies, instead Colin Butler of better general health services. Other routes include Thanks to Aryadharma for editing this newsletter and deforestation (making life more stressful for the Ebola virus its new design, which I hope readers like. For me, the carrying bats, and perhaps making them more infectious) last six months will mostly be remembered as a painful and more human contact with bushmeat, especially bats. struggle to adjust to Susan being gone. But I also made Underpinning persistent poverty in many parts of three trips, one primarily for BODHI, described above. the developing world are neoliberal doctrines that In India in February I also spoke at the World Public claimed the rate of population growth is irrelevant for Health Congress in Kolkata, about “Health-Earth” a development. Again in India, I spoke at a conference new academic venture which I have recently co-founded organised by the Indian NGO Pradan, the Ambedkar At all three meetings, I spoke about inequality and University of Delhi, and the Australian Centre for future health. See http://globalchangemusings.blogspot. International Agricultural Research. My talk concluded: com.au for more details, including links to the slides. “Reducing inequality, poverty, and climate change … offers hope Inequality is increasing. My PhD thesis likened civilisation that civilization as a whole will prosper. Elites, both in low and to the Titanic, destined to sink after colliding with the high-income countries, need to see that such actions are in their iceberg, driven by the recklessness of those living on its own self-interest. Those of us not in that elite, but who can see value upper decks, with the greatest power, prepared to take great in these arguments, need to use our influence to try to change risks with the lives of others. There seems increasing support local, regional and national policies. It is difficult, but technology for a “fortress” world. Australia has for years aggressively such as mobile phones, the internet and social media is assisting.