Mission Goal: to spread the teaching of the Buddha to help people overcome suffering, live empowered and fulfilling lives, and contribute to a humane and harmonious society.
Millions of people have become open to Buddhism because of Dr. Ambedkar, but there are very few teachers to help them. Many of the Nagarjuna Institute students do what they can to share the Dhamma in their towns and villages but they are doing this with little guidance and planning. The Ashoka Dhammadhuta Programme aims to remedy this by developing confident, sustainable Buddhist communities all over India, each with core members who are committed to systematic Dhamma practice, help make the Dhamma available to others, and respond to social deprivation.
We are building on our experience of forty years of teaching in the villages and towns of India and also on the experience of our students, to take forward this work in a systematic way so that it develops effectively and widely all over India.
This is being done through 7 Clusters of 3/4 alumni working together in different areas, each Cluster trying to develop 9-12 Buddhist communities a year. Over three years each Cluster of alumni should have developed between 25 and 30 Buddhist communities.
It should be understood that most of the communities at first know NOTHING about Buddhism, will be extremely superstitious, very stuck in the old conditioning of caste and untouchability and extremely poor. If we can bring about the changes we hope, it will be a very great accomplishment on the part of our alumni.
A. Desired Outcomes:
- Over three years each Cluster of alumni will have developed Dharma communities in bwteen 20 and 25 localities in their areas of operation.
- Members of each community will have a basic understanding of Buddhist teachings:
- they will have a good understanding of the ethical teachings of the Buddha.
- – they will understand the foundation of the Buddha’s teaching to be conditionality or cause and effect.
- – they will have learnt the two basic meditation practices, the Mindfulness of Breathing and the Cultivation of Universal Loving Kindness.
- – They will know the basic chanting.
- Buddhism will become part of local community life. Dharma classes will be established on a regular basis, and members will conduct basic Buddhist rituals for death, birth and marriage, and celebrate Buddhist festivals.
- Buddhism will influence the way they conduct themselves as a community. It should help them to become a more moral and positive society, emphasizing education and social development, especially for youth.
- They will respond to local social deprivation in their areas.
- Each community will have a core of dedicated practitioners who are able to provide inspirational leadership in the Dharma, bring the Buddhist community together, give lectures on the Dharma, lead Dharma activities and rituals.
- The relationship with the Nagarjuna Institute will be reinforced by the local Buddhist community sending students there for the Dhammasekhiya training.
- An approach will be developed over these three years that can act as a model for Dharma teaching throughout India; the lessons learned will potentially lead to hundreds or thousands more Buddhist communities thus accelerating the revival of Buddhism in India. Over these three years the most important data from the cluster reports will be collated into a guidance manual.
- There will be an experienced and skilled body of at Dharma teachers, with the confidence, practice and capacity to take teaching to higher levels.
B Activities:
- Cluster Activities (each Cluster of alumni consists of minimum core of 3, but they are connected with more alumni who will support to the extent they are able:
- Each cluster will identify and then work in 5 or 6 nearby localities for 6 months, and then go on to another 4 or 5 localities for another 6 months.
- After the first 6 months one of the alumni team will stay with each class and continue teaching.
- Weekly classes for 2 hours each will be conducted. Each class will be led by two alumni. The class format will consist of:
- – recitation of Refuges and Precepts.
- – meditation with instruction
- – Lecture and discussion on basic Buddhist teachings centred around pratitya samutpada (cause and effect or conditionality)
- Retreats: Day Retreats lasting from 10am to 5pm, will be held once every two months at least. Weekend retreats will be held every three or four months, instead of the day retreat for that month. The retreats will enable participants to concentrate more on meditation and study.
- In the first 6 months the participants will learn:
- Why Buddhism and preparation for the teaching.
- The meaning and significance of the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and the act of Going for Refuge.
- The Five Precepts,
- The Noble Eight Fold Path,
- During retreats they will learn the meaning of some of the basic suttas chanted in the puja such as the Tiratana Vandana, the Mangala Sutta, the Karaniya Metta Sutta, the Dharmapalam Gatha.
- They will learn and practice the two basic meditation practices, anapanasati and metta bhavana.
- In the second 6 months they will learn:
- · the two different forms of conditionality, cyclical and spiral-like, or reactive and creative mind.
- · The Bodhisattva Ideal
- -· Liberty, Equality and Fraternity as expressions of Buddhist ethical values.
- · The section on “What is Saddhamma” from “The Buddha and His Dharma”.
- Celebration of Festivals: The three main Buddhist festival days, Buddha Jayanti, Dharmachakra Pravartana Day, and Sangha Day (Kartik Purnima), will be celebrated. These will be open to the wider community.
- Conducting Ceremonies: The alumni clusters will conduct ceremonies for birth, marriage, house opening, death, and will train the local community in leading them. The ceremonies are laid out in the Vandana Sutta Sangaha, developed by us.
- Special attention will be given to making sure local women are involved fully and emphasising the spirit of gender equality of Buddhism. Women will be encouraged to lead classes, rituals and festivals on an equal basis to the men.
- Visits to local Buddhist remains will be organised to give the community a sense of the Buddhist heritage in India.
- Each cluster will meet weekly to assess and plan their classes, to discuss any difficulties and share any insights/positives.
- Meeting places in each locality. The classes will take place in a community hall, or someone’s room, or other suitable place, until such a time as a community centre can be established by the local Buddhist group.
- Certificates. Those who have attended the classes for 75% of the period will receive a certificate of participation.
- The leader of each cluster will send a financial report every month, and an activity report every week. These will be discussed with the Coordination team.
- Training Alumni: four workshops, each lasting between 5 and 7 days, will be held in the Nagarjuna Institute to:
- train the alumni in Dharma teaching;
- give alumni a three month programme of teaching, week by week;
- go over the essential points of each weekly class and retreat;
- providing training in report writing so that they can write monthly reports.
- The workshops will also look at the experience of the different clusters over the previous three months to see what can be learnt, share experience, and see whether the approach needs to be modified or not.
- Besides the workshops the Dharmadutas will need to participate in at least two other retreats (meditation and study) to deepen their own Dharma practice.
C. Continuity of the Programme.
- For the second 6 month period:
- – one member of the cluster will continue to take each class, with further subjects – see above (B. Activities- F- i to iv)
- – Retreats will be organized from time to time.
- – The most serious Dharma practitioners in each community will be given special attention and encouraged and supported to attend the Nagarjuna Institute Dharmasekhiya training.
- We have yet to work out how we will take forward the local classes after they have been operating for a year, but the hope is that some local Dharma leaders will emerge by then.
- As the work grows in each state, an appropriate guiding and supervisory system will be worked out and activated on state, regional and national levels.
- This three year period will be used to train up more people to take over the coordination after the three years.
- Ways are being explored to raise funds to support those who can coordinate and teach well so that this programme can continue.
D. Monitoring and Evaluation
- The monthly financial reports will make it possible to monitor the funding.
- The quarterly reports will include the numbers attending, the response from the local people to the teaching and meditation, difficulties and sense of progress. The coordination team will discuss the reports and if necessary take appropriate action.
- At the end of the year, the whole programme will be assessed using such indicators as:
- Number who attend retreats,
- Number who have a regular meditation practice.
- Number who attend festivals.
- Number who use Buddhist rituals for their ceremonies of life.
- Number who study at the Nagarjuna Institute (this is not expected to be high at first)
- Added to the above, individual and social benefits will be assessed and indicated through local stories.
- Through feedback and reports and through visits of the members of the coordination team, the integrity and capability of the datu and the programme impact.