The “Meeting Amida” evening took place on thursday evening and went well. There were 33 people in attendance at the Quaker meeting house on a cold and blustery night. Prasada began the evening with a talk in which she spoke about how the Amida Trust had developed and the ethos behind its social action, using the India project as an example. Modgala was also present to share her experiences. Prasada went on to discuss how she came to write her book Buddhist Psychology and then gave a reading from her latest work The Other Buddhism which intertwines pureland buddhism with psychology and environmentalism.

Dharmavidya took up the theme of Engaged Spirituality which appeared to inspire a post on his blog the next day -

Engaged spirituality is really something quite different from secular activism. The latter is an effort to get a result and motivation therefore tends to be tightly tied up with success or failure whereas the spiritual perspective is in the scale of time unlimited. The spiritual person, in principle, does the right thing whether there is any visible result or not. Spirituality or religion is about living one’s life according to eternity rather than according to temporal conditions. When one approaches things in that way, it is not a matter of “How can I bring about change?” so much as how can I contribute to change that is already happening on a much vaster scale. Each faith community will frame this according to its own mythic structure. As Pureland Buddhists we will say that we are playing our part in Amida Buddha’s great work of transformation whereby a Pure Land is coming into being for the benefit of all. The Pureland Sutra is the only Buddhist sutra with a comprehensive ideal social manifesto. We see Amida Buddha’s work as a massive change that is underway that will tranform this world completely, but will probably take much longer than our short lifetimes. Along the way of such change there are bound to be many ups and downs, but individual triumphs and afflictions are really such small fare in the grander scheme of things that they can be regared to all intents and purposes as illusory. We are part of a bigger story. To identify with the bigger story means to have faith and not to think that it all hinges on my own little bit of power or influence. Faith in Buddhism is shraddha which literally means “putting our heart into something”. In this sense everybody has faith, but do they have faith in the most noble thing? If they do then many of the personal frustrations melt away because one is then not working on one’s own account but on that of the sages of all times. The wonderful thing about the spiritual life is the fact that even beings such as we - prone as we are to all sorts of excesses and failings - just as we are - can still be accepted into and become part of the great movement that all the Buddhas are working to bring about for the benefit of all sentient beings in this and all possible worlds.

The coffee break was a chance to mingle and chat and then there was a Q&A session. All in all, a successful evening in a lovely venue.