2003 NEWSLETTER

INTRODUCTION

Sometimes in this world with international dramas and sensational stories, it can seem that a school which keeps on teaching very poor kids is not very newsworthy. Likewise, a regional literacy and self-sufficiency program on the other side of the planet may not seem like much to write about.

Even the fact that these programs are supported by a very loose network of meditators, their friends and people they approach, doesn't seem such a big deal after a while. Thankfully we're not all fixated on news and new events.

The Prajna Vihar School, despite a big new drainage challenge (see school article), and Sister Jessie's projects, are all thriving. These days it costs about A$59 per year for us to educate one child, which means that since we took $5500 to the school in December, we (and this includes you if you've helped) currently support about 93 children. The figures per person for Sister Jessie's projects are much harder to determine. We took over $3500 for Sister Jessie's programs. I believe this is a good outcome for a little organisation.

The BDA is feeling even smaller these days. Three of our key committee members, Keith O'Neill, Diane Kirkwood and Margaret Hunt are no longer on board. They were all much-appreciated, dedicated, long-term committee members. Circumstances change, people go to live in other parts of the world and no doubt they will all help other people in other ways. We have now a standing invitation for people living in Brisbane to take a more active role in the BDA. Let us know if you're interested.

If you've donated to the BDA, money or items for the garage sale, we'd like to thank you again. And, particularly if you haven't been to India, remind yourself that what may not seem like so much money here goes a long way when it's in India.

Victor von der Heyde

We now have a remarkable 30-minute documentary on the Prajna Vihar School that was made in February 2003. The documentary is titled Purity and Poverty: An Appeal for the Prajna Vihar School.

The documentary films the school, classes and the cultural events as well as the problems the school is facing due to surrounding water pollution.

One of the co-founders of the school, Christopher Titmuss, gave the report and filmed the documentary while Tom Riddle from the USA took the stills and edited the film. It was first shown in late February in Sarnath, where the Buddha gave his first teachings, at the Dharma Gathering and was very warmly received.

Christopher is in the process of getting video cassette copies of the documentary for Dharma friends to use to raise funds. The film gives a clear picture of life in Bodhgaya and the school with its deep inter-religious values.

The intention behind the film is to raise funds for the school as well as show the village of Bodhgaya and the desperate circumstances that the poor live in.

There are now just over 500 children in the school who are learning not only normal literacy skills but developing cultural and environmental programs from dance to tree planting.

Students of the PV school

Most of the committee of the Prajna Vihar school met together in Bodhgaya in February 2003 to share developments and concerns about the school.

We expressed our deep appreciation to friends around the world, especially in Brisbane, Australia, Switzerland, England and the USA for over the years, sustaining the annual support needed to maintain the school. It now costs roughly around £23 (A$55) per year to give a full year's education to a child. There are now around 500 children in the school aged from five to 16 years.

Our wonderful teachers continue to work hard to support the inner development of the children through study, meditation, culture and the arts. Yet it is never easy. We have only just been able to afford the purchase of mats for the children to sit on on the floor. Until now they have had their lessons on the cement floor and shared the text books. We are trying to do everything we can to nourish their education. The school is generally recognised as the best school in the heart of Bodhgaya for the quality of education of the children. But we feel we have a long way to go.

We have the opportunity to lease land just outside Bodhgaya to build another school. We estimate it will cost around $50,000 to build a new school. We want to go ahead but it is a major step and exploration for this project is underway. The current school would then become a vocational training centre to learn such skills as house-building, clothes-making, plumbing, gardening, weaving etc.

We hope that very soon the school will have access to the world, via e-mails and internet. One dharma student in the West kindly gave $800 for the school to buy a computer and go online. We hope that when this happens it will enable the school to link up with other schools in the West.

Our major concern is the lake of polluted water surrounding parts of the school. This happened from new hotels destroying the ancient irrigation scheme. We have made several appeals to the authorities to act. Other issues also arise. We were shocked at the electricity bill that the school had to pay. It looked like we might have been cheated. Then we checked the records. The last bill had been sent to the school in 1997. Our telephone bill suddenly leapt to about $40. The phone is hardly used. Someone had tapped into our line and used it. We then had to change the line.

Never forget that the school depends entirely on donations from ordinary people, who know that every cent goes directly to support the school and the desperately poor children who attend it. Please support the children.

