HMJ: These were some big changes. At some point you returned home to California. What was your homecoming like, what did your parents think?
RAHULA: I stayed two-and-a-half years [in Sri Lanka] until 1978, then came back to the states to see my parents and see what the situation of the Dhamma was like here. There was a Mahayana Buddhist center in Los Angeles. I received my full ordination in 1979 in Los Angeles, with a Sri Lankan monk and Thai monks. And started teaching classes.
I didn't know how people would react to me. Naturally, people would look at me strange and call me names like 'Gandhi.' It used to test my own equanimity---not to get angry about it. My parents gradually accepted the fact of what I was doing. In L.A. there were lots of Buddhists and they respected you.I stayed busy teaching and did not get a chance to become lured or tempted by society. I stayed in the States fora couple of years, but got homesick for the traditional monk's life. I went back to Sri Lanka in 1980. I was there for six years.

HMJ: What brought you back to the States and to the Bhavana Society being built in the West Virginia hills?

RAHULA: I heard about this forest meditation center that Bhante Gunaratana was starting. I had heard of him and met him. He had also heard of me from some Sri Lankan monks. Someday, I thought, I would like to come back to America, if there was a place like a forest monastery, and help spread the Dhamma. West Virginia sounded like a good place. I wrote to him and he invited me to come. He drove me out to see the place. As soon as I saw it, I fell in love with it. The main building was up with roof and walls, but the inside was not finished. I was the first person who actually started living there. For some time, I was living in a tent and sleeping inside the shell building. I stayed there that whole summer and helped open [the center] in October, 1988.

HMJ: In general, you had good support from the community, but I understand the new center's immediate neighbors were not so pleased.
RAHULA: The immediate neighbors were unfriendly---they considered themselves fundamental Christians and considered us pagans. The rest of the neighbors were quite tolerant and friendly. Overall, it was positive. We used it as part of our practice: patience and loving-kindness toward those who might be our detractors.

HMJ: The Bhavana Center has since become a major Therevadan Buddhist retreat center and monastery, part of the flourishing scene of what is being called American Buddhism. What are your thoughts on the growth of Buddhism in America and the challenges to it?
RAHULA: American Buddhism is going to take time to take root. Americans are always interested in curiosities and fads. Certain people when they realized [Buddhism] wasn't going to be instant bliss, instant enlightenment---after the initial euphoria they realized the hard work involved---a lot of them didn't want to put out the effort.
[Those who seriously pursue Buddhist practice] realize there's no alternative. It's long term. It's not a hobby or fad, it's a way of life.
Even in Asia the understanding of Buddhism is pretty superficial. A lot of common people's idea of Buddhism is lighting candles at the foot of the Buddha and making merit. There's this idea that Westerners' knowledge of Buddhism is superficial.But Eastern knowledge---except for a few monks---is also superficial because it's entrenched in rites and rituals.

HMJ: But there seems so much growing interest in Buddhism in the West.
RAHULA: Buddhism is supposed to be one of the fastest growing religions in the West. The spiritual technology of Buddhism---the meditation---is like the keys where we unlock the doors to the mind. It's not just a system of beliefs. And Westerners are very much into the science of mind. [There are many] newcomers in meditation even at our center---at every course half the people are new. But the amount of people who stick with it, out of every ten who come, maybe five return a second time. And maybe three return many times.

HMJ: Buddhist teachers speak of the importance of "sangha"--spiritual communities--and of having "spiritual friends" in helping us to keep up and further our practice.
RAHULA: All people gravitate by interest to their groups---poets, sports fans, drug addicts, intellectuals. People interested in Dhamma gravitate together and can get support. You can't talk to other people about it--Dhamma and religious things. You might feel lonely and get dispirited and think 'I'm the only one interested in this.' Association with spiritual friends to get encouragement, support and teachings is very important... Otherwise, they may give up [practicing]. I've seen it happen a lot.

HMJ: Spiritual practice can also be challenged by just looking around the world and at all the terrible news in the headlines. How do you keep your spirits up?
RAHULA: When I hear about all this suffering it actually encourages my enthusiasm not to give up. There's no alternative when you look around. When you look around and see how people are digging themselves deeper and deeper into the hole of dukkha [the Buddhist concept of suffering or 'unsatisfactoriness'].

HMJ: But serious, sustained spiritual pratice itself can seem so challenging at times.
RAHULA: I admit Dhamma is not for everybody. Even in the Buddha's day there were people who couldn't get it. We're not out to save the world. Even the Buddha saved several hundred thousand people, but not millions. Even the Buddha said this Dhamma is for a few people with little dust in their eyes. For people who want to do something about their lives, they will make a commitment to change it. The practice of Dhamma is very slow and gradual. But even though people don't commit themselves totally, even let them practice meditation as a hobby, let them try it. It will plant a seed. Even if they practice only for a little while, it plants a seed. It may sprout in the future. We don't say people have to do all or nothing. Use it any way they can. We're not interested in numbers. We simply offer the teaching.

HMJ: What advice would you give then to a lay person trying to fit a meditation practice into their life?
RAHULA: Have a consistent, regular practice. But don't expect too much. Don't expect some fantastic meditation experience like bliss or some other sort of thing. Make it a more natural, consistent part of one's life. You brush your teeth every day, you sit down and meditate each day, to clear the mind of greed, hatred and delusion.

Here are several excerpts from Bhante Rahula's spiritual autobiography, "One Night's Shelter: From Home to Homelessness."

PREVIOUS PAGE ONE FEATURES:

• What To Get a Buddhist 4 Christmas, Issue 5: A Collection of Useful, Wonderful Gifts for the Spiritual Seeker, Plus Some Ridiculous and Inane Ones, As Well.
• The Clear Light of Death, Issue 4: Walking hand-in-hand with your parents as they die with help from "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying." By Ruth Black well Rogers
• Bleacher Buddhism, Issue 2: Taking in a Teaching by H.H. the Dalai Lama Along With 5,000 Other Folks. By Douglas Imbrogno
• At the Autopsy, Issue 1: Trying to keep your head as they dismember a former human being. A First-Person Visit to an Autopsy Examination. By Walter Schwidetsky

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