Ordinary Magic Page 1 of 19 Intro Surata: I used to have a very stereotyped idea of what a friend was really and I think that’s expanded now to the point where I don’t really know if I can give an answer to the question. My own experience is I get on with all sorts of people in all sorts of different kinds of ways. Max: I don’t know we are quite different but in some ways we are the same. Sam: It’s weird we are like aspects of one personality, it’s really weird. Max: Strange. Sam: If Max or I were, if either were to die, it would be so, so weird. Subhuti: You are much less likely in the modern day to see friendships that last a lifetime. Partly because circumstances against it but those circumstances are also against the development of a really serious attitude to life as containing high values which need to be worked at. Aloka paints Alaya’s portrait Surata v/o: I think the best way to get to know someone is to spend time with them. Even though Alaya, Sam’s dad, and Aloka, Max’s dad, have a Buddhist connection going back twenty years, more recent changes in circumstances mean they can spend lots more time together. The results are several paintings and a closer friendship. When I was growing up in the East End of London in the late forties the effects of the war were still around. The deep social bonds and friendships necessary for survival were an ordinary part of daily life. TITLES (Music: 'Down at the Old Bull and Bush') PART 1 BONDING Sangharakshita: I think human beings are innately social as, from the very beginning of life, we are in contact with other human beings. We are in contact with our mother, father, siblings, family. It is very difficult if not impossible for us to grow as human beings without contact with other human beings. Whether we are infants and quite helpless or whether we are a bit older and need to acquire education and culture we are very dependent on input from other people. It is very difficult to get very far on your own. Bhante walking round lake with Anomarati Surata: My dad would take us fishing; take us on long walks across fields and things. He’d sort of take us up to the library and he’d meet other men on the street. And it was obvious he was friends with them. He was pleased to see them, they were pleased to see him and they would spend the time of day together. Pub ext. & int. Ordinary Magic Page 2 of 19 Pramudita: Our fathers used to meet down the pub so there was a sort of extended thing. There was a sort of inner circle of people I would hang out with…there were three or four of those…and we'd do lots of stuff together. Yeah. I started going round, playing with them, going round their house and their parents would sort of adopt me. I remember one of my mate's mum saying, ‘Well, you're part of the family, son, you can come anytime you like’. Really nice. Surata: My dad in a certain sort of sense would befriend my friends. He would ask them about themselves, what they were interested in and where they came from and things like that. Sam/Max: We've always been there, because our parents were living in the same house when we were first born. In the eighties we were doing mud fights. In the nineties running round the country shooting people. (laughs) Country Sadhujivin: We used to go out and climb trees, sit round fires baking potatoes. Generally it was building dams in the stream, pond dipping, building dens, the usual thing that children do. Cubs Pramudita v/o: I used to really love the cubs. I loved the thing about the Jungle Book. Surata: Being in nature, ‘Be Prepared’, that sort of stuff, there was a shared ethos. Cycling Surata: I also got involved with a cycling club, an all male environment so I have always tended to feel at home in large groups of men. Boy watching TV Movie: Hi-Lo Country Cowboy v/o: The pure simple joy of a cattle drive, all that sky, all that land stretching out to the horizons, there's no sense of freedom that sets a man so high, makes him feel this is what I was born to do. Surata: You'd get a cattle drive, a bunch of men, going off into the wilderness, sharing their lives, up against the elements, learning how to survive on the edge. And that very much appealed to me. Suburbia Sadhujivin: The family wasn't really a happy one. (An argument, doors banged). The most significant memories in my early childhood were of going to the long meadows. I always went on my own and lie and gaze into the vault of heaven. Sky Ordinary Magic Page 3 of 19 Sadhujivin: There were times when I would experience a sense of bliss and oneness. And when I came out of them I felt a sense of loss, it was a burden for me to have to go home. Pramudita: Football was a big part of our life, play Sunday, watch it Saturday. We always came on this green here, pick up sides and just play until dinner was ready. I did a paper round an that’s where I met John Wilkie who’s still a friend of mine now. Pub. Men pass round old photos Man: This is too much…note the drop shoulder, Trev! Tree Sadhujivin: There was one tree, I'd get right to the top and sing into the wind and imagine a beautiful girl in another land and she would sing them back to me and I felt there was some other person who felt the same as I did. Indian Surata: There was the whole business of blood brothers took my fancy as a young boy: the idea of being in a close relationship with somebody from a different society. Blood ritual at public school. Movie: If! Subhuti: I went to a boarding school…to begin with it went well, I had friends just like I had in my life up until then. A prefect took an interest in me and that was very helpful just because he'd expressed confidence in me gave me a lot of confidence and helped me through a very difficult period in my school life. Home movie, school games I found myself out of the group. To this day I do not know why. Perhaps it was I was late in developing physically, with the cruelty of adolescent boys they picked on me. I think popularity and unpopularity are nothing to do with moral worth - adventitious factors, extremely unfair, some of my best friends just seem to be unpopular, somehow they attract other people’s dislike. Walking round a Dublin housing estate Padmadaka: I was hanging out with gangs of 20 blokes who were sniffing glue and robbing cars. And it was boring. Jason: If you didn't rob cars you were ostracised. Padmadaka: Gary White a very good car thief ended up a drugs runner and going to prison. Jason: I don’t know anyone from my school who went to prison - most have gone away and have careers. Here's the school I went to. Ordinary Magic Page 4 of 19 Schoolboy: I went to England. I went to Spain. Are you from London? Padmadaka: Yep. Irish park Ratnabandhu: In the seventies things were very violent in Northern Ireland… and when I was about ten I came home one day and the place was swarming with army: there was a bomb. The army came in one night…they arrested 150 guys. I remember listening to a a gun battle right outside my house and this was right in the middle of the countryside. It’s funny a kids response to violence, we were curious and a bit excited. Air raid footage Sadhujivin: Well then war broke out. Plane falls from sky Sadhujivin: I remember on one occasion looking out of my bedroom window and suddenly they picked out a German plane. I found myself just crying because I realised that in that place was somebody’s father and they wouldn’t see him again. And he was just spiralling down totally out of control with only a few moments of his life. And it seemed to me that the world had gone crazy. Children need to feel there is somebody they can turn to, generally an adult, but the adults were busy killing each other. Kid’s drawing of plane Sadhujivin: I used to write poems - I found that helped. When I first went to the grammar school I met a soul mate. He was the English teacher, he introduced me to the Romantic poets and classical music. I just fell in love with him totally. Irish park Ratnabandhu: I had a couple of friends, they were like surrogate grandparents to me they owned a farm. And through the farmyard connection I met a guy called John Devlin. When I was eight or nine, maybe a little later. And John and I developed a friendship with each other. His family was quite cultured, relatively speaking. My first contact with a protestant was via John actually. I used to think that protestants were like an another species of being.