It had been three years since the last time I had visited with Sister Jessie. I've known Jessie since 1992, when I first started to go to Bodhgaya. She is one of those very special people whom I find incredibly inspiring. This time was no exception. I remember at one point in my visit recognising that she had been carrying on with this huge project the whole time I've known her which is now over 10 years!

Every day she does what needs to be done to keep the project flowing within a climate that is very challenging and often thwarts her work. She empowers the poor villagers of the Bodhgaya area. It's a huge task that only someone as inspired and dedicated to improving the lives of the poorest of the poor in Bihar could do.

This time, Eoin Meades, his son Toby, Caroline, a fellow manager from the Bodhgaya retreat, and I headed off for a day-long visit with Sister Jessie. It was wonderful to experience the very peaceful environment that she has created in the home of Massihi Gynodaya Abhiyan. It really is a sanctuary. Her gardens are thriving and I felt happy to know that finally she has a place where she can rest and be renewed after the very challenging work of keeping the project going. In our hired jeep, we went to three different villages this particular day.

It really is quite an event visiting a school. As soon as Sister Jessie arrives a crowd of villagers gathers around the school. I'm always struck by the way she relates to the villagers. Her manner communicates so much respect and belief in their own capacity to keep the schools going and to create a better life for themselves. This visit, I began to think that this in itself is a very transforming aspect of this project. These villagers who are really the bottom of the ladder, even in poor villages, are shown that they are important just by Sister Jessie's wish to be involved with them. She is helping them to improve the conditions of their and their children's lives. In a country where these people are considered "the untouchables" this is indeed a powerful message of caring.

It really was incredible to go to each of the schools and find so many children working away with either their books and pencils or on their slates. What they are learning is quite elementary in some ways because the instructors are not highly educated themselves. Slowly but surely however these children and their parents are accepting the value of education, which is the essential goal of this project. It is amazing to think that none of these children would have any opportunity to go to school because there are no schools there for them and, if there were, their parents would probably not send them.

Sister Jessie has worked hard and long to convince the parents that sending these children to school is important. If they were not at school, most would be at home helping with the daily chores. This is particularly true of little girls who, particularly in the lower castes, are not educated. It's a wonderful sight to see a row of little girls learning to read and write. At these times, I know that substantial change is happening.

I find each time I go out with Sister Jessie that I'm moved to tears both by her strength and her commitment to this work and also by the children themselves who are obviously so proud of themselves sitting there in such simple settings learning the alphabet and how to write Hindi. It's a real treat when they sing us a song which Sister Jessie has usually taught them. They just light up as they perform for us.

Part of the daily routine in the schools is to say various inspiring sayings which are taken from the teachings of Mahatma Ghandi and others. It teaches the children healthy values such as respect and nonviolence. It's heartening to hear the children wholeheartedly yelling out these phrases.

There are many different projects that Sister Jessie has initiated over the years. It's not easy, though. We saw a project where a large fish pond was started this year but due to some problems with construction and the villagers being sold bad stocks of fish, the project flopped. Still she's not giving up. They are going to try it again this year. Through the years one thing I have seen over and over again is that Sister Jessie does not give up. She just tries again!

I strongly encourage you to continue to support Sister Jessie in her work. Each time I go to the Bodhgaya area, I'm touched deeply by the difference it makes to these villagers to know that there are people in far-off countries in the Western world who support their children to become literate and to better the lives of the villagers.

Sister Jessie is very open to people coming and visiting the project and helping in whatever way they can. If you find yourselves in India in this area, do go and visit her and see what she is doing. Words don't adequately describe the power of her work, which can only be seen in the villages where she is so deeply committed to the empowerment and well being of the people.

Small Village School

IN PRAISE OF BHANTE
Rick Petersen

So, what to say about Bhante? He is the monk, abbot of the Burmese monastery and guest house in Bodhgaya, commonly known as the Burmese Vihar.

On casually seeing him, one might think he is a lazy monk, just sitting in his chair all day, sometimes even smoking a cigarette. But from that chair he knows all that is going on in his Vihar and in Bodhgaya, especially when it comes to land and building.

He has helped many foreign Buddhist groups and people buy land and build their monasteries etc. He is the one we went to when it was time for us to build our school, and he did a beautiful job. Again, he is the one we consult about the cost of building the new school we are considering. And we count on him to build it too! All this and he is in his late 60's. He is a very simple man, not one that seeks the limelight or gives big speeches or sermons. But he has a very big heart.

When our school's night watchman was sick with cancer, he loaned the family nearly US$800 out of his own money for them to get him treatment. Now he is not sure if he will get it back. Still he has not come to us complaining or asking for reimbursement.

He has a great equanimity. When things go wrong or when disputes break out he can be counted on to be an even tempered and wise counsel.

When the Sisters need something they go to Bhante. Even though they are Christian sisters, they still call him Baba, like many of the people in Bodhgaya do. It is a sign of great respect,, like the famous Sai Baba in Bangalore. And he is always there for them and for the school. This is especially important since Thomas died and our secretary Somnath was transferred to Calcutta.

Now he is the person running the school on a day-to-day basis, along with the Sisters, and of course, the help that Katie gives.

He has been a member of our management committee for the last 12 years, and has been the school's director since? (When was that ... I can't remember.) Anyway he has been a steady force for developing the school for many years.

With his simple unassuming manner, sitting in his old chair at the Vihar, one could miss that he really cares about the children and the school. But I am sure he cares deeply and has a deep devotion to them.

PV Students with Bhante

ZEN AND THE ART OF BDA GARAGE SALE-ING
(BDA GARAGE SALE-ING AS YOUR SPIRITUAL PRACTICE)
Crissi Schmidt

Jack Kornfield, renowned Vipassana Meditation teacher and author, has said that the following three things are necessary criteria for life.

LIVE FULLY - LOVE ENOUGH - LEARN TO LET GO

Now one just hasn't lived fully enough surely if one hasn't participated in a BDA garage sale. This living fully can be particularly experienced in the actual setting up of the sale, which occurred over the two Saturdays prior to the appointed Sunday sale time of last September 2002 Monster Garage Sale.

It's quite amazing to see how boxes and bags of all sorts of previously collected stuff stored under Margi's house and in her laundry oozes out in "Steptoe-ian" fashion into back yard garage carport and driveway and manages to get arranged into some sort of chaotic order somehow- with even the occasional price-tag attached. A first-hand look at the "loot" often provides a willing "fully living" helper to this spectacle with many a bargain.

The loving enough spiritual practice is readily available at all moments of the garage sale-ing, particularly in the following:

* Loving enough to get up at 4.30 or 5 am to handle the second-hand dealers who come to get the best treasures for as little as possible -before even a caffeine hit I might add. (No offence dealers. We know you have to make a living as well!)
* Loving enough to unpack the sale items, clean off the cocky poo from long months of storing yonder items and if not sold, pack up again after the sale in readiness for the next one!
* Loving enough to oneself to have enough boundaries as to not get totally ripped off and sell stuff for way too little, as the kids in India need all the help they can get.

Without the "learning to let go" of course the Garage Sale would not even be possible. So much gratitude goes to all the beautiful folk who loved enough and let go and gave so very generously their wonderful junk to be sold.

BDA Garage Sale-ing is no doubt a very versatile spiritual practice as these three aspects can also be experienced from the other side. All the purchasers, just by walking up that goods and junk-laden driveway, can totally live fully and love enough by learning to let go of their money to help some of the children in Bodhgaya be educated.

Thank you so much to all who helped make our 2002 garage sale such a great success.

Thank you for your continued support and generosity. This year $10,323.08 in funds were generated. Running costs have been met by the committee members.
REVENUE
Cloud Room $1,144.95
Garage Sale $2,303.40
General Donations $1,795.00
Greeting Card Sales $ 40.00
Global Donation $ 800.00
Newsletter $1,008.96
Organisation $1,000.00
School Students $1,448.25
Retreat (Metta Day) $ 100.00
Chocolate Drive $ 245.01
Interest Earned $ 357.51

We distributed $3500 to Sister Jesse. The Prajna Vihar School still has funds to cover its running costs, so the Bihar committee asked us to put aside $5,500 for later distribution. Some of the funds may be gifted to the proposed high school next to the PV School project, although it is still in the research and decision making stage.

While we trust there will be enough money to support the projects, in our humanness, we have also sometimes felt concern that a shortfall of funds could jeopardize them being able to continue. It is such a blessing to have residual funds for an emergency.

Once again ... on behalf of the children and communities of Bodhgaya ... thank you!